Mt. Olympus- A Mythical Adventure

So, the title was a bit cheesy--maybe climbing Mt. Olympus wasn't exactly mythical, the only demon we encountered was a baby rattlesnake--but it certainly was memorable. A couple of weeks ago, Will and I convinced two of our single friends, Abby Stevens and Pamela Porter, to hang out with us for a day. Since they are former Badger buddies, they couldn't pass up the chance to be in the mountains. Since most of the peaks on the Wasatch front were still fraught with snow, we had to settle for one of the lesser mountains. Mt. Olympus is only about 9,000 feet high, and the trail to the summit is just a little over three miles; however, there is a 4,000 foot elevation gain in those three miles. Basically, it's stair-stepping most of the way up. Suffice it to say, I was sore for two days afterward. Although it was a little crowded, we found that the hike was definitely worth the view.Abby is sitting right at the saddle. Behind her is a beautiful backdrop of Twin Peaks.
Here we are trekking up to the summit. It looked much more daunting in real life. This picture was taken somewhere during the final ascent. (I like that phrase, "final ascent" it makes me feel like we climbed Mt. Everest, instead of just scrambling up rocks for a couple hundred feet.)When we got to the top, we took a little lunch break. We struck up a conversation with a stranger and as I was busy listening to his road-tripping tales, my foot fell asleep. It took me about a half hour to get the circulation going. Will was anxious to get to some shrubbery so he could take a little break. Here we are posing like Greek gods and goddesses. We figured out why Mt. Olympus is so named. On top, it looks like a god had a temper tantrum so he just hurled down rocks from the sky. It literally was a mound of boulders, one piled on top of another.
That pretty much wraps up our adventure. I would encourage everyone to take a hike. Literally.