I Survived the Summiteer Hike!!!

On July 31-August 2 I had the awesome privilege of going on a summiteer hike! Me, thirteen other girls, and 4 leaders left bright and early Thursday morning for a fun-filled three day weekend. We got into cars and left the church, heading for Stephen's Lake in Idaho. The drive there was way fun (that was before we really knew what we were getting into) and we took a random picture of us being clean! Us girls thought we were tired and would sleep during the car ride, but Brother Nowels knew otherwise...he said that we'd be wired. And much to his dismay he was right; we were way too excited to sleep! Once we arrived at the bottom of the mountains they parked the cars and we got out to eat our lunches. Two of the cars took our bags and gear up to a different point so that we could just walk and then start from there. After a delicious cold lunch and a bathroom that was about 99.9% germ filled, we took off. Each of us got our own bags on and adjusted them to fit just right. Then we huddled together to get an awesome photo of the whole group, clean and ready to begin our long hike (wait til you see the after photo). The first day we hiked about 3 miles and I don't even want to know what portion of that was spent going pretty much straight up! It was so fun though...I had never done anything like it so I didn't know what to expect, but I had a blast! Below are some pictures of my goofy friends and I along the way. Half of the funny things that happened were, unfortunately, to me ha ha. These pictures capture my friends during their funny moments because luckily, I was the one behind this camera! All of the inside jokes were hilarious and boy were there plenty of them. Kaylee Hartshorn and I were the "Clutz Queens" because we probably spent more time on our butts the second day than on our feet. I'm sure if you know me you are nodding your head and laughing so I'll get back to telling how our three days went and I'm sure you'll hear more about our funny moments later on! After hiking three long miles up, we reached our camp ground right on the water's edge of Stephen's Lake. The view was breath taking. The sun was shining behind the lucious green mountains, the sky was bright blue, and there was snow glistening on the edge of the lake. Okay, so maybe the last part wasn't exactly what we were hoping to see, but it was pretty funny. We were hot and sweaty from our hike so we wanted to go "swimming". Only about 7 out of 13 of us did though because it was so cold. I technically didn't swim. I got in the water and started walking out slowly (while I was shivering) and then eventually got in but only to my shoulders. If I got my head wet I would have froze to death. I'm one of those people who likes the water she swims in to be warm! Kendra Brown and Kaylee Hartshorn were with me and they got in to...Kaylee was the only one who went all the way under though. Then we laid on a big huge rock over looking the lake and dried in the sun. By this time it was time to start dinner (yep...we got to actually cook our own food!) That night Kaylee and I were laying in our tent and we heard something outside...no joke. We knew there were bears and deer out there but this sounded different and we were officially freaked out. We asked Kendra, Eden, and Dani if they heard it and they said yes too. Long story short, we blew a fog horn really loud and then just hoped they went away while we went to sleep. The next day we climbed to the summit! It was so high and straight up! But oh my goodness the view was AMAZING!!! The pictures can't even do it justice. Once up there, we all touched the "actual summit plate" and took somes pictures. There was only one cell phone that had service so some of us called our families to tell them that we were "on top of the world!" After taking in the view we ate our lunches and enjoyed some of the snow that provided ice to our warm waters ha ha. On the hike down we found huge mounds of snow running down the side of the mountains and we actually sled down them...or down then past them. A short version of the funny/scary story here is that I was one of the last to sled down. The snow was really slick as this point and a track already made in the snow. So when I was towards the end I dug in my heels to stop but I kept sliding past and wasn't stopping. Somehow I got turned around and was heading head first towards a big pile of rocks and I was so scared. One of my friends Holly grabbed my ankle to stop me but then she was coming down with me. I'm honestly not even sure what stopped us, but we stopped just short of hitting the rocks. That was definitely a scary moment. Then we got back to camp and Kendra and I really wanted to go on our "raft" so we got in our suits and went to take it out in the 45 degree water. Well I don't know how old this "raft" was, but once we got on it the logs started separating and we were slippin' and fallin' all over ha ha. Then once Kendra, Eden, Kaylee, and I were "on" the raft the logs were getting way far apart. Eden fell under first and that sent the log that Kaylee and I were on floating and her and I fell in too. Kendra's the only one who didn't get wet and go under. Brrrrrr! So I hope you enjoy the funny picture! Once I got warmed up and ensured that I didn't have hypothermia, we had a fireside from Sister Wilson and then we played Maffia. We slept better that night and the next morning we packed up and headed home. We stopped in CDA for pizza at Pizza Hut and man did that taste good after two days of cooking my own food ha ha. Then we came home!