Timpooneke Hike and Ferguson canyon

We had a terrific weekend climbing and hiking and hanging out with friends. First Cassie's aunt and uncle came to visit on Friday on their way to Ogden to visit family. We really enjoyed spending time with them and swapping stories. They live in a beautiful part of Arizona and are very cool people. I made some homemade sweet biscuits and Cassie made some whipped cream and we topped it all off with raspberries and strawberries. Yum!

On Saturday we went with the club to Ferguson canyon.
http://www.mountainproject.com/v/utah/wasatch_range/ferguson_canyon/
It's a nice canyon tucked away between little and big cottonwood. Considering the close proximity of such great climbing on either side one might expect Ferguson to have become a forgotten canyon, but its shady walls and cool creek make it a great way to escape the hot weather on a summer day. We found the granite climbing there to be lots of fun, but rather uncondusive to leading as the area we were at was very very stout for the grades and protection was few and far between (i think i understand where that saying came from now). It had some super fun routes on the granite with a great climb called Extreme Unction and a fun5.7 called Inner Light which contained two variations but was unfortunately devoid of gear for the first bit (unless you trust extremely shallow C4s). So, we did a bunch of topropes, got some good burns on a 10d that was tough, and a 10c that was the hardest 10c I think I've ever attempted. It felt to me like a desperately crimpy 11d. Granite is tons of fun and a style of climbing that we aren't all that used to yet.


Sunday we decided to go hike the Timpooneke Trail toward the summit of Timpanogos. We found out that there was snow only 3miles up the trail, but that was kinda like icing on the cake since it was pretty hot out. The hike was a lot of fun, but I'd rather let the pictures do the talking on this one. Click on any of the pictures to see more pics from the hike.