"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves." -Sir Edmund Hilary

I have this class, called Guided Teaching, or something like that, which I attend every Friday at 11am.  It's only once a week, and there isn't very much we have to do for it.  It's mostly an opportunity to talk about the classes we student instructors teach and give each other feedback on our lessons.  Well, I forgot to go the second week.  And I wasn't the only one.  My classmate Tomás Soriano, from Tampico, México (yes, the drink was named after his city), also forgot to go.  I immediately wrote a formal e-mail, apologizing profusely and accepting all responsibility and point deductions for my absence.  Tomás on the other hand, called Dr. Martinsen personally and worked his latino charm.  Well, Dr. Martinsen, who is also a good natured fellow, made a passing comment that the only way he would forgive us is if we "hang a banner with my face on it at the top of Mt. Timpanogos," which is the second highest peak of the Wasatch front at 11,500 ft. Keep in mind that we are all good colleagues and that this comment was made in jest.   Except that Tomás and I took it as a personal challenge.

So at 5am one Saturday, Tomás and I attempted to find the trail that led to the summit of this high peak.  Neither of us was really prepared for a 15 mile hike, and I think deep down we both weren´t sure it was what we really wanted to do.  For that reason we postponed the hike for a week until we knew and trusted each other a little bit more.  Still, we made the 30 minute trip to the Alpine Loop, driving in the darkness through the mountains.  We even saw a female moose as she walked in front of our car (coolest thing ever).  Upon finding the Summit Trail, we discovered that in fact it did not lead to a single summit.  So, being the easy going people we are, we found another mountain and climbed it instead.  5 1/2 hours later we arrived at our car supremely happy and utterly exhausted.  We drove through the BEAUTIFUL fall colored mountains while listening to Jarabe de Palo and ended the trek with a pig out at 5 Guys.

We later made this video and showed it to Dr. M.  He was totally flattered and embarrassed at the same time.  Bet he´ll think twice next time.



Oh, and I conquered another mountain this week.  An 88% on my first test in 3 years!  A historical spanish grammar test in which I took medieval Spanish and had to translate it into modern Spanish.  One of the biggest brain workouts I´ve experienced in a long time.

Here´s a few other pictures that I love from the trip:

Hip Mexican in the woods

The Mountain.  I know it looks small, but the pine trees are like 30 ft tall, and each little yellow speck is an aspen tree.

View from the top of our climb.  We actually didn´t go to the very top for our safety, but we went pretty close.

My car is all the silver one on the right.

A little photo manipulation to show you some of the colors.  There was some smoke from an Idaho fire that day as well, which you can see.