Lake Hardy 2010

This is Adam, I was reading older posts and they got a little confusing when I posted without letting myself know it was me.

So, a few years ago a friend, Kevin Arrington, and I went to Lake Hardy. It is on the mountain above Alpine UT. It is a pretty good trip. We hiked about 11 miles and climbed about 5000. I have wanted to go back since. I haven't made time etc, etc. I knew if I didn't go soon it would be too late in the year to make a trip.

I have been doing a little trail running lately and had the great idea that a run to Hardy would be a great way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I could get in a trail run and get back to Hardy. There happened to be a full moon. Everything looked great: get in a trail run, see Hardy again, and not miss out on the "daytime" activities of life: work, family, work, kids, work. Now came the easy part, finding someone else who wants to go with me. I started listing names and sending texts and emails and phone calls. I was sure there would be tons of people who wanted the chance to hang out with me. The trip to Hardy would just be icing on the cake. Of the 15 or so people I invited, my Bro, Jarod, was the only one who felt like I was good enough company to put himself through the meat grinder I was cooking up. Big thumbs up to brotherly love. I am sure Rhett, my other bro, would have gone too, but he is in St George. The three of us seem to be willing to do all kinds of torturous things to/for each other.

I knew it would be a bit of torture and would require plenty of extra calories. So, I spent the day packing away extra food. We had some Half and Half left over from when I was eating Peaches and Cream. I figured the stuff would go bad soon and had lots of calories. I poured me a glass of half and half, mixed in about 3 tablespoons of chocolate milk mix and put it down. I am not sure how many calories I picked up from my little drink but I'm sure it was lots. I don't know that I will try that again. I have always teased my Mom-in-law for using half and half on her cereal and now I am drinking the stuff. Funny how life changes.

I picked Jarod around 7 and we hit the trailhead at 7:30 pm. There were some guys there getting their horses loaded to head up the mountain so they could kill Bambie. One of them looked at my pack and said it was sure a small pack. I told him we were just going up and back. He shook his head and said we were crazy. I thought he was the crazy one, he is going to spend the morning trying to kill a deer with 4000 other people throwing lead around the mountain. We wanted to be off the mountain by 2 am or so. (good luck to them, cuz I saw more deer in the American Fork grocery store parking lot on my way home than I saw on the mountain)
I thought we would be able to get to the lake in about 2.5 hours and back to the truck in about 1.5 hours. As you will see, my estimate of a 4 hour trip was slightly optimistic.

We took off at a pretty good lope for about the first half mile, then the trail went skyward. We were going about as good as we could the whole way to lake. We had one mile that it took us almost an hour to cover. The trail is one steep sucker. The trip up was much more like a hike than a run, and a slow hike at that. We passed a group of deer hunters in a meadow up there and their horses eyes were glowing out in the trees at us. At least we think it was the horses, if not, they were most docile moose I have ever seen.

We got to the lake in about 3 hours and 17 min. My belly had not been cooperating for several minutes and I was getting really concerned because I didn't have any TP with me. About a mile from the truck I realized I had forgotten it, but was not about to go back down and up again. Luckily, I had my first aid kit with me. I found out last night, the santizer wipes I have had in the kit for 10 years, had dried out. I had my thermometer with me and the temp was mid 30's. I'll tell you what, no britches, temps that cool, sweaty, and a breeze coming down the canyon will suck every bit of body heat right out of you.

By the time I was able to get moving again I was shivering so bad I couldn't control it. I had some running tights that I hadn't put on yet and managed to wobble myself into them and they helped a bunch. I was amazed how something so thin could help retain so much heat.
Jarod and I looked at the lake for about 15 seconds, ate some frozen Snickers bars and headed back down again. The trail for about 1.5 miles below the lake is really hard to follow so it was slow going for that bit, then we were able to kick it up and run most the way back to the truck. I was able to ditch my long sleeved shirt and just work a short sleeve the rest of the way down.
We made it back to the truck in 2 hours 44 min. There were a few times we tripped and stumbled but didn't have any major falls. The moon was so bright we rarely needed our headlamps the whole way back. It was super pretty so be going through the trails with the oak leaves piled up and rustling in the breeze.

At some point on the way down I kicked a rock hard enough that it really hurt. When I got home and took my shoe off the end of my sock looked like it had a chunk of chocolate squished in it. I had kicked the rock hard enough it split my big toenail right down the center and it bled quite a bit.

I got home about 3 am, knocked out for a few hours and have really enjoyed hanging out with the fam. The quads hurt some today and the toe is sore but other than that I am feeling pretty good. I am so grateful to be able to do things like this. I am grateful for a wife who encourages me to go, for the health to be able to go, and the great places to go that are so close to home.