Mountain Peril

Saturday's hike to Lake Blanche started out so innocently, but turned into an event.

Todd dragged drove Connor and I up to Big Cottonwood canyon to hike up to Lake Blanche. It's not a super long hike - about 3 miles - but it's all uphill. It's estimated that it takes the average person about 2.5 hours to reach the lake. It's a tough hike. HOLY COW it's tough.

I've made it to the lake a few times - but when I was in much better shape. I had every intention of making it to the top - but yesterday my body told me it just wasn't happenin'.

Look how eager and full of hope Connor is at the start of the hike.











The beginning of the trail fools you into believing it is going to be paved and easy like this all the way to the top. It was a bait and switch, if you ask me.












Egads.

It IS pretty up there, though.

A waterfall near the lake.

This is as far as I made it.

We hiked for about 2.5 hours and still had another 45 minutes to go before we would make it to the lake. The last part is the hardest part of the hike.

Todd and Connor had lots of energy left in them to make it to the top but I told them I couldn't do it.

They were really sweet and told me it was okay if we didn't make it.

In hindsight - this was actually a very good decision to stop when I did.

When we finally made it to the car, I started to feel nauseated. Then came the splitting headache! Then I became dizzy.

By the time we made it out of the canyon, I was chilled. It was 93 degrees outside, and I was actually cold!

I asked Todd to pull over and I just laid on the grass in the shade. I was soooo sick. Todd got me some ice water and saltines and after about 20 minutes of moaning on the grass, I was suddenly better.

Turns out it was heat exhaustion.

But all is well now and I'm glad I went. The moral of this incident is that I need to wear sunblock and start the hike in the morning and not during the hottest time of the day - and drink a TON more water.

Lesson learned!