Well, time goes by too quickly and we are already back in the US for 4 weeks.
We are both busy in the lab but things are going well so far.
It it still hot here although the temperature sometimes drops below 30°C during the day. And since we are back, we also had time to go on some weekend trips.
Two weeks ago, we drove into the Utah desert and searched for geodes.
The place is really in the middle of nowhere and you don't want to have a car
accident there. But when you finally get there it's amazing: broken geodes are lying
around everywhere and if you start digging a bit you can find lots of intact geodes.
We found so many that we couldn't be bothered to bring all of them home.
The last weekend we hiked up mount Timpanogos in the Uintah mountains. We started hiking on Saturday around 5pm and made it to Emerald lake, about 3/4 up, before sunset.
Shortly before we reached the lake we encountered a big group of mountain goats just next to the trail. They did not seems to be disturbed by our presence at all and continued eating grass. Jake was very interested in the goats and wanted to chase them around while I was taking pictures but fortunately we had him on the leash.
Shortly after, we met a group of horse riders and Jake was even more excited to see his most favorite animal friends, horses. We're still waiting for the day when he gets kicked in the face by one of his friends...
We then put our tent up close to the lake and spent a short night in the tent before we got up again at 4am to hike to the top for sunrise. The hike in the dark was very peaceful and due to the fresh air the hike did not feel very hard at all.
When we reached the pass we could see Provo, a mormon town along Utah lake, on the other side of the mountains.
Our timing was perfect and we made it to the top just before the sun appeared behind the mountains.
We were the first ones on the peak and enjoyed the great view before other hikers arrived on top. We were a bit afraid that Jake would have problems on the way down but he was climbing down like a little mountain goat.
We enjoyed our breakfast back at the lake and prepared for our way back to the car at the base of the mountain. The last couple of miles seemed very long, especially when we hit the paved trail on the last 3 miles. The hike was great and we managed to hike most of it in the shade or in cool temperatures, apart from the last few miles.
Jake was exhausted and he slept the whole rest of the day, dreaming of mountain goats.
