Climbing the mountain
One of my friends, let's call him my crazy friend, decided that he was going to climb Mount Timpanogos the other day. For those of you unfamiliar with Utah landmarks, Mount Timpanogos is the tallest peak around here. It climbs to an elevation of 11,700' and some dust at the very top. It's a popular trail with the college students around here, and my own personal belief is that is because their brains have not quite caught up yet, and their bodies work! Climbing this mountain just sounds painful to me. One neat little tidbit about it is there is a glacier up there on the Eastern slope that never goes away. Neat thing, but I'm waiting for transporter technology to get me up there.
Well, I have another friend who is a pilot. He heard my crazy friend was climbing the mountain and saw it as a great mission (read that as an excuse) for going flying and taking some photos of crazy friend at the top. So crazy friend hit the trailhead at 5am (0500 or oh-dark-hundred depending on how you tell time) with a cell phone in his pack to call from "the saddle." A known location about 60 minutes from the peak. Crazy friend anticipated a call for us to get moving around 9am or maybe 9:30am.
Waiting by the phone, 9am came and went. 9:30 came and went. Heck, 10am came and went! Finally at 10:15 or so I got the call from crazy that he's at the saddle, not quite ready to leap from the edge and take the fast way down and we should launch. Pilot friend and I headed to the airport, quickly preflighted the plane (taking the time to clean one window so the pictures would turn out) and took off.
Just a quick aside here...flying over the Utah landscape away from town is fabulous. The green grass contrasted with the rocks with critters moving around eating and preparing for Winter. I really enjoy all we have here in Utah.
The plane took off from the Spanish Fork airport which sits at 4500' more or less. So we clawed into the air climbing to an eventual maximum altitude of 11,800' to shoot photos. Sure enough, there was crazy at the top of the mountain waving his arms like a monkey! And some goober had the nerve to write their name on the side of the building at the top of the mountain.
So my pilot friend, being proficient in The GIMP made an adjustment
Can you spot the difference between these photos?
I've decided that my pilot friend has a much better way of seeing the top of Timp than my crazy friend. Maybe I'll get to the top again sometime!
Well, I have another friend who is a pilot. He heard my crazy friend was climbing the mountain and saw it as a great mission (read that as an excuse) for going flying and taking some photos of crazy friend at the top. So crazy friend hit the trailhead at 5am (0500 or oh-dark-hundred depending on how you tell time) with a cell phone in his pack to call from "the saddle." A known location about 60 minutes from the peak. Crazy friend anticipated a call for us to get moving around 9am or maybe 9:30am.
Waiting by the phone, 9am came and went. 9:30 came and went. Heck, 10am came and went! Finally at 10:15 or so I got the call from crazy that he's at the saddle, not quite ready to leap from the edge and take the fast way down and we should launch. Pilot friend and I headed to the airport, quickly preflighted the plane (taking the time to clean one window so the pictures would turn out) and took off.
Just a quick aside here...flying over the Utah landscape away from town is fabulous. The green grass contrasted with the rocks with critters moving around eating and preparing for Winter. I really enjoy all we have here in Utah.
The plane took off from the Spanish Fork airport which sits at 4500' more or less. So we clawed into the air climbing to an eventual maximum altitude of 11,800' to shoot photos. Sure enough, there was crazy at the top of the mountain waving his arms like a monkey! And some goober had the nerve to write their name on the side of the building at the top of the mountain.
So my pilot friend, being proficient in The GIMP made an adjustment
Can you spot the difference between these photos?I've decided that my pilot friend has a much better way of seeing the top of Timp than my crazy friend. Maybe I'll get to the top again sometime!
posted by Pastor Tom at 7:24 AM
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