Whose Idea Was This Anyway?

September 24^th,  Park City, UT

Tuesday morning brought yet another lovely day and Joyce and I were hoping to get up into the mountains via the ski lifts that we were told

were opened up now for hikers and mountain bikers.  We still ended up taking our time in the morning (just too relaxed to be in a hurry) but we eventually made our way over to the Canyons Resort and a lift called PayDay which took us to the top of a mountain. 

I’m not the most comfortable in high places and the lift ride took 30 minutes of a slow crawl getting to the top.  I was not a happy camper. I thought with dread of the descent back down.  Our plan was to hike around up at the top, take some photos and then descend back down on the lift.  In my discomfort I wondered at the possibility of hiking down to the midway lift and then descending from there since it was not as high up.  After questioning the lift operator we found out that our only option was to either hike down the whole way or go down by lift.  We went back and forth a bit about the distance but decided we could do the hike. Well….not the best decision on our part, as far as I was concerned. 

The first 3 miles weren’t really bad at all and we were seeing beautiful views and enjoying the pretty hike. 

Our feet and legs were doing fine and the temps were very comfortable.  The hike was not a straight down proposition and with all the switchbacks we were not always certain of where we were in connection to the base area but plenty of mountain bikers helped us out with reassurances.  I was just floored when I came across bikers going up at later hours in the day.  I hope they had headlights for the trip down.  Besides that, I was pretty impressed with their strength and stamina.  Anyway, Joyce and I were

doing fine for our less than conditioned bodies so far.  When we hit the midway point, reality set in for me.

The last mile or so became an exercise in trying to forget our sore feet and legs.  It turns out that all that downhill is quite a workout on the knees and legs but for us it was mostly about being footsore.  Thankfully we had chosen our Keen hiking boots for this endeavor.  We finally got down to the resort base and the parking lot to the MINI where the first thing I did was get into my slip-ons.  Once we settled into the car and began to look for a well-earned dinner we seemed to recover fine.  We were feeling rather proud of ourselves with a nearly 5 mile hike in the mountains.  Time for a cold drink and a nice meal. 

Joyce and I both found ourselves craving salad and vegetables and did we ever stumble onto a great little place for that.  We found the Good Thymes Café just a couple miles from our airbnb place and it was fantastic.  I had the best salad I’ve had in ages….Cashew crusted ahi tuna with field greens, julienned vegetables, crispy corn, red onion, pickled ginger and wasabi vinaigrette.  Sooo good!  It was the perfect thing after a long hike and the chardonnay I had with it was crisp and cold.  Joyce enjoyed her salad just as much and we were ready to have a leisurely rest of the evening for our last night at Silvia’s.  We were both loathe to leave but also excited to get to Yosemite National Park in California.

We were clueless to what was to coming before we reached that destination…