No Trespassing Signs are Optional

My weekly goal is to fit in at least one hiking adventure. So far I have been able to reach my goal for the last several weeks. My interest in photography; along with my enjoyment of nature and hiking has led me to make this a routine. This week’s hiking destination was stumbled across by my friends during their run. They weren’t able to make it to the top of the peak (for fear of coming in contact of a wild cougar), but that failed attempt led them to try again and they decided to include me this time around. Thank you! Not gonna lie as we started the hike we were all a little skeptical as our shoes were encaked in inches of mud and we were slipping everywhere; but our end point-a random gazebo found at the top of the peak-was just too appealing for us to pass up, so we pressed forward. As we paused to admire some mysterious footprints, a heard of white-tail deer began stampeding down the mountain side. We quickly hid in some shrubbery and started rapidly taking pictures as if we worked for National Geographic. Once the deer were out of our site we continued on our way up the trail. When we reached the gazebo we all began wondering who in the world would build a perfectly good gazebo way out in the middle of nowhere on this hill. The many “No Trespassing” signs, found around the gazebo, to us were optional. We felt this particular gazebo was not getting enough use out of it as it should. We felt obligated to change that-so we made a tasty lunch in the gazebo and began thoroughly exploring around it. While enjoying the breathtaking views; we were privileged to witness some rare creatures called harpies. Luckily those who I came with were quite educated on them, and were able to relate to them in a very intimate way-I’d say they may have been obsessed with them.
Remember to take the path less traveled.
One of the greatest reliefs in life is when you finish speaking in sacrament meeting.

TV Remotes and Olympics

Ever wonder how you can cut back your amount of time spent watching TV?? My roommates and I learned the hard way… Our TV remote mysteriously stopped working one day. I believe all of my roommates found this out on their own attempts of trying to change the channel with the remote having no success. After multiple attempts of grabbing the remote, rushing to the couch, getting comfortable and ready to view some worthless, time wasting TV show, I found myself clicking the remote buttons furiously with no luck of the channels changing. Everyone knows that it is not worth the effort to watch TV without a working remote. It is just too big of a pain for some, or an inconvenience for others, or just not appealing; when you don’t have the ability to change the channel without moving your body. I fall in all three of those categories and found myself not watching any TV until my roommate who owns the TV decided to reprogram the remote so it works correctly.

To pay tribute to the US dominating the 2010 Olympics I decided to participate in one of my favorite pastimes-snowboarding. So in order to fully enjoy the slopes: I took the day off from school Thursday, rounded up a good friend and began blazing down the mountain. Both of us weren’t familiar with our way around Snowbird, yet we thoroughly enjoyed getting lost and finding our own way down the mountain. We found ourselves in some treacherous terrain one run, where we had an encounter with some rather intense cliffs. Through it all the only downside was the fog which was so thick you had a hard time telling apart the snow and the moguls. This created a great workout though. Take that p90x oh and see ya in the 2014 Olympics!!

The “Give the Coke to a Stranger”

Four day weekends are hard to come by at Brigham Young University, there what you may call literally once in a blue moon… Yeah definitely Cougar blue… This weekend business writers, including myself were asked to give a stranger a coke and write about it. If we were at any other University one might be sketched out with the words stranger and coke in the same sentence. The weekend was packed with outdoorsy adventures which led a limited amount of time to drop the coke off. It started off with a wintery hike up American Fork Canyon on Friday. Early Saturday morning the weekend took a turn to the top of Little Cottonwood canyon for some cabin fever. Snowmobiling didn’t seem like the best place to find a stranger to give them the coke so I just enjoyed my time plowing through the mountains and digging myself out of 5 feet of snow. Sunday was a day to rest and recuperate from all of that digging and lack of sleep. Monday seemed like the perfect day to make the coke assignment happen. I went to the usual store to purchase the beverage, Smiths. Having no clue who I was going to be the lucky recipient of the beverage, as I was driving out of the Smith’s parking lot; I stumbled across a homeless man sitting on the corner by R.C. Willey who looked parched. I rolled down my window and wished the man a happy Presidents day as I gave him the coke.

Hyke.

<-Big Hollow Springs
I am on this hiking/photography phase right now where that is all I want to do. This world is so pretty on many levels and I want to capture it with my Nikon d5000. Three winter hikes took place this week: Rock Canyon, Big Hollow Springs, and Battle Creek Falls. Rock Canyon brought on a gorgeous sunset; plus a night scene with the lit-up Provo Temple. Big Hollow Springs was a surprise; I’ve never done this hike and I didn’t know what to expect. The lush green moss stood out so well surrounded by the white snow. This spring was worth seeing even if you had snow up to your knees when you ventured off the trail. Battle Creek Falls is already slowly melting away, yet the icy falls is always worth witnessing.

What makes a horror film, actually scary? This weekend we experienced the classic old-school movie, Halloween. This 40 year old film’s music is what created the creepy atmosphere for me, along with the Cook’s haunted cabin hidden in Sundance.

You cannot ‘one up’ a testimony-period.