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Mount Olympus without Snakey Wakies

Fridays are our hiking days.

And often, our snake sighting days.

A month ago, when  we hiked Squaw Peak, we saw a little rattler who said hello and moved away.

Two weeks ago, we climbed a peak, Huegh’s Canyon, John and Piper sat right above a rattler, a big fat daddy rattler who rattled out warning before striking.  Literally, their ankles were three inches from his fat diamond shaped head.

Cardio burst for the year!  They were yelling and I was screaming out, Did you get bitten?

Glory glory, Hallelujah, because we were an hour of butt sliding steep slopes from help.  Needless to say, we counted our lucky stars and vowed to look under all rocks and also . . . Pretty nervous about any hiking at all.

So you can understand, when our next hike, Mount Olympus, Alltrails reviews were full of snake sightings, and I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE talked about their rattle snake on the trail (up to four on the path) and the latest hiker reporting a fellow hiker with a “gnarly bite” on his leg, why I would basically say, UM no!

Finnegan and I read the reviews, looked at each other and shook our heads.  Noooooooooo!

I called a friend who’d hiked it earlier that year with her brothers and she told me not to worry about it, there were rattle snakes everywhere, I’d be fine.

I debated and debated but we’ve wanted to do this hike and someone I knew had gone on it . . . .

So with great trepidation and lots of my Harry Potter Magic double clap and a clear the field arm spread (how I scare the snakes off . . . If you’ve ever hiked with me, you’ll know exactly what I’m saying. .. I’ll teach you it.  It works . . . Not that you won’t see something, but they will not bother you), we decided to chance it and hike Mount Olympus.

It was brutal, the stir stepper for four miles (4000 vertical feet in four miles) with amazing views and the last quarter mile a straight scramble/rock climb up rocks.  John went ahead of us and looked in all the crevices.  To our great, no utter relieve, we did not sight one.

Not one single snake.

I honestly came home, sat in the car, and sighed.  Sure, the hike was hard, and amazing, but . . . The true miracle?  NO SNAKES.

I wonder is this a sign for my life?

I hope so . . .because tomorrow morning at 4am, Finnegan and I are heading up to summit Timpanogos.  His black belt goal and why we’ve been hiking fools all summer.  No one will go with us.  But we aren’t afraid (mostly).  We’ve got this.  We had a miracle on Mount Olympus, no snakey wakies.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see the mountain goats . . .

(And and my friend, who hiked Olympus a few months ago, told her brothers about how silly the reviews were and my fears were and they got silent, and said, Wellllll, Mount Olympus is KNOWN for its insane amounts of rattle snakes.  You usually CAN’T hike it without seeing one.  Sooo glad she didn’t tell me that until after . . .)


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