Hiking Y Mountain

I come from a family of avid hikers so when Necia asked Jim what he'd like to do for his birthday, he said "hike Y mountain". We agreed to come along although Taylor only agreed as long as he was allowed to sing the U of U fight song the whole way and wear U of U red from head to toe. He also dressed Ethan and Isaac up in their U of U red football jerseys (which I quickly changed them out of). In the end though he wore a neutral white t-shirt and kept saying "I'm no dummy, those BYU fans are crazy!" Miles and Ethan ended up still wearing U of U baseball caps though since that's all we had that fit them and in the end we did get several comments from other hikers annoyed that we'd dare bring THAT attire on their mountain. I'm a proud BYU grad but come on. Get over it.
Looks easy on the first switch-back right?
And then it starts to look a little more like this.
We woke up at 6:30 on Saturday and had all the kids in the cars by 7 to drive down with breakfast on the way. We started about 8:30 which was perfect because the east side of the mountain was completely shaded until almost 10:00 by which time we'd made it all the way up and partway down. It's 1.2 miles up to the Y and steep most of the way.
There's a great view from the top even if you feel like you're sitting on marshmallow rocks.
We made it! Cheesy grins, snacks, and all.
After just 2 minutes of sitting Isaac decided he needed to throw rocks, of course he couldn't just throw the pebbles so we decided we had to keep moving up to the top.
Miles got to ride the whole way and Taylor was a good sport for carrying him and the pack and our water and all the snacks.
The whole group minus Jeff who is taking the picture.
Happy Valley below.
The other fun reason for hiking the Y was that Jeff and his new fiance Jessica could come along. They're both seniors at BYU and were so helpful carrying/dragging the 2, 2-year-olds up the mountain. Aren't they cute?
And to celebrate Jim's birthday and our triumphant hike we went to Los Hermanos afterwards. Good food, good hiking, good views, good family=a good day. And everyone taking good naps afterwards didn't hurt either.
Post naps, post swimming. Don't they look worn out?