Hiking for Breakfast

Those of you who know me, know that I LOVE to eat and I love to hike. What could be better than to hike into the mountains and eat?

That is exactly what I did this morning.

After getting back from my early morning venture into the upper Provo River, I decided to take a hike and after making that decision, I realized I was hungry since I had already been up for about 3 hours. I also saw one of my pouches of Mountain House Scrambled Eggs and Bacon.

You know what happened next.

I put 2 and 2 together and came up with the idea of taking the pouch with me and making breakfast while on my hike. I always have my Jet Boil in my pack so I just had to pack a lighter and water so that I could make my freeze dried pouch.

I hopped into the car and while driving, I had to make a decision. Was I going to do a longer, but easier trail or would I go a much harder, but short trail. I decided on the harder, but shorter trail. In fact, since I was heading to Dry Canyon, which is less than 10 minutes from my house, that I would hike up to the cliffs, find a spot that had incredible views of the valley and of Mt. Timpanogos, and make my breakfast.

*The cliffs of Dry Canyon. My destination was on the left edge of the canyon.*

The one catch is that hiking to these particular cliffs, triggers my fear of heights. The reason is for the elevation, the expansive view into the valley and the fact that part of the trail is right by the edge of the cliffs.

A trifecta of terror.

What I found quite surprising today was that on the ascent up to my breakfast destination, I really had little of no panic about the climb. Even when I was on the most treacherous part by the edge of the cliffs I was not fazed.

It was not until I reached a certain pinnacle on the top of the cliffs and looked out over the valley did I start to freak out a little. When that happened, I decided that where I was standing at the time was going to be the perfect spot to make breakfast. Funny how that happens.

*When I started seeing this view, my acrophobia reared its ugly head*

When I sat down, I decided that I would make a video of my preparing my breakfast using my Jet Boil and my pouch of food. The video is below. It is a bit lengthy.

After making the food, I scarfed in down like a dog. It was so good. I mean REALLY good. The Mountain House pouches are really good.

As I head back down, my anxiety level was high for a few moments, but then I saw a distraction and it went away immediately.

On a lower ledge on the trail down, I saw a woman enjoying some peaceful yoga, mindfulness or something that was quite relaxing to her. So I spend the next half hour or so photographing her. At first I did so from afar. As I got closer, I asked her if she minded and she was totally fine with it.