Fat Man's Misery Hike

Last Saturday the deacons and teachers went on the traditional "Fat Man's Misery" hike in Zions.  There is a man in our ward that leads this hike every summer and it's kind of an initiation for the deacons.  He lets the teachers come too because they really love the hike (I guess).

We were going to miss the hike this summer because we were in Phoenix.  But it was cancelled due to weather.  We were happy because they were going to reschedule and Ethan would get to go along.  It has a reputation of being a hard hike because there are a lot of obstacles, you have to repel and there is a lot of water.  Most deacons are pretty sore afterward but talk about the hike with a lot of smiles.  It is about 7-8 miles long but takes all day.

Since it's a long drive (about 1 1/4 hours), we had to meet early in the morning (5:45 a.m.) to get going.  There were three cars driving up to drop the boys/leaders off at the trail head.  The end of the hike comes out near Colorado City at a place only accessible by four wheel drive trucks.  I was one of the drivers up so Courtney spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Oman's house so she wouldn't have to get up so early!

Ethan was up and ready to go.  Bryan was hiking with him so Ethan was pretty excited.  He had on his new convertible pants, sunglasses, sunscreen, camel back and he was ready to go!

We had to drive through Zions and near the Checkerboard Mesa to get to the trail head.  There were mountain goats all over the place and it was slow driving.  But we got there and the boys piled out.

Here's the group ready to hike (Bryan is on the left and Ethan is near the center in the BYU shirt):

Then I drove back to my parents house to get Courtney and we ran errands.  Here are the photos from the hike that Bryan took and I will try and remember what he said about them.  Hopefully I will get it right.

This was the first big uphill they had to go on and you can see how steep it was.

 After they hiked a few miles, one of the leaders sat them down to rest and gave them a conservation lesson.  Ethan is on the left.

Isn't he a cutie?!

This is just an example of the beautiful area they were hiking in. Some of the photos were just amazing at how far you could see.

One tradition is to jump from a cliff into this disgusting frog-filled, stagnant pool of water.  So the boys all stripped off their shirts and climbed up.  Here is Ethan getting a helping hand climbing up.

And here he is jumping off!  I think I understand now why all the boys love going on this hike.  They get to do everything their moms won't let them do otherwise!

Here they are playing another traditional game, which I can't remember the name of, where they had to throw rocks and try to knock one off another.  It was funny when they were telling me about it.

This is a photo of a slot that Ethan had to go down.  You can tell by the size of the leader how far down he had to go.  These are gorgeous slot canyons they had to walk through.  Some were filled with water of varying depths.  At one point, they had to swim across using their backpacks as flotation devices.  We learned that the $4 dry sack I bought Ethan at Sportsman's Warehouse was worth it's weight in gold!  All of Ethan's stuff was completely dry so I was happy I impulse-bought the dry sack!

Here is another photo of the slot canyons.  Can you tell now why they don't want any leaders who are "fat men" going?  They would get stuck!

Here is Bryan's hand so you can see the size of these canyons.  And the trail went through the formations.  I don't know how anyone figured out that this would be a great hike.

After hours of hiking and a really steep uphill at the end, they finished!  About 5 minutes later two trucks shows up to take them back to the van and home.  The leaders who came for them brought cold water and watermelon.  Then they all loaded in the back of the trucks and drove about 1 1/2 hours on a REALLY bumpy road, which everyone says is the worst part of the hike, and dropped them off at a waiting van that took them home.

Both boys were really sore on Sunday but said that it was worth it!  Bryan took his GPS and has downloaded the information so he has the trail for the hike if he ever wants to do it again.

Here is a video of one part where the one leader kind of just controls the boys fall down a crevice then throws them.  It's pretty funny.  But it gives you an idea of the area they were hiking in and how you can't be a "fat man" to go on this hike.