This summer we have discovered the wonderful playground of American Fork Canyon. We have been camping, hiking and wheeling a few times. Well Lew found about a group of people going up there this past weekend. It was a bunch of guys and their rock crawlers. The guy that put this shin-dig together is named Kurt. Ruby called him "The Boss". So The Boss is super smart and included in this trip was a history lesson of American Fork Canyon. Sound boring? Not at all! I'm so glad that we went.
We met everyone at Tibble Fork Reservoir. This is a beautiful blue lake. It is at the top of the canyon. We then followed The Boss to our camping spot. Every truck was equipped with a CB radio, so all the drivers could discuss while driving. All of us set up our tents and then gathered around the camp fire for stories. One of the guys there was an older gentleman. He was telling us how Snowbird resort owns basically the whole mountain minus 600 acres. His family is the owner of the 600 acres. This nice grandpa had a few good stories to share.
My little ones were tired so we went to bed and Lew stayed up for all the good stories. Little did her know that I was in the tent with multiple creepy spiders. I would start to fall asleep and then my eyes would pop open to the sound of legs clinging to the ceiling of the tent. Did you know that I am horribly afraid of spiders? When Lew and I were first married, I was taking a shower. A spider decided to shower with me. I screamed. About 10 seconds later Lew runs in the bathroom with a shot gun in his hands. Since then I have learned to contain the screams. Sorry, back to the camping trip.
Anyway, Lew eventually came to bed around 2:30. There were four-wheelers whizzing past until 6. And our family does not sleep in, so we were up at 7. Awesome.
The morning was pretty warm. Then the temperature started to drop. And then it started to hail. I later found out that it did that in the valley, but these were monster hail! It hurt!
This is Gordon under the protection of a pine tree. In the corner is The Boss's dog, Jada. She is a sweetheart.
Ruby is making her "Where did this storm come from?" face.
The mountains were covered in fog. It was really pretty. It was also nice because then there was not so much dirt being kicked up on the trails. 
We first went on a trail that lead to a spot called Tyng's Grave. This is a quick version of his story. George Tyng owned a mine and had a bunch of miner employees. He worked this mine for 10 years. All the miners lived on the mountain year round. In the winter they had to dig tunnels from bunk house to buildings because the snow was 6 to 8 feet deep. George Tyng would hire people from American Fork to come up the the camps and entertain his employees on the weekend. Mr. Tyng made 3 million dollars in mining. Holy crap. This was in the early 1900's! Well in 1906 his cabin was hit by an avalanche. It's been said that he would have survived, but there was a big nail on the wall where Tyng would hang his coat. When the avalanche hit, the nail went in his head and killed him. How sad. His family rescued his body, and moved it to the valley. When they read his will it said he wanted to be buried below his cabin overlooking the canyon. The family had to haul his body back up there and bury him. So this is where he rests. The land is called Tyng's Grave. Lew has wanted to see this area for years and years. We are going to go back sometime because of all the fog, we didn't get a great view of the mountains.
Sweet Lew was as happy as could be. He crossed off an item on his life to-do list.
Lucky for us the weather cleared up. It was still pretty muddy though. Normally we would just glide right up this spot, but the mud slowed us down. Gordon still loves to have a photo opportunity.
We went on the Snake Creek Trail. It had this neat little shack. There were bunks inside. It was also riddled with bullet holes. Hmmmm?
We then decided to go to the top of a certain mountain. We had to park and then hike the rest of the way. The elevation was just over 10,000 feet. It was amazing. You could see Heber Valley on one side (above).
And the other side was Brighton (above).
This is as high as we could go.
This looks a little scary. It was. We didn't let the kids go over the little edge we were sitting on. Overall we had a good camping trip. The kids were so great. They rode in the truck and didn't complain once. I told Lew over and over- We have the best kids! I mean, really, they are so young to be sitting in a truck for hours and they just loved it. I'm so lucky!
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