March 27th, 2016 – Easter Sunday. We woke up before the sun to spend the holiday with nature.
Zach and I picked up Mary at 4:30 am and we headed off for a long (and slightly creepy), but beautiful hike up Mount Wire, which is above the Living Room trail. A couple evenings prior to our hike, Mary and her friend hiked the same trail and saw a mountain lion and fresh kill. The kill was still there that morning – a dead, mutilated deer. I kind of wish I took a picture of it, because it was gruesome and people like gruesome.
Needless to say, we were all a little nervous hiking in the dark, knowing there was a mountain lion in the area. Of course, mountain lions are in many mountains, but seeing its dinner and knowing there was one around made it even more terrifying. There are many parts of this hike where you are surrounded by trees, and many of the trees had not grown their leaves back yet from the winter; in the dark, that made it all the more eerie. Mary even played music on her phone to calm us down. At one point, "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons came on the radio, which actually felt appropriate.
Getting to the top was a little challenging near the end, because of the snow and ice, but we made it. At the top, there is a tower that, from what I have read, used to be used for telephone transmission between Park City and Salt Lake City. It is now just a tall, metal tower. We climbed it, which was both a good and bad idea. Good because climbing towers is fun, and the view was amazing. Bad because it made us even colder, being far from the ground and the metal being cold on our hands. It was all worth it, though – we saw the sunrise over the mountains, and it was such a beautiful way to spend Easter morning.
The hike is 4.1 miles round-trip. It is rated as "moderate" by my AllTrails app, and that is about accurate. It was very cold and snowy at the top, so during this time of year it is a good idea to dress warm (I had forgotten gloves – oops!). I would do this again for a sunrise hike. There was no one on the trail or at the top, which made it peaceful. It was worth getting up at 3:30 in the morning!