Elder's Quorum Initiation

Last week in Elder's Quorum we (the three guys who's wives are doing their student teaching) asked if anyone knew of any good hikes that they recommended we should go on before we left Arizona.  Immediately someone spoke up and said "The Flatiron!"  Then everyone joins in, "Oh yeah that is a great one!"

Of course we then ask, "How difficult is it?"  Someone then responded, "Its not bad.  It is probably a 3 hour hike.  You will love it."

Well that sold us.  We decided that we were going to hike The Flatiron that Tuesday.  

  

This is what the Flatiron looks like from the top.

This place quite literally looks like an iron cut into the mountain.  

This is what Flatiron looks like from the park entrance.  Actually when we got there Ranger Joe gave us a map in exchange for our $7.00 park entrance fee and a parking pass.  After looking at the map we then learned that the Flatiron hike was going to take us up 3000 ft.  This is right about the time that we started having our doubts about his hike.

Nonetheless we knew that we could do it.  We had be told it was only a 3 hour hike, round trip.  

Part way up the trail Kyle decided that he needed to show some leg.  This wasn't for us... it was for his wife Anna!  (Anna he is a keeper!)  

This is the upper portion of the beginning of the trail.
Not to bad right?

WRONG!

These pictures don't do it justice but these are very steep!
This is where the pain begins.

From here it was nothing but up.  No one told us when we started that most of the trial was climbing up a trail full of boulders.

After climbing roughly half way up the mountain this was all that we could see.

At one point I climbed on top of a boulder and looked over the edge.  This was my view.  It was a long ways  down.  At this point we were hoping that we were close to the top but we still had another hour or so to go.

3 Hours later we did finally make it to the top.  By this point we knew that the Elder's Quorum was out to get us but we pulled through!  Nothing can stop us.

Here are a few pictures from the top of Flatiron but because I took all of these pictures on my phone they aren't the greatest.  Sorry!

These shots don't do justice to this scene.  You will just have to hike it for yourself for the real effect.

If you look in the picture above you can see on the right side a black rock face.  That is where a plane crashed last Thanksgiving.  Crazy!

                                                And of course the three Flatiron kings!!

When we finally got to the top we had been hiking for 3 hours.  By the time we got back to the bottom we had been gone for about 5 hours.

This week at church we reported to the Elder's Quorum that we had made it to the top of Flatiron!  We also made sure to call them out on their lie!  Today they all claimed that no one said it was only a three hour hike.

Another Arizona adventure.