For Our Happiness

Fall colors are at their peak in the higher altitudes and the mountains are calling to me! I can usually break away on Thursdays, so that's what I did today as soon as Natalie was home from school. I left for Park City for a ride. The ride up Parley's canyon was beautiful. I was on my bike at 4:30, going along Armstrong ~

Stopping every now and then to soak in the colors and snap another pictures. The bright leaves were still in full force, waving to me from the trees...

...and posing the ground.

I was heaven. It totally filled my cup. Wish I could be up here all day. The only thing that would have made today better was if Corey had been there with me. So Armstrong was gorgeous - 

As was the trail to HAM in the pine trees.

I'm grateful that fall colors make the ground so enjoyable to look at. Usually I'm looking at dirt and rocks and planning my line for where to get over the next feature, so all the leaves make a nice and joyful visual change to the normal dirt and rocks. It was great. Sunset was at 7:15, so my plan was to explore up as high as I could, and then start to make my way back down at 6:15 to give myself an hour of light to get back to the car. I made it back right at sunset at 7:15. So I went up Armstrong, HAM, then continued up to Midmountain, but I took midmountain north for the first time ever. I explored that until I got to Ironman, and that's when I turned around to come back. It was fun to explore new parts of the trail that I hadn't been on before. Midmountain north was a more narrow trail and was definitely less traveled, but I was happy to go get acquainted. 

It was really pretty!

I continued close by a neighborhood (top of White Pine Canyon road) 

Soon I had a nice view of the McPolin Barn and Quarry mountain.

So the trail went north along or around Iron Mountain, toward the Canyon's Ski resort. I listened to some podcasts, some General Conference, and Some of Elder Patrick Kearon's recent BYU speech "Flecks of Gold". His laugh at his joke at 2:30 is so full and joyful, it's really fun. I liked this quote by Elder Oaks that he shared at 23:03

I feel close to God in the mountains. The mountains and fall colors are two of millions of things in this earth that were created for our happiness. I was grateful to be in the mountains today. And grateful when I got home to my little ones.