Hiking Y Mountain is a beast, but I have quite the love story with its child: the Y itself.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Utah Valley, Y mountain is right next to Brigham Young University’s campus.

The giant, 788-foot Y was made over 100 years ago. The Ute name for Y Mountain used to be Wahdahhekawee (meaning “blessed mountain”) and the Y only exists because it was too much effort to put in “B” and “U” alongside it.

Hiking the trail to the Y is pretty much a rite of passage for anyone who lives in Provo. I mean, if you’ve lived in Provo and haven’t hiked the Y, are you even a Provo resident?

No, of course not – but don’t worry, you can redeem yourself. Here’s the pros and cons of hiking the Y.

Y you will likely hate the Y

1. The elevation gain from trailhead to top: 1,102 feet over the course of 1.2 miles. This hike is a steep bastard.

2. The elevation: 6,602 feet. If you’re coming from Hawaii, 1) I’m jealous, and 2) make sure you acclimate to the elevation here before hiking.

3. The view: Ugly as sin – there’s a lot of scrub brush and you get a decent view of the valley, but you might be unimpressed by Utah Lake.

(I personally love the view, but I’ve had more than enough arguments with coworkers over how much they hate the view and how terrible the hike is and how it’s not even worth it and OKAY STERLING, I GET YOUR POINT.)

Still – anyone can do it. It’s all in your pacing.

4. It’s hard as balls. Back before I ever showed any athletic leanings, I hiked the Y with Austin and his brother. I was panting and pausing every leg of the way. There’s approximately 14 (or 12, depending on your definition) switchbacks – and I was pausing at each one of them, panting, gasping for air, begging them to slow down.

My cardio was terrible. I had hiked Timpanogos just the summer previous and even though I had taken a spin class and a swimming class, I still wasn’t used to this kind of exertion. Even though I made it to the top, I couldn’t believe Austin had actually run this thing.

But I kept going back, and here’s why.

Y you should love the Y

1. The distance: It’s about 1.2 miles to get to the top. So if you’re in reasonably good shape, and you’re looking for some exercise that’s outdoors but doesn’t require more than an hour’s worth of commitment, this is a great option.

2. You don’t actually have to go to the top: As you approach the Y, you have three options:
1) take the trail that leads to the bottom of the Y,
2) continue up a couple more switchbacks and finish at the middle, or
3) finish at the top.

So you don’t even have to go to the very top! You can still say you’ve hiked the Y and not need to go to the very top of it.

3. You can do it any time of year, any time of day. I’ve done this hike during all four seasons. I’ve done it in the morning, afternoon, and night. At the beginning and end of fall and winter semesters, BYU lights up the Y and it’s a lot of fun to hike up to it.

4. Hiking is good for you. This hike was therapy when I had gotten my hours cut at my first full-time job and eventually was laid off.

I had a lot of extra time and it was the beginning of winter – plenty of time to be stuck in my own head and think about how worthless of an employee I must be to get my hours cut.

I couldn’t live like that, so I left the house and started hiking instead.

I hiked the Y at least 9 times that winter. I came to push myself more than I thought I was capable. Hiking on snow in all its forms is something else. Powder, packed, melting and muddy – it provides a lot more exertion and sweat.

 

The outdoors are good for your mental health because it forces you to focus on the present moment of not dying.

Winter hiking the Y did that for me. I remember one night in particular – it was about 5 and my husband was finishing up some final exams, so I decided to go for a hike before picking him up.

There was fresh powder – at least 6 extra inches, and I almost got the car stuck in some snow, so I parked a quarter mile away from the trailhead just so I could get the car out when I left.

Oh, and the ignition was acting funny, which meant there was a good chance the car wouldn’t start if I didn’t turn the key just right.

I was the only person hiking that evening – all except for one backcountry snowboarder. I had started off ahead of him, but he eventually passed me and we made some small talk about his snowboarding before he cruised down the mountain.

It was cloudy and cold and the snow was thick by the time I made it to the top.

The sun was setting fast and I had to get off that mountain because I could feel the cold start to settle in.

I started going down the trail as fast as I could without slipping. I eventually started running, because no matter how hard I was working, my body temperature was decreasing. The sky was getting darker, but the white snow made it okay.

I eventually made it down to the trailhead parking lot, but since I had parked further down, I still needed to make it to my own car and start it.

The car didn’t start.

I texted Austin after trying 10 times, worried he’d have to walk to the trailhead to start it (it was about 2 miles from campus), but after trying 10 more times, I FINALLY started the car. But even then I had to dig it out and scrape the windshield so I could just escape and be warm again.

It was dark by the time I met up with Austin – but I survived. And even though it was terrifying, I LOVED that hike.

5. It gets better each time. I’ve done this hike at least 3 dozen times, and I think I’m low-balling that estimate. I can hike to the top and bottom without stopping in 35 minutes flat. It’s easy for me and I love going there to think.

I love this hike. No, it’s not the most picturesque, and it’s hard. But I have hiked this by myself, with Austin, and with friends and made fond memories.

Simply put: it’s doable. And for that I keep returning.

Inspired by this post at semi-rad.com

Day 3 – Sunday, 21 miles

We had to crank out more miles today, but we were FEELIN’ IT after a crappy night of sleep.

We walked through a couple of seaside towns first, enjoying the views.

Utah has a lot of seagulls too – I understood why they hate feeding the gulls. Seagulls are basically the pigeons of the ocean.

We then passed by the Caves of Caiplie, which were made of sandstone and slowly eroded over time.

After a while, we were starting to feel pretty hungry. So we stopped in another coastal town and ate at a cafe that served some of the best breakfast food I’ve ever had.

The rest of the day consisted of steady, constant hiking – well, for the most part. We stopped about an hour after lunch to take a nap and enjoy the pleasant weather. Austin fell asleep on my lap while I relaxed, listening to the ocean water come up against the shore and rocks.

I loved some of the seaside towns we walked through – one of them had a house decorated with seashells.

After hiking all day, we arrived at a campsite just a couple of miles away from St. Andrews. I had my doubts about the camping availability in St. Andrews, since it was a college town, so we decided to check out the campsite. It had a lot of people camping there, but we could still see some available spots. Plus, this camping site was HUGE – at least 5 acres.

Austin went to talk to the managers while I talked with some people from England who were visiting St. Andrews for the weekend. When Austin came out, the managers said the campground was full. FULL? There were SO MANY AVAILABLE SPOTS! We were willing to pay the entrance fee! And we were in a two-man tent!

(Note: the irony in getting a two-man tent for two people is that you actually need a 3-man tent if you don’t want to be squished.)

But that didn’t stop us – we just pitched our tent right outside the property with our tent peeking in like little Dickensian orphans looking into a Christmas feast. We were still legal about it – but it didn’t stop us from using their bathrooms in the morning to wash up a little.

The next day we hiked into St. Andrews and wandered around the St. Andrews Cathedral’s ruins and cemetery.

We also ate some delicious pastries and wandered around St. Andrews University, but this was our favorite part of the whole city:

Anyway – we had a good time. The Fife Coastal Path is more residential than the West Highland Way, but it was a fascinating look into a different side of life and a different side of Scotland. I’d highly recommend it.

Day 1 – Friday, 14 miles

We came here to escape the midges.

Look to the far right of that map. Isn’t it beautiful? All those 1’s. Best of all – no midges.

We’d experienced enough midges from the West Highland Way and Skye. As far as I was concerned, I’d had enough bug bites to last me several lifetimes. That was our main motivation when Austin found the Fife Coastal Path while we were staying in Glasgow.

The Fife Coastal Path runs along eastern Scotland. Now, where the midge map is and where we went is not the same, but nevertheless: there were no midges on the eastern part of Scotland. The Fife Coastal Path starts in Kincardine (no, not “Kim Kardashian”) and ends in Newburgh.

We didn’t hike the whole thing – just 50 miles starting in Burntisland and ending in St. Andrews. Burntisland (which I believe is pronounced like “burnt-eye-land”) was a smallish town and we had some trouble finding the path at first. Nice posts marking the path (as pictured above) were a little less common on the Fife Coastal Path than they were on the West Highland Way.

I didn’t realize how much beach I’d be walking on – this really was a coastal path.

We started hiking after lunch. We walked on beaches (checking some nifty available signs for the tide) and would go in and out of grassy dirt trails and back to sand. Due to the poor marking of the trail, we often were double-checking our guidebook that we had bought just for the trip.

We took the leg from Burntisland to Buckhaven, which is about 14 miles. We passed by MacDuff’s castle (I didn’t even know MacDuff was a real person), but there were a lot of people there and I was tired so we just kept on going until we found a reasonable campsite. It was approximately 8:30 and I just wanted to sleep, so we set up our tent and slept on and off until it was time to get up again.

This day sounds as gloomy as it looked – but trust me, it was a nice day. It was just a weird, awkward start what with us struggling to find the trail and transitioning from sidewalk to beach to dirt to sidewalk – but the rest of the trip was nice! I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

After our experience hiking the West Highland Way, we wanted to go see the Isle of Skye (or, as we couldn’t resist, the “Isle of Skyle”), so we took a bus up to Portree, the largest city in Skye. Its population is 2,491.

Because we were mostly winging this trip (something I do not recommend if you like bathrooms and warmth and happiness), all – and I mean ALL – the hotels and hostels on Skye were booked. We were dum-dums.

So! Camping it was. We hiked about a mile outside of town and found a lovely spot on a small cliff right next to the bay and parked our belongings there. (Again, this is all due to Scotland’s handy dandy wild camping laws)

The first night was pretty stormy – but it was a testament to how waterproof our tent actually was. The wind was what woke us up – not the rain, but the rain was pretty bad, too. We got out of the tent at around 5 AM when the storm stopped and the whole area was covered in fog. The sun was barely beginning to rise and we saw a green light across the way, just flickering off the coast. I felt like Gatsby, only less rich.

Mostly I was freezing while we slept. So I’d tap Austin on the shoulder and say, “I’m freezing, can you warm me up?” And he’d roll over on top of me while still in his sleeping bag (and mostly still asleep) and although squished, I’d start to warm up from his body heat. He’s my personal space heater.

We spent about 3 days in Skye – a half day on the first, a full day on the second, and a half day on the third. It was freezing and wet, and once again, the locals found it miserable as well.

On the second day we did an AWESOME bus tour of Skye – and by bus, I mean large van. An old woman named Kathleen drove the van – she had grown up on Skye and was fluent in Scottish Gaelic and didn’t learn English until she went to school at age 5. She was very gracious to let us smelly travelers put our backpacks on her van for storage during the tour.

We first went to the Old Man of Storr, which has some super rad rock formations. Don’t ask me why it’s called the Old Man of Storr, I wasn’t listening during the tour.

We went to a LOT of different areas – one area had a waterfall going straight into the ocean while a dude nearby played bagpipes for money. How Scottish can you get?

The next destination was the Quiraing – if these places look familiar to you, it was the filming location of Stardust (and other cool movies, I’m sure, but I thought mostly about Stardust) and its geology is otherworldly.

We were supposed to go to the fairy pools, but there was a bit of a holdup. A man had decided to drive his cows out of one enclosure into a pasture, and there were a ton of cars coming from both directions on what I swear was the world’s most narrow road.

Kathleen said, “Oh, this simply won’t do!” She got out of the car and waved at the cars behind us, directing them to turn around and back up so everyone could leave. She was single-handedly directing traffic, making sure we could get out of there and on with our day.

I was disappointed to not see the fairy pools, but honestly, hanging out with Kathleen made the trip delightful. She told us stories of the early inhabitants of Skye, of the people who lived there, and all the craziness that happens when humans get together.

Would I recommend Skye? Absolutely. But it was freezing and we were wet, so on the third day we got some fish and chips and caught the next bus back to Glasgow.

After that, we hiked the Fife Coastal Path, which I will happily tell you about tomorrow.

This is part of a series. For the rest of the series, click on the links below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Day 6 – Friday, 8 miles

The midges came out again this morning, resulting in an early departure. Austin and I ate breakfast on the way, eating bananas and peanut butter and some more digestives cookies. Those double chocolate cookies were amazing.

We hiked The Devil’s Staircase, which was about as steep as Conic Hill, but at a higher elevation. So what did we do? You guessed it! Austin carried my backpack while I wussed it up that hill burden-free.

Honestly, this day was a lot more chill – we hiked 8 miles and happened upon Kinlochleven sooner than we expected, so we set up camp and wandered around the town eating fish and chips.

Day 7 – Saturday, 14 miles

By the time we finished the final leg, we had figured some things out: how to hike in the rain while staying happy, and how to evade midges. Both have the same solution: keep moving always.

Continuing to move proved somewhat difficult when we wanted to eat lunch. We’d take off our backpacks and suddenly the midges started gathering, even when we were all smidged up. So we would take out some naan bread, dip it in hummus, and run up and down the trail while shoving the bread into our mouths.

It’s kind of funny how low your standards get when you hike daily like this. I developed really gross habits. I kept forgetting to use deodorant because we were always in a rush in the morning. I was doing a nifty snot rocket when an old man came hiking by, patted my shoulder kindly and placed a small package of Kleenex into my hand as he passed by. This old man was just beasting it on the trail and no matter how fast we walked, we never passed him.

There was an ultramarathon going on while we were hiking. Austin was rehashing the plot of The Godfather movies to me when this guy suddenly called, “ON YOUR LEFT!” and we jumped aside right before he charged down the trail. We saw a lot of runners the rest of the time we were on the trail.

The mountain trail ended about 2 miles before the West Highland Way did. There were two options: go and hike Ben Nevis, the local large mountain, or continue onto Fort William. I was in no mood for summiting mountains, so Fort William it was.

We walked on a sidewalk into town, looking and smelling out of place. We finally made it to the end, where sits a statue of an old is massaging his foot, signifying the end of the Way. We ran into our old man again, and he took a picture of us and joked around with us.

For the next two nights we holed up in a hostel that was owned by a guy named Cliff. Cliff was a real character – he was in his early 60’s, had a young baby girl who he took hiking on Ben Nevis on Christmas Day, and couldn’t even take public transit because he was so claustrophobic. I took a much-needed shower and we just stayed off our feet as long as we liked, only taking breaks to walk down to the local corner store to get more Digestives.

Hiking the West Highland Way was my first real foray into more intense outdoor activities. I loved it and I hated it. Austin and I still speak fondly of our time doing this, because honestly, it was amazing. It wasn’t always fun camping, I hated smelling myself, and my feet hurt. But I’m also so proud of myself for going, even as an amateur, because it opened up mountains of possibilities for me, pun completely intended.

This is part of a series. For the rest of the series, click on the links below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Day 5 – Thursday, 20 miles

You know how people disdain discussing the weather as conversation material? This became our whole lives. Every person we met on the trail, from the group of four young siblings that we dubbed “The Narnia Children,” to the Dutch man Conrad who was a zoomer, we all talked about the weather.

The weather was better this day, which brightened my spirits. And after spending the night in a cozy microlodge, I was ready to face the world again.

On this day we hiked across the Bridge of Orchy, took a quick break to eat some delicious digestives, and then progressed through Rannoch Moor. We had considered camping here, but it was so boggy that we envisioned our tent sinking into the bog with us in it and decided to keep going.

We didn’t see anyone for miles – we had met up with Conrad the flying Dutchman in a pub while we were eating lunch, but after lunch he took off – ZOOM – and that was the last we saw of him. So we walked alone through Rannoch Moor, coming up with the scariest stories we could think of, trying to scare each other and wondering if that tent we passed even had people in it.

Fun fact: Rannoch Moor was a filming location for Harry Potter! The Hogwarts Express drove by it. Even more fun fact: it’s where the dementors got on the train! Even MORE fun fact: it felt like we were in this place forever and I feel like dementors sucked the life out of me!

All bright spirits I had at the beginning of the day were slowly draining out of me. We reached Glen Coe and I was ready to spend the night there, but Austin wanted to go further and get to Kingshouse, which was “only” a couple of miles away. The spirit was unwilling, the flesh was weak, but somehow I found it in myself to get all the way to Kingshouse. Set up the tent and be ready for the night, right?

Oh, wait – the midges.

I didn’t know that a midge forecast even EXISTED. But man, we should’ve taken advantage of that thing and armored up with midge nets for our heads. The midges at Kingshouse at the time were category 4 (probably 4.5 to be honest) and it was like something out of The Mummy.

They swarmed our faces as we were setting up the tent. They would literally create a disgusting black cloud that you would breathe in and cough up and sneeze out. They obeyed the midge repellent, but would bite anywhere you didn’t have repellent. They gathered by the hundreds and hundreds and followed us into the tent, where we began our massacre.

The worst was when I had to get out to quickly pee outside our tent. I pulled down my pants and my legs were literally – LITERALLY – covered with midges. They went places I never want any bug to go. I screamed loudly and dived back into the tent with my pants down. I must have gotten 4 dozen bites alone.

After crankily killing the last of the midges, we went to sleep. That night, temperatures dropped below freezing and the midges all disappeared by 4 AM. I know this because I celebrated by peeing on the cold ground.

I’ll tell you about the last two days of our trip tomorrow. Until next time!

This is part of a series. For the rest of the series, click on the links below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Day 2 – Monday, 14 miles

We woke up in a slightly damp tent – there was no rain, only condensation and we were still trying to figure out our tent.

This was a gorgeous day – we traipsed through pastures with cows and sheep grazing. We found some wild raspberries and ate them, hoping they wouldn’t come back to haunt us. We were still in more residential areas and walked on a paved road during this time.

The most difficult part about this day was hiking Conic Hill – it was pretty steep and my feet weren’t used to hiking long distances at all.

After napping on Conic Hill, we got on our way and made the descent back into another town right next to the Loch Lomond region.

The weather was GREAT this day, and honestly, I’m glad it was because my feet were throbbing by the time we made it to camp at Cashel Campsite. We slept on/off for the next 10 hours, trying to get energy for the upcoming days.

Side note: camping laws in Scotland are pretty liberal, but as I mentioned yesterday there are areas where it’s more restricted. The Loch Lomond region happens to be one of these more camping-restricted areas, so we only were able to be in designated campgrounds.

Day 3 – Tuesday, 19 miles

This was the day things started getting TOUGH. We were determined to get out of the Loch Lomond region as fast as possible and so we hiked on hyperdrive. We met a hiker from Wales who was on a tight schedule, so he hung out with us for a couple of hours.

Hiking in the lake/loch region meant crossing a lot of streams and rivers – at first it was fun scrambling up and down rocks, but after crossing the 25th stream you start wondering if you actually died and went to hell and this was your eternal fate.

Austin has been active all his life, whereas I had learned how to run that summer and was still getting used to this whole “go hard until you die” sort of thing. At one point, Austin, the human Energizer Bunny, offered to carry my backpack so I could get a break but we could keep walking. I was stubborn at first, but eventually let him so we could go faster.

It started raining this day, too. Most people had bought covers for their backpacks, but we were cheap/late adapters and tried to use our ponchos to cover ourselves and the backpacks and looked like turtles. We bought a cover because the wind kept blowing the ponchos up.

After turtling our way through 19 miles, we were tired of being amphibious (i.e. wet and cold), so we stopped at a campsite called Beinglas (pronounced “Ben-glass”) past Inverarnan. We set up our tent and made our way to a warm, cozy pub that was a part of the campsite. There we gorged ourselves on potato soup and haggis and stayed inside until it was absolutely time to go to bed.

I wish I could say that we slept well, but honestly, we’re lucky we slept at all. We were kept awake for two hours by some extremely drunk hikers in the tent next to us, who were loudly talking, singing, and eventually barfing. Sweet dreams!

Day 4 – Wednesday, 13 miles

Those 19 miles weren’t good to me. My feet had recovered every night and I was always raring to go the next day, but due to a poor night’s sleep and doing 19 miles, my feet rebelled. They weren’t just crying out in agony; they were going through an angry emo phase and had organized their own Rage Against the Machine cover band.

I broke down. It was muddy, it was rainy, it was cold and my feet were wet. I think it was the wet feet that really did me in. I just started crying and Austin, sweet problem-solver that he is, wanted to stop and talk about it. But I was afraid that if I stopped I would never start again, so I just kept sobbing as we walked.

I was finally realizing what we had gotten ourselves into. I had done some camping like this before, but it was for such a short period of time and there was always home nearby, even if it was a few hours’ drive away. Besides, I was from a desert – our biggest problem was getting enough water, not getting drowned in it.

We met a few locals going in the opposite direction of us. They would smile at us, we’d say “Hi there,” and they’d say, “Horrible weather,” and we’d continue on our way. I was convinced that if the LOCALS were complaining about the weather, then okay, maybe I’m not being so dramatic.

Eventually we made it to Tyndrum. Because tears are an effective method of persuasion in this family, Austin decided that maybe it would be okay if we spent some extra money to stay in one of those microlodges and dry off for the night. I even took a shower!

Drying off revived my spirits and prepared me for some more beastly parts of the trail – I’ll tell you about those tomorrow, though.