Freedom Peak

Any adventure that involves getting up before four am is bound to be epic. And this one was. 
This morning's trip began when Michael knocked on my door at 4am. We had planned on bagging some peaks up above rock canyon. Because of the recent snow on the mountain tops, I had rented an ice ax from BYU's Outdoors Unlimited. Neither one of us has a car, so we rode our bikes. The ride up to Rock Canyon is long and steep. Despite temperatures in the low thirties, I was sweating by the time we made it to the parking lot. From there, we locked our bikes and started hiking up the canyon. After about three miles, we found ourselves in the Rock Canyon campground, which was completely abandoned. We had a little trouble trying to find our trail on the other side of the campground. While searching in the dark, we saw headlights in the trees about three or four hundred yards away. We bushwacked our way up the mountainside to where the lights had been, and found ourselves on a dirt road we hadn't know about. We were finally able to find our trail, and we continued upward and onward. Pretty soon it started snowing. Just a few small flakes at first, then a bit more, until it was coming down hard all around us. Thick clouds rolled in, obscuring our view of the mountains. We lost the trail, but the route was obvious. With a shallow layer of snow on the loose rock hillside, the going was tough. The ground got so steep that climbing further would have been nearly impossible without an ice ax.
Micheal had an interview to be to at 1pm, which meant we had to have him home by noon-ish. Unfortunately, this meant turning around only half an hour or so from the summit. But mountaineering isn't really about summits anyways. All in all, it was a good 6 miles or so each way, with more than 5000 ft of elevation gain.
The descent was fairly straightforward, and we were able to get back to our bikes and ride home just a few minutes after noon. I slept through the BYU football game without any shame.