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Our engagement day had its roots in our shared love of hiking. In the northeast, the Adirondacks and the Appalachians have active hiking clubs, which have various lists of the highest peaks, the peaks over 4,000 ft, and such. Hiking all of the peaks on these lists is quite an achievement in the region and widely known in the culture. When we lived in Ithaca, we made many hiking trips to both the Adirondacks and the Appalachians, crossing off a good chunk of the peaks that topped the lists of the region. Laura, who LOVES lists, would gleefully record each hike in her beautifully formatted excel sheet:
<-- Colored coded and everything
After moving out to California, we kept up our hiking and ventured to many of the local mountains. Unlike the northeast, however, there are not a lot of ready-made lists of best/highest/worthy local peaks to hike. After one summer hiking more or less at random, Laura's eye was twitching so she had to find a list to organize the summer's hiking lineup. She eventually stumbled across the southern California 'Six Pack of Peaks', a series of the the six tallest peaks in the region in ascending order of difficulty. Of course this list became our hiking goal for the summer. By early September, we had completed the first five hikes, and were ready for the last of the Six Pack (Mt. Wilson, Cucamonga Peak, Mt. San Antonio, Mt San Bernadino, and Mt. San Jacinto):
The final hike of the Six Pack, Mt. San Gorgonio, seemed like the perfect place to propose. As an 18 mile trail with over 6000 feet of elevation gain, the "day" hike would be a major accomplishment and would round off an excellent hiking season. Since Laura has a passion for geology, William's original idea was to conceal the engagement ring inside a fake rock that he would hide at the top of the mountain. Laura could then find the rock with the unusual geology (maybe with some prodding) and be curious enough to take a closer look. Laura could then 'discover' the ring inside. It was a splendid plan.
<-- San Gorgonio according to the plan.
To implement it, William took over the upstairs bathroom to create the fake rock that would hold the engagement ring. Laura was very confused and slightly disturbed to hear the pounding and cracking noises coming out of the bathroom as William emerged, wearing blue latex gloves, assuring her that "it's a surprise!" Mixing epoxy, glue, and sand in different design iterations, William ended up with a clamshell "rock" perfect for hiding among the other granite stones common on SoCal peaks:
<-- "What... is that?"
However, the week of the big day Laura found out that she had to complete an important test for work on Thursday night at the JPL observatory. We decided to do the test and go hiking anyway, but of course Laura had no idea that William planned for this to be much more than a hike. After a night of observing, we ended up at a hotel not far from the mountain at 4:30am on Friday. Originally hoping to get an early start, we were dismayed to find that we had slept in- by a lot. As in, we missed the hotel's breakfast. Deciding to press on and "see how far we get." we made it to the trailhead by 11am. Laura was content just hiking to hike, but William was determined to make it to the top- he had plans to implement!
After our summer of training, we made very good time on the way up. When we stopped for lunch, we met up with a lone hiker who stopped to eat with us. He was from Alabama, on a trip with his wife who was interviewing for a job that day. Instead of hanging around the hotel, he had decided to go out and hike the tallest mountain in the area (without telling anyone). That mountain just happened to be San Gorgonio - and was a beast of a hike for someone poorly equipped with only poptarts, beef jerky, and bottles of water. Laura was worried that despite the fact that the poptart dude was making good time, that his inexperience in the mountains and lack of survival equipment was going to cause him trouble. She resolved to keep an eye out for him on the trek.
<-- Visual approximation of poptart dude (aka Josh)
Because we had gotten very little sleep and maintained a rapid pace, Laura started feeling the altitude as we climbed above 10,000 feet and so we slowed down. Our turn-around time of 4pm came and went, but William was determined to make it to the top for the proposal, so didn't mention the time to Laura. Poptart dude caught up with us again and briefly joined us as we hiked along the trail - being generally friendly and encouraging. Eventually, he decided to press on ahead of us to find the summit amid the clouds. We kept moving along - slowly - crawling along the rocky slopes in the freezing wind. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, Laura decided that since the visibility had dropped to twenty feet and the trail was now flat, so we must be basically at the summit. However, since we had not seen poptart dude, Laura hunkered down and sent William ahead to see if there was a summit marker and/or poptart dude just up the trail before we headed back down. When William disappeared up the trail, Laura sat in a bush for warmth.
<-- Laura and William at Laura's bush
After only a few minutes, poptart dude materialized on the trail near Laura's bush. He cheerfully reported that the summit was less than 5 minutes up the trail - it was worth going just to say you made it! He advised that it was worth going soon, though, since it was already 5 pm. 5 pm!?! We still had a 9 mile hike back to the parking lot! We could make it out in 3 or 4 hours, but we had flashlights and appropriate gear. Which then quickly led to Laura's realization - poptart dude was definitely not ready for a 9 mile night hike out. So Laura told poptart dude that he should go down the trail where it was warmer and wait for her and William- we would be 5 or 10 minutes behind him and could meet up to hike out together, sharing flashlights to make sure that we all make it out. Poptart guy lit up at the offer and said he'd definitely wait for us a little ways down the trail - thanks! Of course, William heard none of this...
Back at the summit, William was busy taking pictures of the summit marker when Laura ran up the trail to meet him, saying she wanted to get a picture and GO - it was already past 5! Realizing that freezing, windy, and low visibility summit - combined with Laura's impatience to get moving - were not ideal conditions for a rock hunt/proposal, William wisely decided to delay the moment.
<-- The wrong place/time for a rock hunt/proposal
So he quickly came up with a contingency plan that he would wait until we returned to a beautiful overlook about 20 minutes down the trail. There, we could warm up and get a great view of the Los Angeles area. As we returned to the overlook, William was excited and started waxing poetic about how beautiful everything was. We had reached the top, it was warming up, and the spot seemed perfect for a short break and a mysterious rock for Laura to find.
As we turned the corner to the overlook, much to William's dismay, we see:
William was disgruntled, having expected privacy to pop the question (the pop minus the tart). Laura, feeling good as we hiked down from the summit, was glad to have everyone accounted for and eager to get moving further down the trail before dark. Before William could figure out how to get rid of poptart dude, Laura was off running down the trail, poptart dude following, and William bringing up the rear. After an hour of making good time back down the trail, we finally stopped for a snack (more poptarts!). It was about 6pm at this point, and William thought it might be the last chance to propose to Laura in the daylight, but poptart dude was still there. Seizing the moment, William suggested that Laura might take a break in the woods before continuing.
Of course Laura, not making anything easy, didn't see the need to head into the woods until William kept (weirdly) pressing the issue. As Laura momentarily left, William intimidated the poptart dude into leaving our hiking group (William swears he just asked the guy to give him a couple minutes to speak to Laura and wait for them a little ways down the trail). William did NOT mention he was trying to propose. Poptart dude, confused by the sudden revocation of his invitation to hike out together, was leaving as Laura returned. Laura was also confused since the sun was setting and poptart dude had no flashlight. Given the rapidly fading light, she saw no reason to linger either, and started hiking to make the most of the remaining daylight.
<-- Getting dark and 6 miles to go!
Despite William's excuses to get her to wait, she took off, leaving William to scramble after her, the engagement rock in hand. Finally catching up to her, William asked her to take a look at an interesting 'rock' that he had 'found' at the summit. Laura, confused as to why William suddenly was taking an interest in geology only as it was getting dark, saw this and exclaimed:
<-- "What ... is that?!"
Realizing it wasn't the usual sort of rock, Laura noticed that it had hinges and opened up ... and upon doing so, found another (much nicer) type of rock inside.
Laura realized at that moment why poptart dude had been sent scurrying off. (Of course she assumed William had told the poor guy what was happening). That's when William asked the question and Laura said yes.
Epilogue:
After a few moments enjoying the last of the sunlight, we pressed on down the trail with only our flashlights against the total darkness. About 3 miles from the trail's end, we stumbled upon poptart dude, sitting by the trail with his dying iPhone:
He had lost the trail, with no flashlight, and was preparing to bivouac for the night (his own wife had no idea where we was and his cell phone had no signal). We of course had him join us and hike the rest of the way out. He was extremely grateful (and probably confused) as we made it to the parking lot and went our separate ways. As we drove off back to Pasadena, Laura thought to ask William what he had said to poptart dude to get him to leave the group so quickly. And that's when we realized that poptart dude never found out that we had gotten engaged that day and therefore never knew why William had scared him off, and would go back to Alabama never knowing what was going on with the crazy Californians. We're sorry poptart dude/Josh!
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