Married couple accomplishes goal to do 60 hikes before turning 60

Married couple accomplishes goal to do 60 hikes before turning 60

(Courtesy: Williamson family)


4 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

ROY — About six years ago, Robert Williamson checked out a book by Greg Witt entitled “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Salt Lake City: Including Ogden, Provo, and the Uintas.”

Williamson joked with his wife, Phyllis, that they should try to hike all the trails in the book by the time they turned 60. On Labor Day of this year, they accomplished that goal.

“I pawned it off as a joke,” Robert Williamson said. “The next thing I know, she went and bought the book and said, ‘We’re gonna do it.’"

He is an avid fly fisherman and originally read to the book to find trails or streams to fish. He said he never really enjoyed hiking and went into the goal “kicking and screaming.” But he and his wife found that the more hikes they went on, the more they enjoyed hiking in general.

On Sept. 3, the Williamsons achieved their goal of completing 60 hikes before they both turned 60.

“It felt great,” he said about completing the goal. The couple wrote a blog about their experiences and shared pictures and detailed descriptions of each trail they encountered.

“The last hike was Olympus Peak,” he said. “We kept putting that one off because it seemed to be the hardest one.”

At Olympus Peak, he said he couldn’t go to the top because of his deep fear of heights, so his wife took up a red balloon with “60” written on it and released it at the top of the mountain. Their completion was perfect timing, as Phyllis Williamson had her 60th birthday just two days later.

“I turned 60 back in June,” he said. “Originally, we (made the goal for) before we turned 60, but I said if we did it in our 60th year, that still counts.”

His fear of heights made it difficult for the couple to conquer their goal. He said on hikes with really high peaks, he would sometimes only hike the base of the mountain and his wife would sometimes reach the peak.

Among their favorite hikes is Deseret Peak. The hike is out toward Tooele and Grantsville.

“I didn’t realize there was a 12,000-foot mountain peak out there in the middle of the desert,” he said. “I really like that one because not only is it surprising, but it was really beautiful. The views from the top let you look clear out into Nevada and then back towards the Wasatch Front and all the mountain ranges.”

His wife's favorite hike was the Ben Lomond Peak trail because it's near their home in Roy. She said she likes it because she gets to see it every day and think about how they walked across the whole front.

He said that not only was completing this goal beneficial to his and his wife’s health, but to their relationship. The hikes gave them a chance to talk, bond and show support for each other. From the start of their goal to the finish, Robert and Phyllis Williamson said they have now become avid hikers and are “looking forward to doing some hikes that aren’t in the book.”

Photos

Most recent Outdoors stories

Related topics

OutdoorsUtah

STAY IN THE KNOW

Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

KSL Weather Forecast