Mount Timpanogos

Mt. Timpanogos (11,749 ft.) rises above Sundance and is the second highest mountain in the Wasatch Range. During one of my little road trips i drove up past Sundance on a scenic byway and went over the foothills into American Fork Canyon. The mountain looked fantastic, so i set aside one day to return and do some hiking.

Back in the hotel i found out there are two popular trails to the summit. One is called the Aspen Grove trail and one is the Timpooneke Trail. The Aspen Grove trail starts about a mile up the road from Sundance. The trail climbs 4,900 feet in 8.5 miles. The Timpooneke Trail starts above American Fork Valley. That trail is only 7.5 miles and 400 feet shorter but allows horses. I chose the Aspen Grove trail because i don't like horse trails, but also i just liked the view from that trailhead.

The name of the trail is the Aspen Grove Trail, and they weren't kidding.

In the distance on the right you can see the north summit of Timpanogos.

The trail slowly meandered back and forth up a long series of staircase cliffs.

The view down the valley towards Sundance and the hills beyond.

I did not come to Utah on this trip with a hiking outdoors type vacation in mind. Additionally, i had just come from Hawaii. Packing for both Hawaii and the high desert in late fall is not easy with one suitcase. What i'm saying is i was not prepared to climb up a mountain. I lacked a few necessary items. Specifically, i did not have hiking boots, gloves, a coat, a hat, or any pants suitable for the mountains other than bluejeans.

I started the hike early in the morning when it was below freezing. I did have a light jacket, and just assumed trudging uphill for 8 miles would warm me up. It did, especially when the sun got up above 30 degrees in the sky.

It's been a long time, maybe years, since i've been on a mountain hike in the lower 48. I was just amazed at the trail quality. It was ridiculously nice compared to most Alaskan trails. Wearing tennis shoes was adequate. No wonder my friends had occasionally scoffed at my advice to get waterproof boots for their visits to Alaska.

I started to break out of the trees. I had not seen a map of the trial so i didn't know if the trail was going up the cliffs on the right or up the entrance to the hanging valley on the left. It went up to the base of the cliff on the right and then broke to the left.

The trail started getting fun at the cliffs

The tallest shadow in the cliffs, left of center, comes to a point and at that point you can see 4 goats above it.

At this point the trail leaves the cliffs. You can see a lot of elevation has been knocked out. I felt closer to the clouds than the ground. Don't expect any wilderness views. The Wasatch Range is surrounded by development or roads on all sides.

After about two hours of switchbacks the trail suddenly levels off in a wide flat cirque.

When i finally got up past the switchbacks i found myself in a broad hidden cirque with scattered trees and ringed in layer cake cliffs. All up the trail and around these cliffs i saw dry waterfalls. It must be very pretty in early summer, with water everywhere. A little farther and i had arrived at a bona fide rock glacier. I had read that some "hikers" referred to a permanent snow patch on the mountain as a glacier, and the authors of these remarks said they were wrong. It was true that the snow field coming off the summit ridge was not a glacier, but the rockfield below it was definitely a rock glacier. Even that fact is impressive to me for Utah.

Eventually i came to another large cirque where the Timpooneke Trail came up the valley. At that point i encountered snow and slick ice on the trail as it traversed some high cliffs. A group of a dozen well equipped hikers were taking 10 minutes to go the first 100 meters on this portion of the trail. Since i had no boots and the wind was picking up i decided i had come far enough for the day. I think i had about a mile left, but i'd had a great time already.

The cliffs up here were really neat.

A dry waterfall below a Tower of Babel looking peak.

Another massive cliff of sediments.

A camper next to a reflecting tarn. I seemed to be above the smog.

The Rock Glacier! I was definitely hiking during rockfall season. The daily freeze/thaw cycle of this time of year was in full force. Rocks were endlessly falling off the cliffs and down the glacier, although you could almost never see them.

The two tarns were separated by a small moraine. The moraine was only about 20 feet wide but the color of the water was completely different in the two ponds. The Tower of Babel formation on the right.

From this angle it looks like a locomotive busting out of the rubble. A cloud spontaneously began forming right over it. I kept an eye on it because it was early enough in the day for that cloud to turn into a storm.

A little bit higher than the glacier brought me to an expansive hanging valley of grassland.

I was looking for somewhere to pee and roused up a bunch of slumbering goats!

While i was giving the goats a wide berth i found this in the weeds. I'm guessing it's part of a motor from a darned B-25 bomber. I can't believe how many mountains i've been on with crashed planes. I had heard that there is some wreckage somewhere on this mountain of an old bomber, and i'm guessing that someone picked this up from the wreckage, was carrying it back, and at this point decided that it was way too heavy to bring all the way back.