Mount Timpanogos, elev 11,750' Aug 2006

Since the hiking season is rapidly coming to an end I thought I better hurry and do Timpanogos. I had talked to a friend, Mark Hiles, a couple of days before about doing the hike and he was very intent on joining me. He has a goal to hike Timp every year, and he hadn’t done it yet this year.
It was good to have him along too because he has been to the summit two times before, although both times he took the Timpanooke trail but descended the Aspen Grove trail once. I headed to his house at 6:40 and we arrived at the Aspen Grove trail head at about 7:10.
The Trail Head is well marked and starts at the north end of the parking lot (which requires a $3 fee). The first portion is a well graded trail which after a little while turns into a paved trail for the first .8 of a mile.
The first part of the hike takes you through the Primrose Cirque. It was a pretty view looking down the canyon, which reminded me a lot of the view of the beginning of Angels Landing in Zion National Park. Numerous switchbacks take you out of the Cirque and into the Hidden Lakes Basin.
This is a pretty change of scenery - big meadows with a couple of small lakes and one larger one above which in the cliff band we saw the first four of the 18 mountain goats we saw on our hike. Not too long after entering the basin, we came to Emerald Lake and the Timpanogos Shelter.
After leaving the shelter, we headed West and soon came to the boulder/snow field. For the most part, the trail is pretty easy to follow, and is also marked with cairns. Even if you do manage to lose the trail (as we did for a short while) it is easy to see where you are supposed to go off to the west. The trail which leads up to the saddle is visible as you climb through the boulder field to the west.
Once through the boulder/snow field the climbing up to the saddle begins. It really isn’t that tough, especially compared to Box Elder or Provo Peak. Once at the saddle, turn left (south) to head toward the summit. A faint trail also comes in from the right which leads to North Timpanogos.
At the saddle it became extremely windy. So much so that I had to use a carabineer to fasten my hat to my camelback. It also became a lot colder. It remained windy and cold for the remainder of the hike toward the summit.
The trail then takes you on some short switchbacks through a cliff area. After getting through this area, the summit comes into view and doesn’t look that far off. The remainder of the hike is just following the trail and watching the metal hut on the summit get closer and closer.
We reached the summit at 11:15 and spent a half an hour taking pictures, signing the log book, eating lunch, and hunkering down on the East side of the summit ridge to get out of the wind.
Instead of sliding down the glacier, which Mark had done on his previous two trips up Timpanogos summit, we oped for the more prudent route (in my view) of backtracking down the trail. The trip back down was where we saw most of the mountain goats. We also saw some storm clouds rolling in which accelerated our decent.
We arrived back at our car at about 2:50pm after 14.7 miles according to my GPS (all other sources I’ve read indicate that it should have been about 16 miles). It was a fun hike with a variety of different terrains. It wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined the "mighty" Timpanogos would be, but it left me tired and sore nonetheless.