Back in Utah at the Mountain Valley RV Resort in Heber City. We love to stop here on our way south as it is such a beautiful park with views of the mountains in Utah’s Wasatch Range from our site. This time we had a different agenda for stopping here as we wanted to climb Mt Timpanogos, it was listed on the top 20 hikes to make you feel like a Badass. Naturally we had to go for it!!! Mount Timpanogos also referred to as Timp, is the second highest mountain in the Wasatch Range, rising to an elevation of 11,752 ft. We left the RV Park around 8am passing the Deer Creek Reservoir with views of Mt Timpanogos in the distance. We drove to Aspen Grove to begin the 18 mile hike, out and back, to the summit.
The Aspen Grove Trail has several switchbacks featuring many waterfalls and amazing views. We met a young man on his way down the trail, he left at 4 am and wanted to see the sunrise from the summit. We still had miles to go before we even reach the summit. We finally came to a beautiful meadow area with some small lakes and a larger one, Emerald Lake. We paused for a lunch break and could see the summit a long way away. Finally, above the trees we came to the saddle across a snow covered boulder field, very sketchy in places, and stopped for beautiful views of the Utah Valley. It is 3 pm, 6 hours to get here, but we wanted to reach the summit another hour of hiking. So on and straight up we went along the ridge towards the summit. At last, we made it to the top of Mt Timpanogos, 11,752 ft, where there is a steel hut precariously sitting on the summit. What fabulous 360 degree views of Salt Lake City to the NW and the entire Utah Valley. We soaked up as much scenery as we could before heading back down. Click on thumbnail to view images
We started down at 4 pm and wanted to get down as fast as possible. We did get to see some mountain goats close up on our way down stopping to get photos. Then the sun set and the trail started to get darker and we had to use our cell phone lights to see, luckily we met a young man hiking down with a headlamp so we followed him for a while. The last hour the full moon cast some light on the trail, and we made it down by 9 pm. Well, that was a very long day but well worth the views. Next time I would recommend starting earlier around 6 am, especially if there is snow on the trail.