Thursday, August 26, 2010
Hiking Mt Timp - part 1
For me, one of the Big Events of the summer was hiking Mt Timpanogos. I had two visiting students as part of BYU's "REU" (Research Experience for Undergraduates) that I was supervising, and as a standard part of the REU program our department chair (Ross Spencer) takes the students on a series of hikes, culminating with Mt Timp.
To prepare I biked to work nearly every day for a month or two, and went on three "training hikes" of several hours each. It wasn't enough... I barely made it, and was extremely sore for several days. (The hike was about 5.5 hours up and 3.5 hours down, if I recall correctly.) But it was worth it! The day was glorious.
I'll share pictures in four sets of ten or so. Most of the pictures were ones I took, but some were from students Courtney Klosterman, Ben Francis, and Jessica Morgan. (Thanks!)
We hiked up the Aspen Grove trail, and hiked down the Timpanooke Campground trail. We started in the dark (6 am), so didn't take very many pictures of the first section. Fortunately, I have some great pictures of the first section from this blog post from last year: http://johncolton.blogspot.com/2009/08/summer-pictures-part-2-hike-near-back.html. So go look at those pictures, first.
I think this is the second waterfall you come to along the trail, but it could be the third.
This is the large snowfield you can see from below (see my blog post from last year). It's much smaller in this picture than in the blog post from last year, because this was later in the season.
The dawn hit us after we had been hiking a while. The light was pretty.
This is what I'm calling the fourth waterfall. (The third waterfall was a little off the trail, so I'm not sure if it counts.) The trail actually goes in back of the waterfall. That was cool.
If you look at the blog pictures from last year, you can see a clear ridge line at the top. This was what things looked like right around there.
I honestly don't recall this section, but I took the picture so I must have been there! It looks way more dangerous than it seemed at the time.
This is right at that first ridge now, or possibly just past. From this point you could look back and see the city of Heber and a bit of the Deer Creek Reservoir in the distance.
After you make it up over the ridge (after hiking for several hours up a pretty steep incline), you are rewarded with a view of the destination! If you look closely, you can see a small shack on top of the highest part. I couldn't believe how much higher it was than we had already climbed.
I was impressed with my camera's zoom ability. I didn't expect this picture to turn out so nicely.
This is "The Lake", as people call it. (Emerald Lake, to be precise.) It was much smaller than I expected--about the only thing the entire hike I could say that of.
To prepare I biked to work nearly every day for a month or two, and went on three "training hikes" of several hours each. It wasn't enough... I barely made it, and was extremely sore for several days. (The hike was about 5.5 hours up and 3.5 hours down, if I recall correctly.) But it was worth it! The day was glorious.
I'll share pictures in four sets of ten or so. Most of the pictures were ones I took, but some were from students Courtney Klosterman, Ben Francis, and Jessica Morgan. (Thanks!)
We hiked up the Aspen Grove trail, and hiked down the Timpanooke Campground trail. We started in the dark (6 am), so didn't take very many pictures of the first section. Fortunately, I have some great pictures of the first section from this blog post from last year: http://johncolton.blogspot.com/2009/08/summer-pictures-part-2-hike-near-back.html. So go look at those pictures, first.
I think this is the second waterfall you come to along the trail, but it could be the third.
This is the large snowfield you can see from below (see my blog post from last year). It's much smaller in this picture than in the blog post from last year, because this was later in the season.
The dawn hit us after we had been hiking a while. The light was pretty.
This is what I'm calling the fourth waterfall. (The third waterfall was a little off the trail, so I'm not sure if it counts.) The trail actually goes in back of the waterfall. That was cool.
If you look at the blog pictures from last year, you can see a clear ridge line at the top. This was what things looked like right around there.
I honestly don't recall this section, but I took the picture so I must have been there! It looks way more dangerous than it seemed at the time.
This is right at that first ridge now, or possibly just past. From this point you could look back and see the city of Heber and a bit of the Deer Creek Reservoir in the distance.
After you make it up over the ridge (after hiking for several hours up a pretty steep incline), you are rewarded with a view of the destination! If you look closely, you can see a small shack on top of the highest part. I couldn't believe how much higher it was than we had already climbed.
I was impressed with my camera's zoom ability. I didn't expect this picture to turn out so nicely.
This is "The Lake", as people call it. (Emerald Lake, to be precise.) It was much smaller than I expected--about the only thing the entire hike I could say that of.
# posted by John Colton @ 9:45 PM 
