Primrose Overlook

We started out early for our hike. Like Saturday's hike, we went up Provo Canyon.  This time however, we kept going up past Sundance.....past Aspen Grove......to the summit of the Alpine Loop.  The trailhead started at 8050 feet elevation, so pretty high!

This trail was to Primrose Overlook.  The overlook is on the back east side of Mt. Timpanogos - but not on the glacier side.  This is the side most don't see. 

The hike was beautiful - through meadows and aspen groves.  It was pretty steep in some places.  On one of the longer (1/2 mile) steep sections, Shelley said, "This better be worth it".  When we got to the overlook, I asked her if it was worth it.  She said it was. 😊

We had Matt and Marissa with us, and Christian, my cousin who is going to BYU, and Hope, one of Hannah's friends.

The pics don't even come close to seeing the meadows, the views, the mountains, the trees in real life.

Our trail started on the Lame Horse Trail

We then turned on the Horse Flat trail.  Who is naming these trails??

The vegetation was very lush. It was waist high in some places along the trail

Christian taking some time to pose

Along the way were some meadows..although this one looked like water was in it - maybe a small pond in the spring

Christian and Jacob wouldn't stand still

This was along the pretty steep part.  A fallen tree made a great place to rest

We made it!  We saw some hikers hiking up to the summit of Timp.  That hike is not for us. It's about an 5 hour hike one way - it's 15 miles round trip.  Most do it at night so they arrive at the top for sunrise.  There were two small patches of snow left - you can see on in this pic.  Timp at the top is almost 12,000 feet elevation.

The mountains are endless

Can you see the "Summit Hut"?  It's a small white building on the summit of Timp.  There is a log book to sign and it's used in an emergency of someone gets stuck up there in the wind/cold, as the weather changes rapidly.  You can see the top of the building in the upper right part of the pic.

Here is a pic of the Summit Hut looking out over Utah Valley and Utah Lake.  No, we did not take this pic!!! 

Can you see the hut in this pic?

In this pic, the Heber Valley is off to the left.

Jacob and Christian making a cairn 

Here we all are with Timp in the background

Here we are with the valley in the background, us facing Timp

VIDEO:

This can be a loop trail, so on the return trip, we went a different way to complete the loop

This meadow would be so pretty in the Spring, but it was still beautiful the end of summer too

We noticed the smaller aspen trees did not grow up straight.  We are thinking maybe during the winter, the heavy snows push down on the tree and make it grow crooked

The red was our hike. Total distance = 3.8 miles, with an elevation change of 951 feet, which means we were at 9000 feet at the highest point, which would have been the overlook area.  Total hiking time=just over 2 hours.

It was a great hike!