As I readied my pack for the hike to Utah’s Mount Timpanogos, I cringed to hear the distant sound of kids and counselors from Aspen Grove Camp launch into what seemed like their twentieth chorus of “Here Comes the Sun.” If I didn’t leave this trailhead soon, that song was going to be stuck in my head all day. I had to resist the urge to shout back, “Look, the sun came already! Do we need to summon the ghost of George Harrison to confirm this observation?” Bah. Mormons are too cheery to be allowed to go out in public.
At least the homebrewed legend of Timpanogos had a respectable element of tragedy to it. In ages past, the Timpanogots Ute tribe was suffering from an unrelenting drought, and the Princess Utahna was chosen as a human sacrifice to appease their angry god. She left her village, climbed the highest peak and was prepared to throw herself off, but a young brave from a neighboring tribe named Red Eagle spied her and begged her not to jump. Utahna thought Red Eagle was the Great God of Timpanogos, and the brave hesitated to enlighten her, because he had fallen in love, and to speak the truth would mean her death. If he returned with Utahna to his village, his deception would likewise be revealed, and she would carry out her sacrifice.
To save the princess, Red Eagle led her to a crystalline cave, far from her village, and made her his wife. For many moons they lived together in happiness, until a bear wandered into the cave, and Red Eagle was injured driving it off. Utahna saw the blood and finally realized that her husband was not a god. She cared for him until his wounds healed, then slipped away. Red Eagle found his wife’s broken body at the base of a cliff beneath Mount Timpanogos. He carried her back to the cave, laid her down beside a still pool of water, and died mourning for his lost princess. The Great God of Timpanogos then took their hearts, merged them into one, and fastened it to the ceiling of their burial chamber, where the heart-shaped stalactite can still be seen by visitors of Timpanogos Cave National Monument.
It’s a touching story. And interestingly, the tale was merely an invention of Brigham Young University professor Eugene Roberts, told around a bonfire in 1922 the night before an annual pilgrimage to the summit called the “Timp Hike.” This version was quickly accepted as a genuine Indian legend and continues to be shared with visitors on cave tours.
Although the Timp Hike was permanently cancelled in 1970 due to the ravaging effects of thousands of people hitting the trail at the same time, the summit of Mount Timpanogos remains one of the most-visited in the Rocky Mountains. I scarcely saw anyone the first few hours of my journey, perhaps because the other hikers had started much earlier in the morning. Or possibly the campers’ singing had scared them away. A flat tire had delayed my own departure, but now I was grateful to have the trail to myself. The path zig-zagged up the mountain through stands of dwarfish Gambel oaks and past gentle waterfalls. Much of this section followed a two-foot wide strip of crumbling pavement - a relic from some previous attempt to forestall the damage caused by the hordes of Timp Hikers. The asphalt had fallen down the mountainside in several spots, giving the trail a more deserted atmosphere than it probably warranted.
