The article about the first Timp Hike appeared in the Tuesday, July 23, 1912, edition of the Provo Post. In the images below, the article is located to the right of the center photo of “Queen of the Day.” It continues on page 6 in the second image, and is located near the bottom of the page near the ad. The text of the article is as follows:
Summer Students Climbed Timpanogos
Largest Party That Has Even Ascended the Mountain Enjoyed High Altitude
“The summer school class in physical training at the Brigham Young University conducted a mountain climbing expedition to the top of Timpanogos last Friday and Saturday. Twenty students, thirteen boys and seven girls, made the trip and everyone succeeded in reaching the highest peak of Utah’s most magnificent mountain. This was the largest crowd that has ever stood on Timpanogos at one time. Those who made the climb were David Gourley, Hugh Holdaway, David Mitchell, Samuel Baird, Hyrum Smith, C. E. McClelland, J.G. Gubler, Fred Taylor, Karl Eyring, Hugh Brown. LeGrande Hardy, Professor Kelley, Director Roberts and Misses Hattie Walker, Margaret Bean, Pearl Romney, Mrs. McClellan, Virginia Karren, Charlotte Curtis and Nellie Taylor.
The party left the “Y” gymnasium at two o’clock Friday afternoon with Mrs. C. E. McClellan as chaperon. They were driven in wagons to Stewart’s ranch at the head of the North Fork of Provo canyon, where an open air camp was pitched. At six o’clock Saturday morning the great climb was begun with every excursionist in high spirits, and all the lady members determined to reach the top regardless of numerous predictions to the effect that many of them would fail. By 7 o’clock a.m. the party had lifted itself up over numerous terraces and cliffs, past water falls unsurpassed in charm anywhere in the world, and were resting beside the deep and blue little lake at the foot of the Timpanogos glacier. There they had lunch and after a few minutes rest, began the hardest part of the climb up a thousand yards of steep snow bank on the back of the glacier. The snow in places was almost perpendicular and the ascent would only be made by cutting ziz zag steps into its surface. The boys and girls all reached the top by 12:15 p.m. and spent one hour on the peaks, surveying the vast and magnificent panorama below them on all sides.
Timpanogos commands the most inspiring view of any peak in Utah. It looks off into Salt Lake Valley and upon Great Salt Lake on the north; westward it overlooks the desert valley in western Utah; to the south and southeast it commands views of Juab and Sanpete; and from its peaks one can see to the east the great Uintah ranges, the Duchesne gulch, Strawberry Valley, and the round basin containing Heber, Midway, and Charleston. Immediately below and to the east the huge cliffs jump off hundreds of feet, forming great amphitheater, which at one time were filled with streams of slowly moving ice and are now beautiful pine groves and mountain flowers. In one of these cirks [sic] the shrunken remnant of a once great glacier slowly crawls toward a miniature lake and is broken into tiny bergs and ice fields by its rippling surface.
Utah valley with its lake, its cities and fields lying immediately to the west, forms perhaps the most enchanting view of all. To get the thrill and inspiration from this one big lookout into the depths is worth all the trouble and fatigue of the mountain climb. Elsewhere in the world people go thousands of miles for such a climb and such a view. Here too many of us are content to while away our lives without one experience of this sort, even though it is so easy for us to get.
Reluctantly the twenty students left the top of Mt. Timpanogos and plunged down the steep snow bank, sliding nearly one hundred and fifty yards without a stop and making the rest of the distance down the glacier with almost equal speed. The descent to camp was made in three hours and the party reach Provo by 10 o’clock Saturday night.
We intend to make one or two more trips to Timpanogos with different parties this summer, and would be glad to have anybody join us who loves mountain climbing and who enjoys the “big thrill” that comes from standing on mountain peaks.”
