Primrose Overlook

Sometimes being in the wrong place works out fine. My hike today was an example of that.

I spoke with my son yesterday and he was telling me about a hike he went on out of Timpooneke Campground in American Fork Canyon. He wasn’t sure what trails he was on, but he said he found a great waterfall on the trail.

*Visitors to Primrose Overlook enjoy their view*

At that moment I decided that I would make that my journey this morning.

I left my house at about 6:30a today and drove into Provo Canyon to head up on to the Alpine Loop, which has just opened for the summer. It is a beautiful drive that goes past Sundance Ski Resort and lots and lots of wonderful landscapes.

*View from the Alpine Loop. These same locations will appear later in pix from a different location.*

The Alpine Loop is a 20-mile winding road through the Wasatch range. It connects American Fork Canyon with Provo Canyon. It is stunningly beautiful.

While making my way up the loop, I came across several lovely scenes. The camping scene below was one. There were also miles and miles of Aspen forest with wildlife abounding.

*A wonderful place to camp – surrounded by Aspens and the view of the snow-capped mountains*

*Landscapes like this were on both sides of the road for miles*

When I reached the midway point of the Loop and started down the other side, I came to the Summit trail heads. I pulled in and parked.

The problem was that I did not do my map research and I ended up at a different area that head several trail heads. I had not idea where any of these trails would lead. I have the app that shows me all the trails, bit I purposely did not use it…at least not at this point.

I like adventure.

My son told me the middle trail of three trails (at the other location) was the one that led to the falls. Turns out that the location I parked at also had 3 trails leading out. While I knew this was not the trail he was referring to, I still decided to head out on the middle trail. For some reason I was drawn to this hike by some mysterious force.

The video below gives you a sense of the beginning of the hike.

It did not take long to fall in love with this choice of trail. I was immediately in a forest of Aspens that had all varieties of wildflowers. The trail also had several clearing with big beautiful, green open space. I took the photo above at one of those open spaces.

*A small group of wildflowers have found a nice location*

*Some of the wildflowers and sites on the trail*

*I like the color of this decaying blossom. It makes me think of crepe paper.*

*One of many downed Aspens on the trail*

After watching and carefully studying the Aspens that were growing on the steep side of the mountain, I noticed something about most of them. Because they started growing the side of a slope, they come out of the ground facing the downward side of the slope. Then they turn up. After they turn up, they actually grow back a bit.

I think one of the reasons this happens is because if the shoot out straight from the slope, eventually their weight will make them fall. So they correct upward a bit. But then even that correction could leave them tilting and at danger of losing balance. So they then correct back the other way a bit and then the head straight up after finding their balance.

I try to show this in the photo below and in the subsequent video.

The trail had very easy sections and it had a few sections of climbs that made me a bit tired. Part of the tired was from the fact that my feet and legs were tired from yesterday’s 12.2 mile hike in Provo Canyon. The other part was from a few steep sections of the trail. I knew I was getting close to the summit, but the scene below (also shown as first photo in this post) took y breath away and reinvigorated my step.

I couldn’t wait to get there to see the view.

*After about a half mile section of the trail that has moments of moderately hard climb, I spotted this scene through the trees – Primrose Overlook!*

When I arrive 3 minutes later at the overlook, I was not disappointed. In fact, I was elated. The views too my breath away.

*The side of the overlook, looking south toward Sundance.*

*This shows a series of many cascading waterfalls coming off of Timpanogos*

I spent about a half hour on the overlook. Honestly, I was so overjoyed with the view and the fact that I randomly stumbled on to this trail. I was also so happy to be at my closest proximity to the summit of Mt. Timpanogos. It made me feel so much more confident about making that hike this summer.

*I like the color of the tree and branches I saw on the way back down.*

The trip back down was pretty easy. I was still buzzing from my visit to the overlook. I took a different trail back down. After about 15 minutes, I came across a watering trough in a grove of trees. If I was out of water, I would have drank some myself. It looked good!

*One of the cool findings on the way down was this horse watering*
*trough that is fed by a natural spring.*

When I got back to the trail head, I saw this cool looking van thing. I think it was being used as a camper. It’s license plate called itself the FIREBUS.

This hike was off the chart. I look forward to bringing others with me to see the Primrose Overlook. I am going to add a few more things to this post as well. After leaving the trail head, I drove to the Timpooneke Campsite and took a few pix and video along the way.