Timpanogos Hike

Saturday marked our 2nd adventure before school starts again. It is a long standing tradition in Erin's family to hike Timpanogos once a year. We haven't been able to because of the kids. It had been 5 years since we hiked it last with Erin's family.
We started the hike at 4:45 in the morning. Erin's brothers and my friend Shawn came in addition to Erin and I. We took the Aspen Grove trail, the one by Sundance. The hike is supposed to be 8 miles to the top of Timpanogos. so we wanted to get an early start before the sun came up. We met a lot of hikers on the way up that were coming down. I guess a common thing is to start the hike at midnight and watch the sun rise. Those coming down couldn't make it up for one reason or another.
The start of the hike was...well....dark. we couldn't see much since we only had one flash light to split between the five of us. When the sun came up we were exposed to a brilliant view of the mountain side! It is a pretty hike for those willing to do it.
About 7 o'clock found us pretty far up the trail when we noticed that clouds started forming up all around us. Our view was taken and replaced with gray. It was so intense that we couldn't see much more then ten feet in front of us. Yes we knew about the storm that was supposed to come yesterday, but we pressed on.
We took some breaks and filled up our water bottles at the spring. We had a lot of good snacks and a ton of water. It was actually relaxing. Yes I huffed and puffed my up, but it wasn't all bad. The wild flowers were everywhere adding a blanket of color to almost everything we saw.
We made it to the lake at 9:15 ish when we decided to have "lunch". There is a glacier of snow that the wind comes right off of at the lake. We FROZE! We made a quick decision that the top wouldn't be a possibility due to the cold and the fact that we couldn't see anything anyway. So we started down.
No more then 10 min passed when it started to hail and snow. Yes, August 15 and it was snowing. We kept up a good pace and about 10:45 the snow started to melt and turn into rain. The trail turned into mud. We turned into wet messes, but we weren't cold.
We made it down the mountain and to the car by 12:00. We hiked about 14 miles yesterday. I couldn't walk for the rest of the day yesterday. I jarred my legs pretty bad on the way down. Erin was fine. She was saying how energetic she felt and how she was so excited that we still had the whole day left! We all did better then we thought we would. I didn't stop at all coming down and didn't stop a lot going up. Well, I stopped more my first time 5 years ago.
So, I recommend this hike, but watch the weather!