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WHAT IS IT?A relatively small, mountaintop cave system that boasts the rare cave formation helictites as well as the standard flowstone and stalactites.
BEAUTY (7/10)
The scenic highlight of the Timpanogos Cave NM is not the cave at all; it’s the gorgeous surroundings of the American Fork Canyon. The walk up was much nicer than the walk in. The temperatures were warm, but the maple and oaks that line the canyon had already begun to change colors, stunning oranges, reds and yellows. We almost felt as if we were driving up 322, some beautiful Saturday morning, to State College to see a Penn State football game.
HISTORICAL INTEREST (2/10)
A Danish immigrant found the cave in 1887 while tracking a mountain lion. Later, it became a popular tourist spot and faced destruction; the visitors kept stealing all the cave formations. In 1922, Warren G. Harding stepped in and protected the land making it a National Monument.
CROWDS (7/10)
The Cave Tour group size is limited to 20 so there is little danger of further claustrophobia. Our group was amiable enough. However, the cave seems to inspire more than a fair share of strange behavior.
As we walked up the mountain (see EASE OF USE/ACCESS) a group of teenaged hooligans were walking down, intent on starting rockslides and dangerously sprinting down the side of a canyon. On our tour, a young girl forgot, despite the innumerable signed reminders, to go to the bathroom before she entered the cave. So the Ranger gave her a hikers bag to pee in. Her dad later complained to me that there should be a bathroom installed in the cave itself.
EASE OF USE/ACCESS (1/5)Timpanogos Cave achieves a level of inaccessibility previously thought impossible. To reach the cave itself you need to walk a mile-and-a-half of paved switchbacks up the slopes of the American Fork Canyon, an elevation rise of more than 1,000 feet. The Park allows you to start walking up the incline an hour-and-a-half before your tour is scheduled to begin.
Cave tours are frequent, every 20 minutes or so, but have a 20-person limit. Park literature warns that the summer wait can be as long as three to four hours. They suggest booking a tour by phone two weeks in advance.
Because the Cave path lies at such a high altitude, snow prevents all tours from early October to mid-May! The Site is open for only five months of the year, tops.
The Visitor Center lies right along Utah Route 92 and is easily accessible. It is about 10 miles east of Interstate 15, exit 287 near the suburban sprawl of Salt Lake City. If you continue up Route 92 and the Wasatch Mountain Range, you will be on the Alpine Scenic Drive and will pass the Sundance Ski Resort. Of course, that stretch of road is closed in the winter.
CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
The bookstore had the standard selection of wildlife guides and caving books. A separate concessionaire operates outside the visitor providing snacks and snazzy Timpanogos Cave clothing. If you are forced to wait for a tour, the nice picnic benches could be a blessing.
COSTS (2/5)
Timpanogos Cave double dips you cost-wise. We understand the $6 per person cave tour, but in addition there is a $3 per car entrance fee into the Uinta National Forest. If you have the Golden Eagle Hologram on your National Parks Pass, the $3 fee is waived. The Parks Pass does not cover the $6 cave tour.
RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (4/5)
A 20:1 Ranger to visitor led tour is not so bad, especially when the tours are oft given.
TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)Gab enjoyed the kid friendly cave tour much more than Michael. Michael wished that there had been more geology explanation in lieu of the many flashlight identifications of goofy looking stalactites. Michael has come to learn the error of his desires after struggling through lecture after lecture in southern Utah Parks which attempted to explain the geology of the Colorado Plateau. Perhaps the Cave Ranger really did know best in not attempting to delve into that Pandora’s Box of questions.
FUN (7/10)
Luck was on our side the morning we arrived at Timpanogos. Rangers told us the next available tour began in 20 minutes, meaning that we could begin hiking up the mountain in 20 minutes. The tour itself would start in a little more than hour and a half. This gave us just enough time to browse through the bookstore and gift shop and purchase a second National Parks Passport Book. What? Yes it’s true. We completely exhausted all space in the Rocky Mountain Region of our first book. Don’t point to the extra space in the front and back of the book – that’s filled too.
So with that milestone under our belts, we began our hike. We enjoyed the brisk walk. But we’re not sure we would have wanted to be much closer to the descending group of hellions, or tried to hike up the hill with a number of younger children in tow, like some of the families we passed on the way up.
WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (7/10)
The cave tour took a backseat to the rest of the American Fork Canyon, whose fall foliage was just starting to show off. The hour and a half timeframe you are given to hike to the cave entrance gives you ample time to view your surroundings. Benches and rest points are everywhere, except for along parts of the trail marked in red – this is where rockslides, even without the help of high school students, tend to occur.
Timpanogos Cave NM is one of the few places you can see helictites, formations that look like twisted strands of curly ribbons or the DNA helix they were named after. The Cave doesn’t boast a lot of superlatives. It’s not the largest, the longest, the rarest. It’s just a neat little cave, halfway up a mountain nestled in a beautiful canyon, conveniently located next to a huge city. Worth the summertime trip out of Salt Lake or Park City? Yes.
Just remember to “go” before you enter the Cave.
TOTAL 45/80
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