“The Timpanogos Hike”, by Maurine Whipple

One in a series of introductions of pieces from A Craving For Beauty: The Collected Writings of Maurine Whipple (BCC Press, 2020).

This unpublished essay is based on Whipple’s participation in a 1943 midsummer moonlight hike of Mount Timpanogos at the head of Utah Valley. The annual hike, led from 1929 to 1961 by Charles (Chic) James Hart Sr., a PE teacher at Brigham Young University, drew hundreds of participants. She presents her own simple patriotism and sentimental response to nature as juxtaposed to a male companion she calls "the Cynic", who refuses to be impressed by any ceremonial, geologic, or natural wonders until the sublime moment of reaching the peak at sunrise.