7 Highest Peaks In Utah County - Hiked in 3 Days

THE CALL OF THE CHALLENGE

It began in 2018, when a friend and I were talking about the 7 Peaks of Utah Valley, and how people hike them over the duration of the summer. I joked about hiking them in a week, 1 peak a day, and how that was doable. We then began to wonder how fast someone could do all 7 if they were fit and well-trained. Could they do them in 4 days? 3 Days? Even Less?  At the time, it just seemed like talk, just letting our imaginations wander. But as time passed, the 7 peaks in 3 days stuck in my head, and it only continued to get louder. 

In 2022, I became a new father, bought a house, and lived the so-called “dream”. But with this, I also felt the slow creep of comfort. I wasn’t overweight, but I wasn’t fit either. And so to take back some control in my health, I decided to start trail running. (Yes, I hiked a lot over the years, and I’ve run since middle school, but never had I combined the two.)

I started on a mountain I knew well from my days in the Forest Service, Timpanogos Mountain via the Timponekee Trail. That summer, I ended up falling into an impromptu goal of trail running on Timp 16 times in 16 weeks. It wasn’t always to the summit, but rain or shine, I committed to getting on that trail at least once a week.

After that summer, I realized that 7 peaks in 3 days might actually be possible for me. And 2023 was going to be the year…until it wasn’t. Life had other plans, including a new baby on the way, changes to my work schedule, and less time to train. That Autumn, my wife Kat and I felt as though something was missing. Life was too comfortable, and we weren’t stretching ourselves enough, so we decided to rent out our house and hit the road.

We moved our two young kiddos (a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old) into a travel trailer, and we traveled. Kat worked remotely, I left my job and took on more freelance work, and became the stay-at-home or trailer dad. This shift gave us exactly what we had been missing: Time! 

Our first month on the road, Kat looked at me and said, “If you are ever going to do the 7 peaks, 2024 is your year,” and she was right. I ran trails in the desert, forest, snow, heat, and every possible environment we found ourselves camping in. I trained with purpose because this goal had become a calling. To show my kids, through example, what it means to chase your dreams. 

7 PEAKS ON GOOGLE EARTH

I decided on the 3rd week in September of 2024 to do my challenge. I hoped this would be cool enough to really push myself, but also have no snow. The week prior, things were not looking favorable for a couple of reasons. 

1st, there was snow in the forecast for the whole next week in the mountains—the week of the challenge. 

2nd, I developed a bad case of runner's knee. Going up or down hill was excruciating. Luckily, a friend, who was a sports doctor, said I couldn’t damage it from doing my challenge; it would just be painful. So I turned to KT tape and some medication to help keep inflammation down, and pushed on. 

Doubt was on my mind constantly during those final days leading up to the challenge. Little did I know what lay ahead for me over the next 3 days.

It was 3 a.m. when my alarm went off, not that I had gotten much sleep anyway. I had my gear all ready to go, yet the recent snow the mountains had received 2 days prior sat in the back of my mind. Doubt and fear in the shadows of my mind, waiting to pounce at any hesitation, as I drove to the first trailhead, Lone Peak.

I met my friend, Chase, at the trailhead. Looked up at the summit still blanketed by night, and away we went. Taking it steady so as to best optimize my energy. Lone Peak had put up a fight a month prior when I did it for my first time, but this time I was ready. As sunlight broke, we were within a mile of the summit. It’s sheer face dusted in a good 6 inches of snow! 

Yet, as we made it to the ridge and did that final 100-yard traverse over boulders and around cliff edges, my footing felt secure. Nothing felt overly risky, and so we confidently made it to the summit. Peak 1, done!

• Lesson: Fear feeds on imagination, such as my worry about the snow being too sketchy. Reality, most times, is a lot less scary. Lone taught me to stop catastrophizing and start showing up! 

For Mount Timpanogos, I had my friend Frietz join me. I needed someone who would push me to go faster than I wanted for my second peak that day. Stepping onto that trail felt like meeting up with a long-lost friend. I had been on this trail some 25+ times in my life, yet never hiked it for sunset. 

The whole way up, Frietz and I shared stories; honestly, I felt like I had found a flow. Was I exhausted? Of course. But I felt good, and the summit came quickly; the snow that had been up there had pretty much all melted throughout the day, giving me hope for the next couple of days. I even stopped to hang out with some mountain goats on the descent. By 10 p.m. I was home again, day one complete.

• Lesson: Repetition builds resilience. You grow every time you show up, even if you don’t notice it until you're standing at the top. The more you do, the easier it becomes.

Another 3 am wake up call, exhausted and sore, I headed for the next peak, Cascade Peak. I had never hiked this peak so I did the next best thing, I read all the trail notes I could get my hands on from TrailForks, AllTrails, and any other forums. The overall vibe of the mountain was that it was deceitful and brutal, of course I interpreted that as “these people just hadn’t hiked a lot of mountains before, so I will have a great time.” Oh how I was so quickly and rightfully humbled. 

An old high school friend, Derek, joined me on this one. Making our way to the ridge line was great, we made it well before sunrise. Yet that was the easy part, what laid ahead was 3-4 miles of constant ups and downs, mixed with false summits and a trail that often disappeared. 

At one point we were confident we had finally reached the summit…only to discover it was still over a half mile away. I debated on just calling it, no one would know if we had made it to the actual summit or not. But deep in my soul, I knew I could never put this goal to rest if I didn’t go all the way, and so we continued on. We found the summit book, marked our names, and descended. 

• Lesson: No one else is watching your shortcuts, but you! Do the thing right, even when no one else would notice or care. You’ve come too far to sell yourself short.

To even start this trail was a challenge in itself. After Cascade peak, my truck got a flat tire, and the spare tire was jammed. We burned over two hours on unplanned setbacks. I finally got my wife’s car and trudged on to Provo Peak while she and my dad got my truck figured out. 

By the time I started hiking, I was toast! It was the heat of the day, knee pain that I had kept at bay with KT tape and Tylenol was coming back with a vengeance, and my plans were falling apart. 

Despite this being the shortest hike, it was beyond steep. The closer I got to the summit, the closer I got to having a full-on breakdown! Tears welled up in my eyes, and frustration and exhaustion flooded my body. I wanted nothing more than to go home, to sleep, to call it quits.

 At the summit, I cried. I called Kat and told her, “I don’t think I can do this.” I had planned to hike Peak 5 on day 2, but I was done. She recommended I come home, regroup, get a good meal in, then see how we feel. I listened to her advice, I got off the mountain and regrouped. When I went to bed, I set my alarm for 3 a.m. to tackle the final 3 peaks on the last day. 

• Lesson: Sometimes you need to fall apart to find the strength to go on. This was my breaking point. 

You know, when you take things for granted in life, and then come to find out there is a huge wrench thrown in your plans? Yeah, that was Spanish Fork Peak. 

Last morning of waking up at 3 a.m. My brother-in-law, Forrest, would be doing this peak with me. It was one I did just weeks prior, and was pleasantly surprised with how it went. I was looking forward to hitting the trail again…well, a short 10 minutes later, we were stopped by a closed gate on the road. The road leading to the trailhead was under construction, thus preventing us from getting to the trailhead, which was 2 miles away. I was so tired and delirious, I just laughed! 

I called my wife, told her what we had found. Meanwhile, Forrest hops on Alltrails and starts looking to see if there are any other trails to the summit. Lo and behold, there is a trail I had never heard of. The Sterling Hollow Trail goes straight to the summit. And get this, it was slightly shorter than the route I planned on, and was only another 10-minute drive away. 

We get to the new, well-hidden, and less trodden path, and away we go. That morning, I felt light again; I felt like life had been breathed back into me. When we made it to the summit, the sunrise was golden and felt as though it was lighting a fire within me. I glance at the final two summits, feeling ready for what they might hold.

• Lesson: In life, plans will fail, but you don’t have to. Learn to adapt, laugh at the unexpected, and let childlike awe lead the way. 

I gotta be real with ya, this peak seems to go by so many names. To this day, I really am not sure what the actual name is, but what I do know is I did the right mountain I was intending and wow was it a fun one. 

After peak 5, Forrest left and my dad took on the mantle of hiking with me. It was fun having him there, especially on the last day. He began to notice more energy in me than I think either of us expected, and not wanting to slow me down he told me to go as fast as I felt comfortable going and to not wait for him. He would just go at his own pace and be there to assist if my knee pain came back stronger. 

And so I listened to my body, and I leaned into the energy. This was the first time success of the challenge felt completely secured, as though I had it in the bag. I felt the strongest I had on any peak, I even trail ran on parts of the ascent. And on the downhill, I felt as though I was flying. 

Off in the distance, I could see Mount Nebo looming on the horizon. At one point, the view stopped me in my tracks. There was something ominous about that last peak, something that brought back doubt and fear, even though I couldn’t place where it was coming from. Maybe the approaching sunset, maybe something else…but within 2 hours I would find out. 

• Lesson: Not everyone will run beside you, and that’s okay. Some people will cheer for you even when they can’t keep up and those are the people who matter most. Surround yourself with people like that, and also make sure to be a person like that to those you love. 

We pulled into the parking lot at 4:45 p.m., my heart was pounding in a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Kat, who was pregnant with our third kid, our two other kids, and my parents were at the trailhead. They wanted to be there for me when I finished. With my dad planning to hike up behind me, just in case I would need any assistance if things went wrong. 

I prepared my gear, gave my wife and kids a hug, and at 5 p.m. I started up the trail, at a slow jog. This peak is only about 4-4.5 miles to the summit, and the first mile is fairly mild. Halfway through mile 2 it gets intense with a steep section that puts Y Mountain to shame, but that section gets you on the ridge. 

Along the ridge you get a perfect, daunting view of the summit of Mount Nebo, It was looking like I would be the last one on the mountain. As I passed people, one warned me of the false summit and how it is really deceiving. I looked up, saw what they were talking about and thanked them for the advice. I felt confident I had it pegged. 

Finally I was at the base of the false summit, a section that was incredibly steep, like being on a stair stepper! I dug deep, I was only a little over an hour in on the trail, and I was within a mile or so of the summit. I was exhausted, every muscle felt like it was made of lead, but I kept going. I made it the false summit, “it seems a lot smaller than I thought it would be” I said to myself. 

I looked up, the summit was so close. I was about to do it, to accomplish my goal! The summit was 50 feet away, then 40, then 30, I couldn’t stop smiling to myself. 20 feet away from victory, now 10 and as I reached the top…my soul shattered into a billion pieces. 

I let out a “no” so raw, so heavy it could have stopped the world from spinning. There on the “summit” I looked up and saw the real summit still a half mile away. I had only reach the top of the false summit everyone warned me about. Every part of my mind, soul, and body wanted to quit right there. I wanted to be home in the comfort of my own bed, and for the final time of this challenge…I cried. 

I cursed the mountain, I wanted to be anywhere else! I was overcome by emotion and completely tapped out, the final push was narrow, rugged, and steep! I spoke out loud, more like prayed to God for strength to finish this or to take me off this mountain in that instance. I felt the strength to go one step, and then one more, one step at a time I reached the real summit, some 2 hours since I started the trail. 

I sat at the summit, the sun setting slowly over the valley like it had been waiting for me to arrive. The view was beautiful, but I felt hollow. All the emotion I thought I'd feel, relief, triumph, some kind of big moment, was already spent at the false summit.

Up here, I was just... empty. Not in a bad way by any means, I was just there on the mountain. No more goal, no more energy, no more emotion. 

I took a few sips of water and ate a built bar, while just sitting there for a minute. My mind was quiet, my body hurt, but it had done its job. And now, there was only one thing left to do…get off the mountain, and back to my family.

At the base of the false summit, I found my dad, headlamp gleaming like a lighthouse for a weary sailor. We descended the mountain together, fatigue was catching up to me, hallucinations were starting to take place as night settled in. Shadows moved and danced in ways I couldn’t comprehend, the trail under the headlamp felt like something from a fever dream. That last mile I was sure I would fall over, passed out in some sagebrush…but the body kept going until the very end. 

On the drive home, I sat in the passenger seat, barely able to keep my eyes open. Somewhere between the mountain and the quiet hum of the road, it hit me…I had done it. The goal I’d been carrying for six years was finally finished.

If I’d had any energy left, maybe I would’ve cried. But I didn’t! I just closed my eyes, let out a slow breath, and smiled.

• Lesson: Life is full of false summits, they trick you into thinking you finally made it, only for you to realize you still have a ways to go. The real test? That comes after the heartbreak, when you decide if you will keep pressing on…that's where the magic happens.