Kyhv Peak, and the name that changed in 2022

Because the former name contained a slur directed at Native American women. On 1 September 2022 the United States Department of the Interior announced its removal from federal use nationwide, covering more than six hundred geographic features across the country and about fifty in Utah, and the United States Geological Survey updated this one on 9 September 2022. A Provo committee had been campaigning for the change since 2017, and a Utah bill passed unanimously in 2020 streamlined the state process for renaming features.

It rhymes with dive, with a k at the front, so it comes out close to kive. The word is a variation of a Northern Ute word for mountain, and it was chosen in consultation with the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation rather than picked by a committee in isolation. The spelling is what throws people; the sound is a single short syllable.

It stands at 7,865 feet, roughly three thousand three hundred feet above the Provo valley floor, and it sits directly east of the city above the mouth of Rock Canyon. It is the summit most visible from central Provo and from the university campus, which is why it is the one people mean when they point east and ask what that is. Higher ground stands behind it, out of sight from most of the city.

It gates to vehicles around 1 November, earlier if the snow arrives early, and reopens around 1 May or later in a heavy snow year. That is roughly six months of closure, during which the overlook is reachable on foot, on skis or on snowshoes and not by car. A clear dry day on the valley floor tells you nothing about a road two thousand feet above it, so confirm the gate with the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest before you drive out.

Yes, when the road is open. The first four and a half miles or so from Provo Canyon are paved and comfortable in any vehicle, and they finish at the overlook, which is a signed viewpoint looking out over Provo, the university, Utah Lake and the far shore. It is the best view in the county that requires no walking at all. Beyond the overlook the surface turns to rough dirt for about five more miles and wants clearance and preferably four wheel drive.

No. Kyhv Peak at 7,865 feet is the summit immediately above the mouth of Rock Canyon and is the one visible from most of central Provo. Provo Peak is a separate and considerably higher summit further back in the range, out of sight from much of the valley floor and a much longer day. The two are frequently confused in casual conversation because both are described as the mountain east of Provo.

Hard enough that it stays quiet. Two routes reach the summit, both rated moderate to hard, and both are rocky underfoot with sustained steep sections, with some tree cover low down and long exposed, dry stretches near the top. It is a serious half day to full day rather than an afternoon, the trailheads are less accessible than the ones lower in Rock Canyon, and the trails hold snow later into the year than the road does, so the practical window is narrower than the gate dates suggest.

Because a federal register update does not reach a printed map, an older guidebook, a trip report from 2015 or a stone marker cut decades ago. All four of those are still in circulation, and a carved marker at one of the trailheads still bears the retired trail name. Expect to meet both names when you search, treat older route descriptions as still valid because the ground has not moved, and use current federal and forest district sources for anything about the road, the gate or a booking.

There is a campground several miles beyond the pavement, reached along the rough dirt section of the road, and there is dispersed camping in the meadows along it. All of it is inside the road's seasonal window, so it is available for about half the year and unreachable by vehicle for the other half. The campground at the head of Rock Canyon operates seasonally on advance reservation through the federal booking system, and it is the more commonly used of the two.