Tushars 2017

I hadn't been to the Tushar Mountains since 2004, and that's way too long to be away from Utah's third-highest mountain range. I was also looking to test my lung function at high elevation. I started having lung issues back in 2011, culminating in episodes of pulmonary embolisms in 2013 and 2014. A hike to 12,000 feet seemed like a good test!

Friday:

We stayed at a camp site high in the mountains that I had used back in 2004. It's off of the Kimberly Road, Forest Road 113, very near the high point. Most of the area is private property derived from patented mining claims, but FR 1074 has a sliver of Forest Service land that is open to dispersed camping. At 10,000 ft, we had the area to ourselves; we saw only one person all weekend, passing through on an ATV. It was a very comfortable climate — 70s in the afternoon, 40s at night.

On the way up to the camp site on FR 113, I got stuck behind a bull elk with a massive rack. After a tenth of a mile or so, he dived into the aspens on the downhill side of the road. I have no idea how he gets around in the woods with antlers like that. I also saw a doe deer and her tiny fawn, so small that it could barely stand straight. I had to wait for the fawn to pick its way into the woods, followed by a nervous mom.

Neither FR 113 nor FR 1074 were as good as I had remembered. FR 113, the Kimberly Road, is drivable by a passenger car if you take it slowly and watch for rocks. Unfortunately there was one spot just above Kimberly where a rivulet crosses the road, and plastic parts on the front end of Ying's Camry were damaged by a rock there. Ouch. FR 1074 is steep and twisty, and it has loose rocks on the surface that make it impossible for non-4WD vehicles to climb. I ended up shuttling Ying, Beth and Grant from their cars over to the camp site in my 4Runner.

Saturday:

I forgot my camera back at camp. D'oh!

I chose to do a shuttle hike. My idea was to drive a couple of vehicles through the Kimberly mine area over to a hill named Tip Top, then hike the Pipeline Trail along the west side of the ridge to a saddle. From the saddle, the plan was to hike over Gold Mountain, 11,650 ft, and along a long ridge back to camp.

The plan mostly worked, but there were a number of hitches. The Tip Top road (FR 480) was rougher than I expected, and we ended up parking less than a mile above the junction with FR 113 and hiking the rest of the road. (Of course, the road improves after the first mile!) At Tip Top, we started south on a dirt road that led us to a faint track that climbed into the woods and faded away. It turned out that the Pipeline Trail was actually a hundred feet or so down the slope from this dirt road, and we found it fairly easily after backtracking a little way.

I thought that the trail was surprisingly good, apart from some annoying early season deadfall. There were lots of tree carvings on the aspens. The view to the west revealed a huge burned area; the high ridge was mostly intact, but there were a few places where the burn reached up to treeline and left dead trees along the trail that fell over into piles. We lost the trail in a couple of places, but we picked it up again fairly easily with a bit of work.

The ascent to the saddle was grueling for me. I had to stop periodically and gasp for breath; not surprisingly, I was last to the saddle at 10,700 ft. We all then had to suck it up for a very steep talus climb up Gold Mountain. But the climb really didn't last all that long, and most of the route was over gentle, bare talus slopes. The top had an awesome 360-degree view, a great vantage point for Baldy and Belknap just to the south.

From there, we still had a long slog. We had to descend to a saddle and then climb gently again to the top of Signal Peak (11,306 ft) before we could start heading northeast toward camp. On the way down the descent road, we encountered a truck with Alex Jones and MAGA bumper stickers coming up from Kimberly. The driver turned out to be the current owner of Kimberly — he has bought up most or all of the scattered patented mine claims and consolidated them. It was a good thing that we had camped on Forest Service land rather than his property!

Sunday:

There was a general sentiment that if we're going to go to the third highest range in Utah, we damn well better do a 12,000-footer. Mt Belknap is the most accessible of these peaks on the 4th, given that the high road FR 123 is normally closed until Pioneer Day. The bad news is that it's just a huge pile of crap. Barb observed that it looks like parts of the San Juans above treeline, and it clicked — I have been up similar piles of crap there.

We lucked out: the northernmost 2.8 mi of FR 123 was open. A gold miner needed access, so they had opened the first two gates. That turned what would have been a very long day into a shorter and much more enjoyable day. Above the last gate, there were still patches of snow on the road and a fair amount of rockfall (but not that much deadfall). Upper Beaver Creek is lovely — a deep white gorge, green meadows, thick forest with lots of aspen.

The road led us to the Bullion Pasture trailhead, which is a fine starting point for Belknap. There's a parking lot there with a nice toilet that was actually unlocked. The route up Belknap is not very well traveled, but above treeline, it's easy to see where you're going and you can pick out the faint tread without much trouble. The summit cone looks difficult from a distance, and it still looks difficult close up. There is no way to avoid toiling up a lot of steep loose talus, where every step is untrustworthy.

To my shock, at about 80% of the way up, we hit a constructed trail. The trail wraps around the south side of Belknap and reaches the summit from the west. I managed to struggle up to the top for my second visit there. For some reason it seemed much easier than Gold Mountain did on Saturday. There is now a big green sign on the summit, and the register says that the trail and sign were an Eagle Scout project.

We stopped at the restored Silver King mine site on our way back. There is a self-guided walk around the area, with a printed guide pamphlet. The restored Darger house is really cool, and there is a short walk around the area taking in the adit and the old “honeymoon cabin”.

Monday:

My goal for Monday was to hike the Bullion Canyon trail to the Pocket, a cirque high on Delano Peak (12,169 ft), the high point of the Tushars. We piled into my 4Runner and I drove FR 113 east to Marysvale. The descent is steep, washboardy and winding — a cow or ATV can be just around the next corner.

Marysvale is paradise for ATVs. Just about every house has an ATV out front; the streets were crawling with them.

I drove us to the Bullion Canyon trailhead. We parked at the Pine Creek crossing and walked the hot, rugged and dusty ATV track up to Bullion Falls. The falls are glorious at this relatively early point in the season, and we checked them out. Greg managed to get all the way down to the plunge pool, holding onto ropes that earlier visitors had rigged.

Starting just before the falls, the ATV track turns into a single-track path. There were horses parked at the falls but no ATVs. A sign warned that the trail was closed ahead due to a rock slide, but neither we nor the horses had any trouble with it. It turned out that the horse riders were a volunteer trail crew. They were heading up the trail clearing the deadfall with chainsaws. We were very grateful, because there was indeed lots of deadfall.

Bullion Canyon is spectacular. It has heavy forest, flowery meadows, running water, cliffy scenery and (best of all) no ATVs. Given the trail crew's work, the trail is generally in good condition. There were a few places where Forest Service trail markers, cairns and/or blazes were handy, and there were some brand-new looking trail signs.

We took the Pocket trail up to see cirques on Delano. The trail isn't very obvious, in spite of the new signage. It angles back to the east and downstream, crossing Pine Creek and climbing the slope in switchbacks. We had some trouble a couple of times finding the trail in the woods, but thanks to Beth's GPS map, we always managed to get back on it. Eventually we turned a corner and found a lovely view up toward the Pocket and Delano Peak, and we declared victory. There was a dust devil factory at this viewpoint — mini-tornadoes picked up spruce cones and small rocks and tossed them in the air, making a very strange roaring noise in the process.

Tuesday:

After 3 days of fairly tough hiking, we gave ourselves a break so that we could beat some of the traffic back to Salt Lake. We got up early and drove to Fremont Indian State Park. We walked around and saw various petroglyphs and pictographs in the increasing heat. As on a previous visit, I was impressed at the amount and quality of the Indian art. It was not always in obvious places, and as I stood at the base of a cliff and stared, more and more examples popped out.

Many thank-yous to everyone who came for making the trip a blast: Greg, Beth, Ying, Stanley, Barb, Shasta and Grant! (And extra thank-yous to shuttle drivers Greg and Stanley.)

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