I took a small WMC group on a very fun but very rugged hike in October to the striking peak in the southwest of the island, just east of the BLM bicycle trailhead. It's a huge, steeply tilted quartzite block with cliffs on the east and slabs on the west. I didn't take a GPS reading, but the top is roughly 6000 feet high and resides at 40° 48' 34.7" N 112° 30' 19.0" W (a guess based on Google Maps). I had climbed this peaklet a couple of times many years ago, clearly long enough ago that I had forgotten just how relentlessly steep and scrambly it is.

But it's all fairly straightforward class 3 on good rock, if you are persistent about routefinding. We had perfect conditions and the group never gave up. We left the BLM parking lot (at 40° 48' 23.2" N 112° 31' 13.0" W) and struck southeast-ish on the trail. After a few minutes, we got to the toe of the slab and started slogging up the ridge formed by the edge of the slab. At this point we were working our way between outcrops on steep lakebottom sediment, pausing at the Provo and Bonneville wave benches for a breath. Once above the highest lake level, the routefinding challenges increased substantially. For a long time, the best going was right on the edge of the slab or just over it to the east, taking great care never to get cliffed out. The crags here are very scenic, with artistically placed juniper trees and big piles of rectangular quartzite blocks.

We finally came to a (familiar) step where cliffs prevented progress along the edge. We worked our way out onto the western slab, and found routes that zigzagged tortuously up the face. We tried to stay fairly close to the ridgeline but kept getting forced northward (left) across the slabs by more cliffs and crags. After scrambling up a moderately awkward chute, I was rewarded by the view of a bizarre tilted flake that I had seen on both previous trips. We passed behind the flake and came out on the summit ridge.

It felt like we must be almost at the summit, but inconveniently the high point was still a fair distance to the north. There were simple traverses to the west around most of the crags, but the junipers made it hard to see far ahead, and we kept expecting to reach the top with each crag. Finally we reached the end, which is not quite the northernmost bump on the ridge. The tiny summit is a short scramble up more of the rectangular blocks, with a cliff to the east and a fantastic view in every direction. Since there wasn't enough room for everyone to stand on top, much less have lunch on top, we retreated to the next bump to the south.

On the previous trips, I made a nice loop by heading west down the slab, and I tried to do that this time too. I wanted to go down the slabs a bit to the south of the summit, but I was thwarted repeatedly by cliff bands and washouts and inconvenient trees. In the end, we made our way carefully down to a V-shaped wedge of limestone lying on top of the quartzite, and followed the south edge of the wedge down to the Bonneville wave bench. From there, we contoured southwest to a section of the Provo bench, then followed that bench southwest to where it meets the ridge that is on the north side of the parking area. As we dropped down that ridge to the west, I remembered that it had some nice fossils. I kept looking for them and failing to find anything very special, until all of a sudden there were zillions of them — corals, brachiopods, bryozoans, cephalopods.

If you want to do this hike, take a lot of care with your routefinding and be prepared for a lot of (fun) scrambling!

go to the Stansbury Island gallery

I've always been curious about the bizarre crags on the very northern tip of the Cedar Mountains. The crags are just north of a canyon that I have hiked a number of times, but until now I had never checked them out.

I decided on a route on the west side that wen up the steep canyon below the crags, then ran along the ridgeline from the “gunsight” crag on the north end to the sheer-walled “mesa” on the south end, returning via the canyon to the south.

This route was moderately challenging, mostly because there is a cliff band near the bottom that has steep and loose footing below and above the most reasonable crossing point. There are two draws that plunge over the cliff band, and we crossed through a class 3 step just to the south (right) of the southern draw. My goal was the crag at the top of the northern draw, however, and the traverse from the crossing point into that draw was quite steep, with lots of loose scree. The climb put us at the base of the second big cliff band, in between the two draws, and we followed the cliff down into the northern draw.

Crossing the second cliff band was almost anticlimactic — the draw cuts an easy route through it. We mostly stayed in the draw after that point, only traversing out onto the slope to the south when the draw filled with scree near the top. That put us right below the “gunsight”, which was just as cool close up as it was from a distance. It's a class 3 scramble up through the notch and down the other side. We worked our way over to the notch just south of the “gunsight” and had lunch in a sunny spot, enjoying the wonderful views to the east and west.

After lunch, we followed the east side of the summit cliff band south toward the “mesa”, checking out a number of other notches on the way. The footing was a bit tricky on the slippery cheatgrass. The walls were sculpted into odd shapes, with solution cavities / tafoni and even some stalactite-like formations.

It turned out that the northeast corner of the “mesa” had some convenient cliff breaks that allowed us to get to the top. The view from the summit was amazing in every direction; we could even make out Mt Moriah in Nevada way off to the southwest. We looked for a USGS marker, but we didn't find one. My GPS gave the summit elevation as 6526 ft.

I decided to drop off the summit to the east into an interior basin, since I knew from past trips that the east side was free of major cliff bands. We followed the drainage south and then west where it punches through the cliffs out to the flats. Well, almost all of the cliffs — the biggest cliff band requires a traverse south from the top of a gorgeous pour-off to the next draw, where there is a steep but but walkable route down just past that draw's own pour-off. After that point, it's just a walk down to the mouth of the canyon.

Thanks to Sue, Stanley, Yi and Phil for coming along on this adventure!

go to the North Tip of the Cedars gallery

On Sunday I organized a loop hike into a couple cirques high above the South Fork of the Provo River. It was a gorgeous but typically warm day at the end of July.

We started at the Shingle Mill trailhead at the end of the South Fork road, and used trail #211 to cross over into Big Springs Hollow. The trail mostly runs through pleasantly shady forest, and it picks up the main trail #059. This trail, a segment of the Great Western Trail, climbs steadily through (mostly) deciduous forest before suddenly climbing quite steeply for the last 1000 ft of elevation to the ridge. There are some switchbacks, but it's still a struggle.

At the ridge, we got a glorious view north toward Cascade Mountain and Timp, and an equally wonderful view south toward Provo Peak. After a break for lunch, we hiked south and upward to the junction with trail #057. We took in Peak 10006, then backtracked to the Carsonite sign directing us down a ridge on the west side of the Shingle Mill Creek cirque. We walked through a lovely forest, staying on the west side of the ridge, until reaching a saddle. The trail makes a hard right and contours into the draw, then follows the right side of the draw down to the intersection with the Great Western Trail #058. The trail is covered with gravel and cobbles, and it's quite awkward footing. This year, it is also very overgrown and passes through large patches of nettles. Ouch.

We turned left and followed the GWT back to the trailhead. This proved to be a very long walk, contouring high on the west side of the valley above private property in the bottom. The bad footing continued, reminding me of rubble on the Aspen Grove trail on Timp. The trail alternates between cool forested sections on north-facing slopes and drier, hotter sections on south-facing slopes. It seemed to take forever to get to the bottom, because the trail surface was so bad and the temperature was very warm.

Round trip was about 12.4 mi with perhaps 4000 ft of elevation gain. A respectable hike.

go to the South Fork of the Provo gallery

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.)

go to the Tushar Mountains gallery

This was my second year at Cheryl Soshnik's annual Bob Wright Memorial Death Valley Winter Escape. Once again, I came without a bicycle, and I hiked almost every day.

The weather was a bit stormier, with grayer skies and some very windy periods. It didn't actually rain on us in Death Valley until we were on the drive out, however. The flowers that impressed us last year were absent this year. On the plus side, the Funeral Creek campground was much less busy — on many nights, there were unreserved sites available.

My friend Jerry and I visited a couple old favorites and some new places.

Sunday 2/5: Most of the other folks were arriving Sunday evening, so Jerry and I used that as an excuse to go on a long drive to see a few sights in the western part of the park, around Panamint Valley. We drove west over Towne Pass, across the northern playa and over to the northwestern spur of CA 178, the Trona-Wildrose Road. (The northeastern segment over Emigrant Pass is currently closed, hence the detour.)

We drove south on this bumpy paved road to the roadside marker for the old mining town of Ballarat, then turned east on a dirt road to cross the playa and visit Ballarat. The town is hanging on by its fingernails, with the Ballarat Trading Post the only public establishment. The post is full of collectible junk, and it has a toilet that you have to flush by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl. There are some older buildings in various states of disrepair, with the wooden ones being in somewhat better shape than the concrete ones. The local concrete appears to rot away in the desert heat and wind. Like most ghost towns, it has an interesting cemetery. The headstones have mostly been erased by the harsh weather, and the scenery is eerie and desolate.

From Ballarat, we went north along the east side Panamint Valley road, then turned east on the Surprise Canyon Road. The lower part of this road is pretty loose and bumpy where it crosses the alluvial fan; drive with care if you don't have 4WD or AWD. The road ends a couple of miles up at the former Chris Wicht camp area. The camp burned in 2006 and it's not very attractive now.

We parked and walked up a use trail in the canyon. My expectations were low, given the mess at the camp and the fact that the canyon formerly held a mining road that was used to build and supply the Panamint City camp higher up in the canyon. I had entirely the wrong idea. In fact, the canyon has few traces of a road, so much so that it's hard to imagine that there ever was a road in the canyon, except for the handful of dead vehicles at the top and bottom of the narrows. Instead, it's now a raw gorge cut into solid white rock (aplite), with a lovely running stream that will promptly get your feet wet. It was so charming that it took Jerry and me well over an hour to travel about a mile through the narrows.

Our next stop was Darwin Falls, across the valley and up a winding side canyon off CA 190. It's a charming spot and it clearly has a lot of history, but we found that the scenery a little underwhelming after Surprise Canyon. Maybe we would have been more impressed if we had done the scramble upcanyon to see the upper falls.

go to the Panamint Valley gallery

Monday 2/6: We were joined on Monday for a hike to Corkscrew Canyon by Rob, Bob, Eve and Don. This hike takes off from a GPS waypoint on the 20-Mule-Team Road, which is on the opposite side of the Black Mountains from the more famous Artists Drive. A lot of the landscape reminded me of desserts — merengue, whipped cream, fruit, cake, ice cream, strawberry sauce. We hiked for a mile and a half up a wash and then up an alluvial fan to the mouth of the canyon, and wandered up the increasingly narrow wash. At another GPS waypoint, we turned south (left) into an extremely twisty side canyon that drilled through fun narrows and a natural bridge to reach an upper basin surrounded by beautiful textured walls and topped with towers. It's hard to describe in words just how cool this area is. We also checked out the mine in the main fork of the canyon. The ore sorter is still standing and it's still very impressive, but it's not in great shape and it has been fenced off so that idiots won't climb on it.

go to the Corkscrew Canyon gallery

Monday 2/6, later in the day: Jerry and I hadn't had enough punishment, so we decided to drive up the Echo Canyon Road to the Inyo Mine. The road is fairly rough with deep gravel in the narrows; it would be somewhat challenging for a 2WD vehicle. We stopped to check out Eye of the Needle Arch before pushing on to the mine. The mine buildings are in a fairly poor state and the ones that are standing look like they may join the collapsed ones pretty soon. We got back to the paved road just as it was getting dark.

go to the Echo Canyon gallery

Tuesday 2/7: Margie had never been to Fall Canyon, so Jerry and I walked up to the fall with her. It was a warm day in a (mostly) shady canyon, which was quite appealing. Fall Canyon is (still) amazing.

go to the Fall Canyon gallery

Wednesday 2/8: Unlike last year, we had a crowd for the Funeral Slots hike. My limited goal this year was to get above the rockfall in the main fork and check out the slots above. The climb proved to be easier than I expected, and 4 of us managed to get up it. We also got everyone to the overlook in the first side slot on the right after the main right fork. This side slot is quite narrow and has a few obstacles, but nothing really major. It leads up to a nice view down into the main fork as well as an expansive view out to Death Valley. It was a warm day and we sweated up and down the alluvial fan on the way to and from the slots, but we did get a little breeze and some cloud cover in the afternoon.

I botched my directions to some folks who left the hike early and they came out on the road 2 miles north of Furnace Creek. Ouch. I highly recommend traveling with a GPS unit or GPS-equipped phone and (at the very least) taking a waypoint at your car so that you can find your way back to it. This hike has a lot of cross country travel across a wasteland that generally looks the same everywhere.

go to the Funeral Slots gallery

Thursday 2/9: The other folks wanted to go bicycling. Jerry and I were concerned about the forecast for record high temperatures and high winds, so rather than hiking, we took a tour of two ghost towns.

Cerro Gordo, the fat mountain, is located high above Owens Lake. In its heyday, it produced millions of dollars' worth of lead, zinc and silver — one of the minority of mines in the area that actually made money for the miners. At 8,000 feet the wind was stiff and cold, but we got a tour from a volunteer named Bill who showed us around the museum buildings and the old American Hotel. The site is privately owned and used to feature a B&B, but the cost of maintenance in this remote area is high and a number of structures are in need of restoration. Currently the upstairs section of the hotel is off limits due to concerns about the flooring, for example. Friends of Cerro Gordo is a 501(c)(3) that exists to raise money to maintain the site.

On the way back to Furnace Creek, we diverted to see the old site of Skidoo, a ghost town high on Tucki Mountain above Stovepipe Wells. I was surprised to discover that you get a view of Furnace Creek from the road as it winds its way up the mountain. There are no buildings remaining at all at the old town center, much to my surprise. The only substantial structure that's left is the stamping mill, located in a canyon on the far side of town. The mill is falling apart, however. It's clear that there have been some efforts to shore it up, and they are not going to be enough to save it.

Great Basin ghost towns are steadily disappearing into history...

go to the ghost town gallery

Friday 2/10: Palmer Canyon is Fall Canyon's little sister to the north. Mark and Rob accompanied Jerry and me from the Fall Canyon trailhead north across bizarre eroded terrain to the high alluvial fan at the mouth of Palmer Canyon. The lower narrows of Palmer Canyon are some of the best we've seen in the park, deep and rugged with imposing gray walls. The canyon floor is mostly walkable gravel, with a couple of excursions onto slickrock. There is one awkward 6-foot scramble around a chockstone in the second narrows, but otherwise there are no obstacles. I was obsessed with the view of crazily folded limestone beds that you get in the upper canyon (and which appear to actually be in the left fork of Fall Canyon). The uniquely strange topography of the badlands south of Palmer was also magnetically attractive and I wish we could have spent more time in there. I'll note that enough people have now visited Palmer Canyon that you can actually follow a tread for most of the way from the Fall Canyon trail, and there are multitudes of cairns when the tread disappears. Don't do this hike on a really hot day, but otherwise I recommend it highly.

go to the Palmer Canyon gallery