Lone Peak

I've always loved to look at Lone Peak from down here in the valley. It's beauty, and jagged, huge cliffs have always looked so intriguing to me. I've wanted to climb it for a couple of years now.

On Sept. 10-11, I was finally able to go up there. I went with my sister. It's a pretty tough climb. In the book I mentioned in a previous post, it mentions Lone Peak as the most challenging hike out of the whole book. It has an elevation gain of 5,460 feet from trailhead to summit. That's over a mile vertically. It's supposed to be 12 miles round trip from the Jacob's Ladder trailhead. But the gate to that trailhead was closed & locked due to some recent landslides. We could have walked to the Jacob's ladder trailhead which was a couple of miles past the gate, but we decided to take the Cherry Canyon Trail, aka Bear Canyon, which is about 5 miles further round trip. We went a little over 18 miles total.

I knew I didn't want to attempt that big of a climb and descent in one day, so we packed up our overnighters and got on the trail Friday afternoon around 5:00pm.

The first part of the hike is strenuous and steep, and not particularly pretty. Totally exposed to the sun, but luckily it wasn't too hot Friday afternoon.

By the way, check out tentpak.com for these awesome packs! I bought one from my cousin, who is one of the owners, and I loved breaking it in!

Now we're getting closer to prettier country.

We went as far as we could before it got too dark and set up camp on a ridge. Here's our view from our tent Friday night. Looking Northwest, toward the Oquirrhs and the Great Salt Lake.

And Saturday morning.....

Here's the one and only source of water we saw on the entire trail.

We quickly entered into prettier areas. Pine trees, greenery, and lots of huge pieces of granite.

This is the Outlaw Cabin. I was talking to some hunters about some different routes.

We climbed over another ridge, and this is our first view of Lone Peak. Can you believe it?? It doesn't even look like we're in Utah anymore. It was absolutely breathtaking. Pictures can never really do it justice.

The pointy peak in the middle of the shot below is the summit.

This portion of the hike is called the Chimney, with class 3 scrambling.

Once you're past the Chimney, it's only 20 minutes to the summit.

Getting so high!!

This is actually as far as we went. We weren't on the real summit, (you can see 3 guys on the actual summit), but we saw the sheer drop off cliffs on either side, and decided that this was far enough. I'm sure we could have made it if we tried, but we were running out of time, and were getting tired. Yes, I was disappointed.

On my summit, with the real summit in the background.

Twin Peaks

Another view, making it a little easier to understand why we were hesitant to go further.

View looking north

Looking Northeast

Question mark rock

We were SO high up in the sky! I really felt like I was in a plane. Lone Peak sits at 11,253 feet.

Headed back down, looking down the chimney. Brianne's at the bottom.

View of Timp

Looking south toward Alpine/Highland/Utah Lake. Timp on the left.

Our tent on the ridge. (Center of pic.)

And a view of Lone Peak from I-15, on our way home. I was SO exhausted. Coming down on that exposed, steep part was really tough. Saturday afternoon was a LOT hotter than Friday afternoon, and I felt like I was baking to death. Not to mention the sore knees, wobbly legs, and blisters. But it was totally worth it!

Dirty, tired legs and feet.