Bridger Peak
County: Rich
Peak elevation: 9,255'
One way hiking distance: ~1 mile
Elevation gain: ~1000'
Date hiked: July 27, 2008
Interesting notes from Summit Post:
"Within Utah, Bridger Peak claims title to the lowest county highpoint, while in the US, it claims title to the highest "runt" county highpoint (Bridger Peak is the highest of the lowest county within a state)."
"Rich county's current population is estimated at 2100 people (2004 census), making it the third lowest in Utah behind Piute, and Dagget counties."
"Rich is also home to Utah's coolest average temperature throughout the county: 41 degrees."
The last statement, about the average temp, was confirmed when we took a tour of Minnetonka Cave while we were staying at Bear Lake last weekend. The tour guide said that the temperature of any cave is the average temperature of the surrounding area above ground. The temp inside the cave was about 40 F.
So the hike was short, but steep for the first half mile or so. I think it took us about 45 minutes to get to the top. We drove on highway 89 on our way home from Bear Lake, where we were staying in a cabin for the weekend with our friends the Grants and the Olsens, and just a mile or so after Bear Lake Summit we went north on Swan Flat Rd. Swan Flat was a pretty good dirt road that takes you clear up to less than a mile from the peak. We parked where we found the ATV trail that heads up the mountain. If you see the sign for the Idaho state line then you've gone too far. So the ATV trail takes you about half the way up the mountain, and when that trail starts to head east, you need to bushwack your way to the top. There aren't a lot of trees to go through, just weeds. I got lots of those stupid seeds that stick to your socks on me. Very annoying. Like SummitPost says, at the top there is a pile of rocks and a register. There was no pen or pencil, so I didn't sign the register. It was also missing its lid. This hike was not really the coolest county highpoint hike, but there are worse. It is something to do while your staying at Bear Lake. This was Milo's first county highpoint! Good job buddy! He did pretty good in his backpack. He started getting fussy on the way to the top, so I took him out and just carried him for about 10 or 15 minutes. He slept for most of the way down.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Bridger Peak
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
2008 County Highpoint Goal
So here is the goal for hiking county highpoints in 2008:
- AF Twin peaks: Hike it while Im up at Tibble Fork as part of the Elder's Quorem campout. I read that there is a 4x4 trail that takes you to 500 vertical feet below the peak. The only question is how much snow there will be on June 20th when the event it planned.
- Bridger Peak: Hike it while we are at Beak Lake with three other couples and kids at the Chauza's cabin. It could be tricky getting away from the wives and kids for a half day, but we'll probably get away with it.
- Bull Mnt: This is a drive right to the top peak that I'll be able to take the wife and kid on (if the wife wants to go) on a Saturday. I'll just have to wait until there won't be any snow up there. That would be the worst to drive clear to the Northwest corner of Utah just to be blocked by snow partway up.
- So Tent Mnt & East Mnt: As far as I know these are two highpoints that you can drive quite a ways to the top. I think each peak has about a mile or so hike from where you park. I'll probably save these two for August or Sept, after I have gotten a hiking backpack for Milo.
- Mnt Nebo: I'll probably do this one in July or August with Eric. I for sure won't be taking Milo or Erika or Sohpie. Its probably an 8 hour round trip hike and quite difficult. .
- Brianhead Peak: We are going to Zions this fall with some friends so we'll stop by Cedar Breaks National Monument and bag this peak on the way through.
- Fishlake Hightop, & Bluebell Knoll: These are another two drive-almost-to-the-top peaks that I might get in this summer if I have some open Saturdays.
Im thinking that I should get most of the long drive/easy hike ones done while Milo is a baby. I'll have quite a few Saturdays when Erika is working and I need to watch Milo this summer so this might be a good way to spend the day, as long as the dirt roads aren't too rough. Its looking like I'll need two more summers after this summer though so maybe I'll be able to finish by the end of 2010.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Mine Camp/Monument Peak
Peak elevation: 10,452'
One way hiking distance: 0 miles
Elevation gain: 0'
Date hiked: Aug 25, 2007
Wasatch County Liner
Wasatch County Liner
County: Wasatch
Peak elevation: 10,840'
One way hiking distance: 1/3 mile
Elevation gain: 300'
Date hiked: July 7, 2007
Erika, Sophie and I hiked this little pooper scoop county high point on our way to an overnight backpacking trip to Ibantik Lake. I had the coordinates of the high point in my GPS, so we just pulled off the side of the road along the Mirror Lake Highway, just past Mirror Lake, where I thought we should start hiking, and up we went. It only took about an hour tops. The camping at Ibantik Lake was a fun trip. We actually camped at Meadow Lake, just a mile or so north of Ibantik. We started hiking at Trial Lake, then went past Wall Lake, through the Notch, past Ibantik and then we stayed overnight at Meadow. We had the whole lake to ourselves.
Deseret Peak
Deseret Peak
County: Tooele
Peak elevation: 11,031'
One way hiking distance: 4 miles
Elevation gain: 3600'
Date hiked: July 4, 2007
Erika and I and Sophie spend our 4th of July hiking Deseret Peak. This is a great hike. Very pretty the whole way up, moderately challenging, saw some deer along the way, not crowded, overall a great, close hike. To get to the trail head we drove to Grantsville, then up South Willow Canyon. Pretty easy to find. It is kind of amazing how this alpine mountain sticks out of the desert like it does. You get on top and look around and there is desert all around, especially to the west, but the whole way hiking up you would have thought you were in the Wasatch mountains. Anyways, the hike up was nice. Pretty steep in some spots. It was about as challenging as Mt. Olympus. Sophie was getting pretty hot and tired by the end. She was happy to cool down in the river towards the bottom. I would definitely put it towards the top of my list of favorite hikes.
Sitting on the peak with Sohpie
Looking down the way we hiked up
Erika with the GSL in the back
On top, looking East. Tooele in the distance, with the Oquirrh mountains behind and the Wasatch mountains behind them.
Looking West from the peak. Lots of desert.
Thurston Peak
Thurston Peak
County: Davis/Morgan
Peak elevation: 9706'
One way hiking distance: ~4 miles
Elevation gain: ~2000'
Date hiked: June 24, 2007
Erika and I and Sophie climbed this peak. We drove up Farmington Canyon and parked just below the big domes up there. There is a jeep road that continues past this parking area towards Thurston Peak, but I didn't want to drive my 4runner over a big patch of snow that blocked the way. But, we had our mountain bikes so we carried them over the snow and were able to bike for about a mile or so until the jeep road turned into a hiking trail. I thought we were going to be able to bike further, but we hiked the last 3 miles. This was a pretty easy hike. Starting at Francis, you hike over/around about 3 or 4 small peaks until you reach Thurston. Its a fun hike because of the nice views of Davis county on the west and Morgan county on the east. The last 1/2 mile to the peak was the only steep part.
We saw a baby moose on the dirt road in Farminton Canyon on the way back.
Willard Peak
Willard Peak
County: Weber
Peak elevation: 9764'
One way hiking distance: 3 - 3.5 miles
Elevation gain: 1100'
Date hiked: May 26, 2007
Willard was the second of my county high points to hike. People hike Willard from two different directions: from the south via Ben Lomond peak or from the north via Willard Basin. I did it from the North. I drove up to Brigham City then went up Box Elder Canyon to Manuta, then went south up Willard Peak Road as far as I could go. Since it was Memorial Day weekend there were tons of people up that canyon. I'd never been up there before and I was impressed how pretty it was, but there were tons of 4wheelers and dirt bikers. When all the snow is melted you can supposedly drive clear to the little lake below the peak. From there it is only like a 1 mile hike to the peak. I drove as far as I could in my 4runner, but had to park it when the snow got deep. From where I parked I had about 3 - 3.5 miles to the peak. It wasn't bad hiking on the road, but after the little lake where we started doing actual hiking the snow got pretty deep and it was tough. My ankles got real cold and Sophie (my dog) had a tough time in some parts. The trip down was easy though cause I was able to slide down a big snowfield on my jacket. Sophie had fun swimming in the pond on the way back. It was a fun hike, and would be a real easy one if all the snow was melted.
View of Willard Bay from the peak.
Some mountain goats we saw on the south face.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
King's Peak
King's Peak
County: Duchesne
Peak elevation: 13,528'
One way hiking distance: 12.2 miles
Elevation gain: 5252'
Date hiked: Aug 18, 2005 - Aug 20, 2005
King's Peak is the highest point in Utah, and it was the first county highpoint I hiked. I think I'd also have to say that so far it has been my favorite peak to climb. The whole backpacking trip through that area was a blast. I love backpacking in the Uintas. The hike wasn't easy, but it was worth it.
Day 1: Eric, my brother, his friend David Andreson and another one of his friends named Reid I think, piled into Reid's truck and drove to the Henry's fork trailhead. From there we hiked in about 7 miles to Dollar Lake where we made base camp. We got to the lake by about 4:00 probably and just hung out for the rest of the evening. For dinner I had a steak tin foil dinner that I cooked on the fire. It got kind of overcooked so it was kind of dry. While I was eating it for some reason I was all alone. I guess everyone had gone down to the lake or something. Anyways, the food started getting stuck in my thought and I thought I was going to die. My water had ran
out and I was too far from the lake to go filter more. This wasn't the first time this had happened to me, but it was pretty bad and it hurt terribly. Well, after rolling around on the ground for a while it finally went down, but I learned to never eat dry tin foil dinners without plenty of water on hand. By the way, this food stuck in through episode was pretty bad but it was nothing compared to what happened to me in Moab during Easter Jeep Safari 2007. Thats another story though.
Day 2: We got up around 7:00 AM and started hiking. From Dollar Lake we hiked up to Gunsight Pass and from there we left the main trail and went directly to Anderson Pass. The main trail goes way around. With the short cut we had to do some minor scrambling and boulder hopping, but it wasn't too bad, and was worth the time we saved. The pic below is us doing that minor scrambling. Look at all the people! There was like some sort of young women's group and 
a boy scout group that got in front of us while Eric had to sit down cause he thought he was going to throw up. What happened was we crossed this snow field cause we thought we would save time, but it ended up being really hard and it took a long time and kept pushing Eric to go faster and faster until he sat down and almost threw up. It was funny. Funny and sad. But mostly funny. The next pic is me on top of Anderson Pass. From Anderson Pass you hike up to the top. That was the hardest part. Going from like 12,000 feet up to the 13,528' peak was tough on the lungs. I got a pretty good altitude head ache. Eric basically ran up. I don't know how he does it. 
Anyways, once on top there weren't that many people. I don't know what happened to all those other people who passed us cause we didn't see them up there. It was cool to stand on the peak and be the tallest person in Utah. So after eating lunch up there we headed down.
When we got to Anderson Pass we decided to head down the rock slide. In hind sight it was probably a bad idea, but it saved a lot of time. There were some other people coming down the chute that we stayed away from cause they were kicking up a lot of big boulders that would have killed us if we'd have been below them. Once we got back to camp we all just crashed and slept for the rest of the afternoon. It was a pretty tiring day.
Day 3: Got up around 9:00 AM and hiked out. I think there was only about a 1000' elev gain over the 7 miles out, but it took FOREVER!!! It felt like we would never get back to the truck. But eventually we did and the McDonalds in Evenston was delicious.
Interesting note: The picture below of Kings Peak was chosen by www.summitpost.org as the cover photo for their King's Peak page.
Introduction to a record of my hikes
I'm starting this blog in addition to the blog that Erika and I already have at willanderika.blogspot.com so that I can have a record of my trips to the highpoint in each county in Utah. I started the goal to climb to the top of each county last spring (2007), and I now have 7 of the 26 hikes done. There are actually 29 counties in Utah, but 3 peaks are on the border of two counties. Two of the county highpoints are not actually even peaks, but they lie on the side of a mountain. So those aren't really too exciting to climb to and GPS is needed to know when you've arrived. Most of the peaks are at least 3 or 4 miles one way and pretty steap, so they are challenging, but there are a few that you can drive right to the top of. I enjoy bagging those peaks though because I like driving places in Utah where I've never been before. My goal was originally to be done by the time I was 30, but with the arrival of our new son I'm not sure if that will happen anymore. We'll still shoot for it though.
I bought the book High in Utah which has been a good reference and there are a few good websites like http://www.summitpost.org/list/171195/utah-county-highpoints.html and http://www.peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=13209. http://www.cohp.org/ut/utah.html is another but I haven't really read into this one much.
You can go to http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1140133&page=0&vc=1&PHPSESSID=#Post1140133 to download the Google Earth file I made that has each county high point marked.
Items of interest taken from from High in Utah:
"Alaska is our biggest, buggiest, boggiest state. Texas remains our largest unfrozen state. But mountainous Utah, if ironed out flat, would take up more space on a map than either."
"If you measured the highest point in each county, which of the fifty states would have the highest average elevation? You probably didn't say Utah, but in fact the average elevation of the state's county high points is approximately 11,222 feet (Colorado is second at 10,971 feet)."
