This was the most grueling hike I've been on. It was long and steep and very hot on the way down. The dust, twigs and pebbles on the trail were very slick.
It took about an hour to reach the top of the Y from the parking lot. I was hoping that would be the majority of the steep trail but as you can see from the profile, there was plenty of really steep trail in the second two thirds. It took another two hours to reach the first peak. There is a long section of meadow trail that is very steep. We took our time to give all the grandmothers in the group a break.
The "peak" is fairly rounded so there wasn't much of an edge to look from, you could just keep moving forward and it got lower and steeper. There are trees that block getting a really good panorama. We took photos, eat some granola bars and enjoyed the view. I sent Sarah Wiley a photo of her house on my iPhone and chatted via SMS with her.
Since the front peak has the hiking trail so that's where everyone goes to view the valley. I noticed on my GPS that the true (higher) peak is in a little further east (or in back if you think on the side where the Y is the front) so I wanted to go up that just for bragging rights. Marsha wanted to wait at the spot on the trail between the two peaks, she was a bit tired. Yulin said he would go with me but he immediately decided he was also too tired for the two tenths of a mile of bushwhacking. I made it to the top in 15 min including a stop to take some photos.
I didn't expect much of the view from the back peak since it was away from the valley but I was pleasantly surprised. The view was even better than the front. Instead of the same old valley panorama you see from every peak, the view from the back peak was spectacular. The whole "7 Peaks" view was there for the enjoying beside a great view of Squaw Peak, Cascade and Timpanogos along with Rock Canyon. I took a bunch of photos including a couple panorama sets and hurried back to join the group. I had a harder time finding a good game trail on the way back but made it in ten minutes.
As I mentioned, the trip back was hot and tricky footing. Some people slipped and fell on their butts a few times. The long meadow part felt even steeper than the memory of the way up. We passed a lot of people who were just heading up, it was quite hot by then and I didn't envy them at all.
When we reached the top of the Y on the way back I took a couple more panorama sets, I stitched one together any it looks interesting, I'll post that to the blog. Yulin had a family thing that he was in a hurry for so he took off for the last leg by himself. Marsha and I took our time on the switchbacks from the Y. Since they are numbered 1 to 12, I called out the numbers as we reached each turnaround. I thought I forgot to call one out so I told Marsha we had to hike back up to make sure but Marsha assured me I had called it out.
It was a great hike and I'm sure I lost a few pounds. We have a bunch of photos on Flickr, check them out. All three of us were taking photos the whole hike. Unfortunately we didn't get any with all three of us in the same one.
-Mike
GPS Tracks: kml gpx
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