Sunday, August 17, 2008

Cascade Peak: The longest short hike around


Cascade Peak Panorama

You want steep? You want lots of bushwhacking? Look no further. There's no trail except for a goat path along the ridge. 4.8 miles where the descent is as slow as the ascent. Having the beginnings of a cold didn't help but I do think this is significantly harder than Timpanogos Peak. I thought I was making better time downhill but the GPS never lies, a pitiful 1/2 mph both ways not counting time at the peak. Here are the gory details:

 7:43am Leave vehicle (7550ft)
 8:35am Bottom of gully
10:00am Bottom of ramp
11:50am Saddle
 1:13pm Arrive at peak (10900ft)

 1:42pm Depart peak
 3:52pm Stop on ramp for foot care
 5:31pm Bottom of gully
 5:51pm Back at vehicle

I highly recommend two hiking poles. I only took one and ended up making one out of a dead conifer. It wasn't ideal but helped a lot to have a second pole both going up and coming down.

Also, when you get up on the ridge, try to stay right on the ridge (within 10 ft) as much as possible. There are only a few spots where a tree straddles the ridge and you have to duck down on goat paths.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

The trail down Cascade Mountain

The Gully leading up Cascade Mountain

Looking north from the base of Cascade

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Buffalo Peak and Squaw Peak


Squaw Peak Panorama
I've wanted to do this double peak hike ever since I did the Buffalo Peak hike a month or so ago. Since it was just Nutmeg and I on this Saturday I decided to finally do it. I had looked for a trail down the southwest side of Buffalo Peak last time I was there and thought there was one that went down so I was hoping to not have to do any bushwhacking. I expected it to be a fairly easy hike so my old dog Nutmeg (age 8) wouldn't be too stressed out. We started hiking from the Squaw Peak Overlook trailhead at 7:15am.

I made it to Buffalo Peak without any stops except a photo or two. There are a few steep spots but they are short and there is plenty of level sections to catch your breath. Nutmeg and I saw one deer scamper away down the hill towards Squaw Peak just as we came to the saddle at the base of the final climb to the peak. We didn't really spend any time at the top of Buffalo Peak 8:06am but kept moving since we were planning on returning later. We started down what I thought was the trail down to the Rock Canyon first left fork trail to Squaw Peak. It ended up being a well worn game trail that came to some scary looking rocky sections and looked like it only got worse. We retreated up the hill to try an approach further to the northwest where it looked less steep on Google Earth.

The going was much more sane but again there was nothing but game trails. The hillside was mostly open at the top and I could see hikers crossing the meadow on the Squaw Peak trail below. We picked out was down the hillside. It was not particularly bad terrain but there were a few bands of trees we had to pass through. We eventually made it out to the well worn trail to Squaw Peak. We made good time to the top and were enjoying the view at 9:20am.

There were a couple of other small families, including one dog, at the top when we got there. They all headed down soon after we got there. Nutmeg and I spent a long time at the top enjoying the view, catching some sun, eating a snack and drying out my shirt. There wasn't much of a breeze but it wasn't hot either.

We headed down at 11:45am knowing we still had to hike back up to the time of Buffalo Peak again. I thought about going down Rock Canyon but then I would have to walk or find a ride so we kept to the plan. We were able to find better game trails going up the side of Buffalo Peak than we had coming down. We were back on the top just before noon. Again we didn't stay long at this peak but kept moving along.

We saw a few people on the return to the trailhead, mostly kids. We got back to the truck at 12:53pm. There were a lot of people at the trailhead parking lot. There was a group that was doing major car repair, another taking a family photo with Utah Valley in the background and many starting off on hikes or bike rides. Nutmeg and I called into H.Q. and stopped for salads at Cafe Rio on the way home. Very nice 7 mile hike with an interesting profile.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Nutmeg on Squaw Peak with Timoanogos in the background

Friday, August 15, 2008

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Rock Canyon to Slate Canyon behind Y Mountain


Why take a five minute car ride and turn it into a soaking wet foliage slogging hike? Ask Mark U, he suggested this hike. Mark called an emergency hike of the IUHC late Friday afternoon. Due to a twist of fate and a canceled Father and Sons campout, Dave was equally punished by these unexpected conditions.

We left Dave's car at the Slate Canyon Trailhead and drove Mark's car to the Rock Canyon Trailhead. We left the trailhead at 6:30am and headed up Rock Canyon. I was worried about the stream crossing at the fifth bridge where the trail heads up the first right fork. The last time I was there it was a wet feet affair. Luckily the water level was down and we were able to tip-toe across on a few rocks. Though the trail up to the fifth bridge is very well traveled, the 'first right fork' trail is obviously not. The trail became significantly steeper and much to our chagrin overgrown with several lush varieties of foliage. Even worse, the leaves were soaked with dew that eventually soaked my pants and shoes. Mark and Dave both kept saying "Mike, yer so big and strong, you go first!" I knew this was a pathetic attempt to get me to use my body to wipe most of the water off the leaves. It worked; I led most of the way up to the junction at the back of Slide Canyon.

Mark and Dave started popping pain pills as we neared the junction. We found a cute little spring there that was trickling a small stream out of its non-man-mad galvanized pipe spout. Isn't nature ingenuitive?

I kept warning Mark that there would be "false saddles" so when we finnaly made it to the saddle between Slide and Slate canyons it was fairly uneventful except for the sage hens taking off as we walked u to the cairn in the middle of the meadow. We tried to sit down and eat lunch but Dave and Mark were attacked by killer ants. We had about 3.7 miles of downhill to get down Slate Canyon so we took off even before I could have the granola bar course of my lunch.

The trail was a little more overgrown on the Slate Canyon side since I had been there with Jeffry and Scott but nothing like the climb up in Rock Canyon's first right fork. We made fairly good time on the decent. Both Dave and Mark were complaining about hot spots and blisters near the end. We got to Dave car at 11:20am with a total of about 8 miles traveled, a little higher than the 7.7 that the maps and tracks suggested.

Because of all the water, I didn't take many photos. You can view what I did take at: Flickr

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Mark, pondering the rest of the hike

Vista Bonita!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Mount Timpanogos from Aspen Grove


I climbed Timpanogos today. I wasn't sure if I was going to go all the way up. I planned to at least go to Emerald Lake but I packed for a trip to the summit. If I felt good I could continue on to the saddle and then the summit if the goodness persisted. I arrived at Emerald lake at 9:05am so I continued on. The saddle was further than it looked but once there I could help but attempt the summit. I took my time and arrived there before the big crowd. There were only a few hikers on the peak when I got there but I passed at least 30 on my way down to the saddle. While on the peak I ate lunch and chatted with a woman named Trisha. She told me about the Wasatch Mountain Club which organizes hikes every weekend. I'll have to check in on that idea.
The trip down took a lot longer than I expected, it was quite hot and there was little breeze for a lot of the descent. I was holding up dinner so I ended up jogging most of the last mile which is mostly paved with asphalt.
Up
 6:00am -  6790ft: Aspen Grove Trailhead
 9:05am - 10040ft: Emerald Lake
10:20am - 11140ft: The Saddle 
11:12am - 11725ft: The Summit
Down
12:18pm - 11725ft: Depart Summit
 4:44pm -  6790ft: Arrive Trailhead
GPS Tracks: kml gpx
Photos: Flickr

Re: I made it.

DUDE!

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Mike Scalora <mscalora@gmail.com> wrote:






Sent from my iPhone

I'm all in with 12 goats!

Here began the final push

I made it.

The Peak

The Slide

Goats See

More Falls

The ??? Falls

Early Start

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Orem Bench Wildlife Management Area


I've taken on a project to map all the trails between Mount Timpanogos, Dry Creek and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. The Garmin MapSource Topo map set has this area marked as the "Orem Bench Wildlife Management Area". I've traced what appears to be trails on Google Earth and intend to try and walk them all to obtain GPS tracks. A few have not turned to really be trails but most are trails of some sort. I'll be posting kml and gpx files to this blog as a make progress on this project. Today I walked about 8 miles collecting GPS tracks.

Oh the bones!