In my mind, Mount Nebo was a monster. Several people I have talked to told me it was a hellish hike that they never wanted to do again. Since the "Nebo Group" is the last section of the Wasatch Eleveners book I had never really read the section, just skimed it a few times.
I studied the section the night before the big hike and after some initial confusion was please to see that the summit of Mount Nebo is the northern peak and only requires a 10 mile roundtrip hike. The confusion stemmed from the fact that there is a separate mountain called North Peak that is just north of Mount Nebo's north peak and is also an official Wasatch Elevener and is accessed from the same trail.
Once the confusion lifted I planned the hike to cross North Peak (11,155 ft) and then climb Mount Nebo's north peak (11,928 ft) and finally return while bypassing North Peak.
Kirk and I started hiking at about 7:10 from the trailhead after about and hour and a half drive from Orem. There were several groups of hunters along the lower parts of the trail and we heard distant gunshots, I believe it was muzzle loader season and even though it was a Wednesday there a lot hunters around. We crossed a dry Gibson Creek after two miles in about 45 minutes. The trail became significantly steeper after this point. At 2.5 miles from the trailhead we left the main Mount Nebo trail in order to climb to the summit of North Peak. There was a faint, spotty and sometimes multiple trails running up the north ridge of North Peak. A cold wind was blowing over the ridge from the east side so we stayed on the west side of the ridge when possible. There was a trail that contoured around to the west about 100 ft of altitude below the summit, we followed this trail mostly to stay out of the cold wind. When I noticed that we were past due west of the peak we turned up hill and bushwhacked the final 200 ft to reach the summit of North Peak. We took a couple of photos and quickly headed out to continue on to the primary goal of the hike.
There was no trail down to Wolf Pass where we would rejoin the Mount Nebo trail but there were many human footprints headed in the same direction. There would a few slides of scree which we had fun loping down. Wolf Pass is at the 3.5 mile point on the trail which we reached 2 hours into the hike.
It took us another hour and a half to travel the last mile to the summit of Mount Nebo. The trail was very steep and hard to follow in places when it either became faint or broke into several branches some of which ended abruptly. There were a few cairns some of which we missed and didn't see until the return trip. There was a small but sturdy metal mailbox at the summit containing a log book for hikers to write a message and/or sign. On the summit we had a bite to eat, took photos, signed the log book and did a little foot maintenance.
We took our time on the hike down stopping to enjoy the views and take some photos. The return hike ended up taking about 3 hours and 10 minutes. I would rate this hike much easer than Mount Timpanogos, in fact I would rate this hike as easy or easier than most of the other Wasatch Eleveners. Only Monte Cristo/Superior and Red Baldy come to mind as less of a challenge. The worst part of this hike is how much wasted ascending there is, the profile graphic below shows how many humps are crossed in both directions. The best part of this hike is getting bragging rights for climbing the highest peak in the Wasatch.
GPS Tracks: kml gpx
Google Maps: Terrain
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