Can you imagine walking up the stairs of 4 Empire State building stacked one on top of the other?
That’s what we did over our climb (although without the stairs).
We hiked up Lone Peak today (September 6, 2008) and summitted at 11,253 feet above sea level (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Peak). We started at an elevation of about 5,000 feet. That’s 6,253 feet we climbed. Most of the way, it felt like we were going straight up. So if you think of it terms of stairs, and one stair being a little less than 12″, we climbed up about 4 empire state buildings (the Empire State building run takes you up 1,575 stairs see: http://manhattan.about.com/od/historyandlandmarks/a/empirestate.htm).
It’s mind boggling to think about going up so high over two days, and then coming all the way down in one day. What an exciting two days! We were three leaders and two scouts that made the trek. Danny, Marty, Spencer, Collin, and me made up our group. Everyone did fantastic and had great attitudes.
We began at the church parking lot at 5:30pm on Friday. Looking up at the mountain, it sure seemed tall. We used the Jacob’s Ladder trail (there’s a good reason “ladder” is in the name of the trail). We estimate the trip to be a 14 mile round trip excursion. The Wasatch Mountain Club Hike Listing & Ratings lists this hike as “Extreme” (see: http://www.xmission.com/~wmc/hiking/hikeratings.html). So get in shape when planning on making the trip.
We really didn’t take any pictures on the way up for a couple of reasons, it was really, really steep going up, and the other reason is that it got dark while we were still headed up. Flashlights out, everyone! We took pictures on the way back, so those are displayed here.
Featured above is a nice little view of the Sun Crest development. This is just the very, very beginning of the climb.
Above is a view almost from the same spot as the Sun Crest shot but looking out over Alpine, Orem, and Provo. Again, these were taken on our way down. At this point in our climb up, the lights were light throughout the city, so even though it was the begining of our climb to our “base camp”, it took time to get to where we were.
By this point in the picture above, on our way up, it was dark and we had our flashlights out and had been using them for a while, but we were fairly close to camp and weren’t climbing up the mountain. The terrain flattened out and we were headed for the meadow where we would set up camp. Lone Peak can be seen in the distance, way, way in the distance where there are two gray peaks close to each other.
Here are a few of us in that spot on our way down. The hiking sticks we had proved absolutely invaluable. They helped keep us from slipping, falling, helped us pull ourselves up the steep inclines, and helped us keep our balance. They also prevented our hands from swelling up if we were to have hung them by our sides all the way up. Unfortunately, one of my poles broke on the way down.
We made it to our camp site (meadow area pictured above) I think around 9:30pm or so, cooked dinner, and went to bed. Dinner was great and we refilled our water with filtered stream water.
The night actually wasn’t too cold. We slept under the stars (or at least tried to sleep as best we could). The following morning, we ate breakfast, stashed our large hiking packs and took small day packs with water and some food, we then started out for the summit. The summit was still a very long ways away. We had traveled for a long way up steep rocks and hills before we arrived at the spot pictured above. Lone Peak is the peak to the left in the picture. Coming up from behind, it actually looked like the peak at the right was higher until we could see it more clearly and at a better perspective.
In the picture above, and in the foreground, there are rocks stacked on to of one another. These stacked rocks, called cairns, were our markers along the trail when we were moving over areas where it was hard to see a trail to follow. Lone Peak is in the background of this picture.
Above is the peak again. What a facing on that cliff! The peak looked so tall, and we had been hiking for a good long time already.
We pressed on for quite a while, and as we hiked up a steep incline, we could start to see something over a ridge, and it wasn’t another ridge. We were still not very close to the top, still more “up” to go, but we could see the beautiful Salt Lake Valley. An absolutely fantastic view.
It is hard to convey the sheer beauty as we hiked up Friday night and the sun was setting over the valleys (Utah and Salt Lake) as we could see the illuminated ciites – beautiful. We really didn’t get another clear view in our climb until we reached the location pictured above.
After a lot of hiking, we were arriving closer to the summit. This picture was taken on our way back, but you can see people on top of the summit! Coming around the hill in front, it’s obvious this climb is not for the week knees. We stashed our day packs near the summit so they wouldn’t bother us on the way up. The terrain was quite rocky, and just from the top, there are some very tight squeezes to get all the way up.
As you come around you can see the different facings on the mountain. Yep, those are people on one of the peaks.
This is taken from the peak looking into Utah Valley. It was snug quarters on top of the top, 11,253 feet. There was a geo marker placed there in the rock. How nice it was that there was no wind at all. It was fantastic! We were so glad that we pressed on and made it all the way to the top especially through the tight places you have to pass through to get there.
We came all the way back down to our camp, ate lunch, and then took all our gear back down the mountain. Going up was difficult. Going down was much faster, but also more tricky because of the weight of the pack and the steepness of the trail. Thank goodness we had our walking poles. We mentioned over and over that we were so glad we had them.
We got back to the cars and as we drove back into town, we passed the church we started from at almost the exact same time we left (5:30pm) 24 hours earlier.
We can now check climbing Lone Peak off our list of things to do!
