The Brighton Loop

Today's FAC was a solo edition. Tracie is in Lake Tahoe with her husband, and Lisa and her husband are entertaining guests that are in town for the week.

My plan started simple enough...I'd hike Catherine's Pass from Alta and head out to Pioneer Peak from there. Of the peaks surrounding Brighton, that's the only one I had not summited. As I pulled out of the driveway, the plan changed...then it changed again. It finally settled on what I'm calling The Brighton Loop.

I've had thoughts of something like this for a while...so I figured today would be a great test-run. I left the Brighton parking lot at 9:30 and started up the main trail under the Crest Express lift. It didn't take long and several of my goals came into view.


I broke off the main trail where it made the turn towards Lake Mary and started up a combination of ski runs and the access road to the top of the Crest lift. From here I headed up Pioneer Ridge. Once on the ridge, I could see most (all?) of the peaks I would be crossing.


The ridge also provided a great view towards Midway.


As I approached Pioneer Peak, the landscape changed drastically. Where I had been hiking through brush and trees, it was now only sand, rock, and trees...almost lunar.



Once on the peak, I could clearly see the task before me. Had I bit off more than I could chew?



Pioneer Peak did provide some great views of Lake Mary...


...and Brighton Ski Resort.


After a short break on the summit, I started down towards the saddle between Pioneer and Sunset Peak. It took only 30 minutes to go from one peak to the next...I was starting gain some confidence that this might be possible. On Sunset Peak I started to encounter more hikers...but that didn't diminish the views.



From Sunset Peak it's just a short hike down to Catherine's Pass (15 minutes). This was my turn-back point if I needed it. There's a trail from here that goes down to Lake Mary, and beyond that back to Brighton. I took a 20 minute break here, and got ready for the second half of the hike. From Catherine's Pass, it's a steep climb up to the peak of Mount Tuscarora. Once on the summit, I could see there wasn't really that much left.



From the peak of Mount Tuscarora, it's a quick hike to the peak of Mount Wolverine. There are some great views from here into Wolverine Cirque, and down Little Cottonwood Canyon.


From the peak of Mount Wolverine there is no established trail to the peak of Mount Millicent...but that didn't really matter, it only took 30 minutes to go from one to the next. More amazing views from here.


How many peaks is that now?


It's the hike down from the peak of Mount Millicent that concerned me the most. While there is no trail, there is also no dirt...the descent to the top of the ski lift would be on large rocks...that like to move.


Once at the top of the Millicent chairlift, I took a short break.


It's worth another look at the descent from the peak.


From there, it was just a matter of hiking down the access road. (There are trail options from here that take you towards Lake Mary...but I was looking to get back to the car) The access road takes you past the Twin Lakes reservoir.


I've never seen the water this high here before...a great benefit of a good snow year.




The construction on the new base lodge came into view, and I was elated...I had made it. At 5 hours even, I was back at the car.


I have no idea how many miles I hiked today (GoogleEarth puts it at roughly 6 miles)...I really need a GPS for that sort of thing. Maybe we'll have that kind of info later this summer, or in 2009?

Here's a look in GoogleEarth at the route I took:

Deseret Peak, and then some...

Another Friday was upon us...what to do?

At 11,031 feet, Deseret Peak is the highest point in the Stansbury Range to the west of Salt Lake City (actually, the Oquirrh Mountains are to the west of SLC, the Stansbury range is west of that). Neither Tracie, nor I, had been to the summit of Deseret Peak. The hike to the summit is typically done as an 8 mile loop...that sounded perfect.

For a wilderness area in the middle of the desert, it's a rather lush environment on the hike up. It's really not too steep, but it is uphill.


When you're out here, and not at work, who's complaining?



About halfway up the valley, you break out into a meadow and are treated to a view of where you came from.



Not long after the meadow you hit the final push up to the ridge. It's a good feeling getting here.




From here it's just up to the peak...yeah, up there.


Approaching the summit, we found several couloirs still filled with snow. Getting back here in the winter might be a priority.


We got up to the summit and took a good long break, enjoying the views of the land of saints to the east, and the land of sins to the west.


From the summit, if you're doing the hike as a loop, you head down the north side of the peak towards several saddles, and around several sub-peaks. There are some great views from the ridgeline into the basin to the east of the summit.


There was a lot of evidence of fire. Probably a result of a dry year last year.


From here it became an adventure. Looking at the crude map we had, we overestimated how far we would need to go to reach the trail down. It didn't help that the trail down was covered by a snowdrift, so we completely missed it. This resulted in a HUGE detour across another slope to the next ridgeline.


Figuring we missed something, we decided to go up the ridgeline for a better look. Hiking through a burn zone is not fun...nothing scenic, lots of ash puffing up with each step, loose ground.


Realizing the error we'd made, we had to go back across the slope we had just crossed. It did provide some good views of Deseret Peak.


Finally on the proper trail, it was a good feeling knowing we were headed back down.


The return hike provided a great view of the east face of Deseret Peak. The two couloirs we admired from above are clearly visible on the left side of this pic.


Just before reconnecting to the trail we had taken up to the summit, we crossed a very welcome stream.


There might be no better way to end a hike than to dunk your head and hat into a cold mountain stream.


Overall, a successful hike. Our total hiking time was 6 hours 30 minutes...but that included a good long break at the summit and the "detour" we took.

Mount Raymond - Take 1

Mount Raymond was on tap on Friday. Tracie needed to be back in the valley reasonably early, so we opted for a quick peak out of BCC. There was only a little bit of snow on the trail on the way up...I guess south facing slopes really do melt out quicker.


Getting to the saddle is the easy part...


Once you make the turn for the summit you'll start to encounter some trickier sections .


This is Lisa, she'll be joining us for the summer (then fall hits and it's back to work for Lisa...but she's sad about that)...every one say, "Hi Lisa!"


Another peak down for the FAC. I've said it before and I'll say it again...there's something special about being on a peak in sight of the masses cooking in the valley. The weather on the peak was perfect.


The view from the peak was great. Lisa and Tracie took advantage of the view to look for places to ski next year.



I titled this "Take 1" because I think we're going to need to consider hitting this peak via Mount Olympus. You can kinda see just how much ground you'd need to cover to do this from this picture (yes, I know my Patagonia hat needs to be cleaned...maybe for the next FAC).


Getting there:
We started from the Butler Fork trailhead. You'll encounter the first fork in the trail roughly 0.5 miles from the trailhead...take the trail to the left. Eventually, you'll hike up a few switchbacks to a small ridgeline. Follow the ridgeline for 0.28 miles to another fork (again you'll go left). This left will take you to the saddle between Gobbler's Knob and Mount Raymond, the saddle is about 1.43 miles from this split (according to my map, there's another junction 0.23 miles before the saddle...where you turn to the right). From the saddle, you turn to the left and follow the ridgeline up to the summit.