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.
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