Lone Peak

I don't know whether I should be sad that I didn't quite make it to the top or really happy that I almost made it to the top!!   Tanner and I started early (like 6:30 am).  I had a good map (at least I thought it was good).  I had researched it a lot and talked to many people.  Everyone and every blog said that it's really easy to get lost so follow the directions carefully.

First of all, Jacob's Ladder is called a ladder for a reason.  It goes pretty much straight up the mountain for about 2 or 3 miles.  Ouch.  No switch backs, no steps, nothing.  I've decided that I am extremely spoiled from hiking in National Parks where trails are very well maintained and marked.

We finally got up the hardest part and were following the trail.... we thought.  Then we lost the trail and realized we were way too far south.  The directions all said that we should cut across the front of Lone Peak and climb up around the north side of it.  So, we headed north without a trail.  We finally stopped for lunch in the Cirque of Lone Peak.  It was spectacularly beautiful and we did see the trail that went up around the North side to the top but we were out of time and I was out of energy.  I'm sure Tanner could've done it but I knew we needed to start down if I was going to make it out before dark.

So we headed down.  The leaves were beautiful reds, yellows and oranges.  We saw quite a few deer including some that were full out running down the mountain (a little startling).  We even hiked across a little bit of snow.  It was the perfect day for hiking.  Clear and sunny but cool enough to need a coat when we weren't actually hiking.

As we headed down, I was very worried about my knees going down Jacob's ladder.  I had my poles (which absolutely saved me!!) and I was wearing my knee braces which made it so they didn't hurt when I did Half Dome.  Not so lucky this time.  They started to hurt almost as soon as we started down.  It was very steep.  We decided to try a different way back along a trail that was longer but not as steep.  It didn't work out so well though because we lost the trail.  :-(  We ended up trail blazing a lot.  We would pick up a faint trail for a while and lose it and have to trail blaze some more.  We finally made it to the road at the bottom.

We hiked about 17 miles (I have a cool app that tracked our mileage and rate and altitude).  We went up and back down 4,000 feet and it took us about 10 hours.  It was a great hike, very hard, but I had a good time with Tanner and maybe some day I'll actually make it to the top.

Here are a few pictures we took.  I didn't take my good camera because I didn't want to carry the extra weight so I didn't really take many pictures.  Maybe next time.

If you look below those big cliffs in the center of the picture, there is a mounded rock.  There is a big area of trees to the left of it and a big area of trees to the right of it.  We ate lunch on the mounded rock and then headed back down.  So close yet so very far away.

 This is panorama view that Tanner took.  To the left is Utah Lake and to the right is Salt Lake.  We could see 5 temples from where we were standing.... Mt. Timpanogas, Draper, Oquirrh Mountain, Jordan Rive and Salt Lake.  It was pretty spectacular.