The Scenic Route - Adventures in Utah: Gluttons for punishment, our second hike up Lone Peak

As many of you know from reading the previous blog post, last weekend Julie and I undertook the arduous hike to Lone Peak. Later on in the week Pat suggested we check out a different trail on the same mountain that goes up to a log cabin. Even though we were still recovering from last weekend's adventure Julie and I decided it would be a good challenge to get back on the mountain and try a route that was a few miles longer and with more elevation gain that last weeks. We were also joined this week by Steve Ellis who also works for Oracle out here and has a keen eye for spotting wildlife and other details that I would certainly miss left to my own devices.

This route was called "Trail of the Eagle" and leaves from a trailhead right near hidden valley country club and golf course. Here is the route up the mountain as seen when our GPS data is imported into google earth:

This trail actually starts at 4,700 feet elevation which is a full 1,000 feet lower than the one we took last week and goes up a completely different route. Below is a graph of the elevation profile for the hike that was created from our GPS trail:

Again we got a nice early start before the sun came up knowing that this hike would take even longer than last week and we wanted to be down by sunset.

If you are wondering why we are sporting such cool orange hats it is because we were being extra cautious not to be mistaken by an overeager hunter for one of these:

Here we are at the start of "Trail of the Eagle" which heads up the mountain:

At the lower elevations the trail winds through lots of trees with leaves on the ground and fall colors. It is amazing how the scenery changes as you gain elevation.

Here is Julie once we cleared the initial forests and made it up to the ridgeline that leads to the mountain meadows. Even though we are already pretty high up having gained around 4,000 feet of elevation, we are still nowhere near the top. behind Julie you can see a number of other canyons including the mouth of little cottonwood canyon that leads to snowbird. Snowbird itself would be behind julie and to the right of this picture, about 10 miles away in a straight line.

We found the cabin!!! Here Pat, Steve Ellis, and Julie are checking out the fire pit.

The cabin has been here for well over 40 years and is stocked with basic supplies. It has been used on a few occasions by stranded hikers to wait out freak storms. Here is julie poking her head out after taking the grand tour:

There were some mini-skis at the cabin too just begging to be tried on:

A bit more snow and Julie would be to the bottom in no time:

After spending some time at the cabin, we decided to push upward to see if we could find a good route from the canyon up to the Lone Peak cirque. In the picture below Pat and Steve Ellis are crossing a meadow to check out what is on the other side of this ridge.

Here I am standing on top of a boulder in a neat solid granite bowl that we passed through:

Here I am joined by Pat and Steve Ellis. The only thing we are missing is a picnic basket.

This picture is taken looking back down the mountain as we approached the lone peak cirque. You can see the granite bowl from the previous pictures and behind that is the valley and Utah lake in the upper left.

We were very pleased that we ended up finding a good route up the mountain from the cabin that eventually intersected with the Lone peak cirque. It was entirely possible that the route would not have been passable due to steep cliffs or canyon walls.

Here we are with Lone peak in the background. The route from here on up the lone peak cirque would be the same as what we did last week and since it was starting to get late we decided to head back down. We'd already traveled furthur in terms of both distance and elevation than we did last week and didn't want to risk running out of daylight for the long descent back to civilization.