Saturday, August 9, 2014

My alarm went off at 5 a.m. A quick conference with Dorothy showed she was still suffering the effects of dehydration from the hike in the day before, so she opted not to make the summit push. Ed, Michael, Anna and I got up, ate breakfast and packed our day packs for the summit scramble. As the sun tinged the clouds various shades of coral and salmon, we were greeted by three moose browsing in the willows just below our campsite. We were far enough away from them and they were sufficiently acclimated to human presence that they took little heed of us as we got up and got moving.

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

Bidding the moose (and Dorothy) goodbye, we started up the trail to Gunsight Pass. The trail that far is clear and easy to follow even in the early-morning twilight. One long quarter-mile switchback and we arrived at Gunsight Pass. (Waypoint GUNSIGHT PASS, 40°47.822'N, 110°21.568'W)

The rising sun continued to tint the sky as we came over Gunsight Pass although the pass itself was still in deep shadow. We stopped just long enough to get our bearings and identify the trail we needed to take next. The main trail continues over Gunsight Pass and five hundred feet or more down into the Painter Basin. Unwilling to lose so much altitude, there is a better way.

From Gunsight Pass, Kings Peak is hidden behind the ridge to the south. Immediately after passing the huge cairn at the pass, a good use trail takes off to the south (hiker's right). Following a series of cairns (or "ducks"), you stay level for a little while and then head up the rather steep ridge.

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

The ridge proved to be fairly steep and we gained more elevation than I had anticipated before the ground leveled out. When I looked at the topo map later, I realized that the area near Anderson Pass is quite a bit higher than Gunsight Pass so we weren't climbing only to have to lose elevation a little later.

As we topped out on the ridge scramble, the vista over the Painter Basin opened up and we could see the small lakes in the basin glinting in the morning sun as it peeked through the clouds. We crossed over the ridge, down just a little bit and made our way across the plateau near Anderson Pass.

Michael and Anna paused long enough to take shots of each other with Kings Peak in the background. These views give a pretty good idea of the rockpile that is Kings Peak. From here, the ridge flattens out and we just contoured around it until we could see our way across the plateau and onto the slopes of Kings Peak, proper.

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

As we crossed the plateau next to Anderson Pass, I set another GPS waypoint. (Waypoint ANDERSON PASS, 40°45.139'N, 110°22.327'W) That is not at the pass, proper but out in the flat area just to the southeast of Anderson Pass.

Did I mention that the final 1,500' of the climb up Kings Peak is a rockpile? An unrelentingly wretched rockpile, at that. Ed opted to cut farther to climber's right and found bits and pieces of a use trail along the lower parts of the ridge. I opted for a more direct diagonal roughly following my GPS bearing toward the summit. Michael and Anna joined me but we found the going slow. Either way, the going varies between rocky and rockier with only small patches of gravel and sand to break the monotony. As the broken clouds drifted by, we were treated to a few snow flurries as we headed up, but the weather remained unthreatening and even cleared (mostly) as we got higher on the mountain.

Farther up, the slope steepens as is evident from the shot of Michael and Anna on the upper slope. Ultimately, we reached the ridge, just in time to have to contour around three false summits, the most prominent of which is shown on the right, below. This lump is the largest hump visible on the ridge as we hiked in and is every bit as obnoxious as it appears when you realize it's just another false summit to be skirted along the way.

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

Photo courtesy Michael Simon

Having taken a slightly better line, Ed beat us to the summit by a few minutes, so he was waiting for us when we finally arrived. The summit area was fairly busy, with a group of guys celebrating their summit. It turns out they were dayhiking Kings Peak, having started at midnight and hiked through the night. According to my GPS odometer, trailhead to summit by the route we took was 14.2 miles, so they would be doing a 28-mile day with over 4,000' of gain (and loss on the way out). Not my idea of fun, but more power to them!

The weather was chilly and breezy but tolerable. A fleece and wind shell were definitely called for to be comfortable. Kings Peak (Waypoint KINGS PEAK, 40°46.582'N, 110°22.378'W) was my 45th state highpoint and the one (so far) that took the most attempts to summit. I shot my traditional summit panorama, viewable either in a Java version or as a Quicktime VR file. The Java version allows full-screen display so you can use whatever display real estate you have available.

Photo courtesy Ed Erickson

Highpointers know that the summit is only halfway. We didn't tarry long on the summit because there were still enough clouds around that it was likely there would be some thunderstorms later in the afternoon. We made our way off the summit and headed back down to the plateau by Anderson Pass.

Climbing back down the rockpile is only marginally more pleasant than climbing up, mostly from knowing there is a comfortable campsite waiting on the other side of Gunsight Pass. Eventually, the boulders give way to a gentler slope and finally to flat ground. At that point, we could breathe a little easier about the weather since we were now well below the ridges and in relatively sheltered territory most of the time.

I remembered a slightly better way around the intervening ridge we had scrambled over earlier in the morning but the cairns I remembered were conspicuous by their absence. As you can see from the GPS track (below), we meandered down to the tops of the low cliffs before giving up and heading back up a bit and across the ridge to pick up our trail back to Gunsight Pass. In hindsight, backtracking the way we had come in the morning would have saved us a bit of down and back up but overall, it wasn't a huge issue.

Once we got down off that long switchback coming back from Gunsight Pass, we could see camp ahead of us. Getting closer, it was all the more inviting in a grassy meadow above a large grove of willows. Dorothy greeted us with stories of moose visiting her during the day. She was in much better spirits although disappointed that she hadn't been able to make the summit with us.

Since we were back at a reasonable time, Anna and Michael decided they would go ahead and pack up to hike out that afternoon. With limited vacation time and a plan to continue out west to California, they wanted to get back on the road. (They managed to get permits and climb Mt. Whitney on this trip, so it was worth the effort to keep heading west.)

With no bears in this part of Utah, our "bear bag" hang only had to be high enough to keep the mini-bears (marmots, ground squirrels, etc.) away from our food. I had found a convenient rock the night before and strung my bear rope across the top so the bag was suspended shoulder-high off the ground. Ed pointed out that my bag formed the nose of a rather grumpy troll face on the rock so apparently the scare-marmot worked as we had no issue with critters getting into our food stash.

The expected afternoon thunderstorms finally rolled in but we were back in camp and snugly in our tents for the few that dropped any appreciable rain on us. They blew over for the most part and cleared in time for dinner and a nice sunset across the valley. We settled in fairly early, planning on being up and moving at a decent hour the next morning.