| Delano Peak Hike Trip Report |
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| Delano Peak Hike   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Utah, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: Sep 23, 2008 | Page By: Castlereagh Created/Edited: Oct 11, 2008 / Jun 3, 2011 Object ID: 452177 Hits: 848 Loading... Page Score: 87.14% - 6 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
After summiting Pyramid Peak in CO on 9/19, I lazed around for a weekend in Fort Collins with an old friend from college, drinking and watching the Pats get rolled over by the Dolphins. I knew that another buddy of mine was going to be in the Utah area, and we had talked earlier last week about meeting up. On Monday I drove into Salt Lake City and picked up Sean, who was in town for a meeting. I had planned to do some hiking in Utah, including Delano, and possibly Peale, Abajo, and maybe Ellen before moving on to Eastern Nevada.
However, it didn’t take long for Sean to talk me into a trip to Vegas, where he had left his car. We managed to get a good deal at the Wynn, and made reservations for Wednesday and Thursday night to avoid the weekend rates. Oh well. My car probably couldn't make it up La Sal Pass anyway.
After driving a few hours out of Salt Lake and admiring the monumental profiles of Timp and Nebo on I-15, we crashed in the little town of Beaver. Before heading into Vegas, we would attempt to knock down Delano and Brian Head.
Big John Flats is about a half hour outside of Beaver and pretty easy to find. I was a little concerned about the dirt road to the trailhead, but my Camry made it just fine. When you get to the main campground, bear right and stay on the edge of the meadow. We passed a few campsites and the road began to get a little rougher. At one site two very attractive girls wearing camo were unloading their Jeep. We stopped and made sure we were on the right track to Poison Creek. We were. We continued for another few minutes before I saw a good turnoff. I decided to park here probably a ridge and a curve from the standard trailhead, as the road was getting progressively worse.
We parked on the south side of the main ridge leading up towards Delano, and right below a large basin. We made our way deep into the center of the basin, trying our best to avoid the deer and cow droppings. After reaching the last ramparts of the basin we decided to gain the ridge. I found a scree clearing and made my way up. Sean got stuck in the brush, which he found to his chagrin to be quite thorny. The terrain was mixed tundra and talus upon gaining the ridge, with hints of a trail. We crested at the top of a minor summit; we couldn’t tell where Delano was at this point, but figured (hoped) that it was behind some of the broad hills in front of us. We traversed around to gained a broad slope with views of Belknap behind us. Sean was a little unsure at this point, as we wondered whether Delano was one of the farther summits that looked to be quite a distance from us, and involving a lot of elevation loss and regain.
We bumped into a couple of hunters near the top of the slope. I asked them how far, or even which peak, Delano was. They had never heard of it. I asked where the highest peak was. Their reply made it seem like it would take days for us to reach. I hedged that it was going to be sooner, and we climbed on. After topping out on the slope, we saw another broad slope in front of us, and I was pretty sure that immediately behind this was Delano. I was right. We summitted, checked out the mailbox summit register, took some pictures, and headed back down.
South |
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Nice drainage |
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Sean mentioned his knee was only eighty percent (ugly incident at "The Greatest Bar" in Boston a year back involving some BC football players, now in the NFL and a dirty MA State Trooper; it was on espn.com). I had him try out my trekking poles, and he took to them pretty well. We slowly made our way down the mountain, staying on the crest of the ridge for the most part, and trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid the scattered patches of talus. Unfortunately the hunting girls weren’t around as we were driving out of Big John Flats. Oh well. May their aim be swift and deadly.
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This could be Kansas, cept over 12K ft |
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Tushars |
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Summit shots below:
Our approximate route |
Images
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Tushar Mountains
