| A 15 Year Hiatus from the Lone Peak Monarch. Trip Report |
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| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Utah, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 40.52670°N / 111.7553°W Date Climbed/Hiked: May 29, 2009 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Spring | Page By: Wasatchvoyage Created/Edited: May 30, 2009 / Jun 5, 2009 Object ID: 517273 Hits: 1480 Loading... Page Score: 89.48% - 30 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
It' been a while. First summit at age 9, August 1983.Lone Peak is an impressive granite monarch on the south portion of the Wasatch Central Range, overlooking the Salt Lake Valley. I remember looking up at this impressive summit growing up from my folks place in Sandy, as it dominates the eastern horizon there.
My father, Uncle Alan and I made it to the summit of Lone in August of 1983 when I was nine years old. When we did that trip it had been organized into two seperate groups and approaches, where we would meet at the summit. Our group, Dad, Alan and I, started from the Schoolhouse Springs trailhead in Alpine, Utah. The other group, my Uncle Jim, cousin Kelly, and a local scoutmaster, Don Dawson, were taking the Bell Canyon approach. The goal was to meet at the summit around 3:00 p.m.
We never met Jim's group at the summit that day. After a long, hot dusty trek and close to 6,000 feet of elevation gain, we made the summit in the late afternoon. Dad and Alan scanned the mountain side for Jim's group, however they were no where to be found. While looking for them, my Dad noticed something odd on one of the snow chutes on the knife ridge connecting the south summit to the north. The west side of the ridge drops vertically about 900 feet into the Lone Peak Cirque, while two chutes run steeply down the east face of the peak, in the ballpark of 60 to 70 degrees. Dad noticed that someone had either attempted to glissade down, which would have been suicide, or had fallen and slid down by the mark leading down in the snow.
After spending about an hour on and around the summit, we made our way down to a relatively flat spot off the ridge on the Alpine side of the mountain, and set up camp for the evening. That next morning around 6:00 a.m., we awoke to the sound of a helicopter hovering over the summit area above. After getting up for a closer look, we noticed the helicopter was search and rescue, mainly staying in the vicinity of the peak's steep east face and upper Bell Canyon. Dad and Alan kept commenting, seeming concerned. We ended up breaking down the camp, climbing up to the saddle between Lone and Bighorn Peaks. We dropped down the headwall into upper Bell Canyon, and began the long trek down to the trailhead under the lower Bell Canyon reservoir.
After about 5 hours, we met my Mom and my Aunt at the trailhead. Both of them jumped out of the cars once seeing us, very frantic. We learned then that Don Dawson, the scoutmaster in Jim's group had died up on the summit area the previous day. It was his slide path down the chute that Dad had seen the day before. According to Jim, Don had been traversing the knife ridge between the two summits, crossed the crest of the chute and had slipped, sliding down the steep chute gaining a good amount of speed, and hit a cliffband about 750 feet down. He died most likely instantly from massive head trauma. He had no axe or means to self arrest.
My cousin Kelly, who is my age, had the unfortunate opportunity of seeing Don slide out of sight down the chute. After telling Jim what had happened, they both downclimbed the steep east face on the rocks near the chute. Jim kept Kelly at a distance once finding Don's body. Being in an era before the cell phone, Jim moved down the canyon quickly and contacted S.A.R., who responded and retrieved the body the next morning.
The 1983 trip up there was bitter sweet. It was my first summit with Dad in a beautiful alpine environment. The Lone Peak Wilderness area is a gorgeous place. Sadly enough Jim died on the same mountain September 11th of 1995. There is a seperate trip report about his route to North Thunder Mountain, a summit about a mile and a half from Lone Peak, which can be seen here.
August of 1993.Ten years later, in August of 1993, my cousin Dave and I decided to head back up to Lone Peak from Alpine. We took full packs, and ice axes from the Schoolhouse Springs trailhead all the way to the small summit block, where we laid out the sleeping bags and spent the night. Seeing the glowing lights of Salt Lake City 6000 feet below at night is certainly a sight I will never forget. We climbed the next morning back down to the Schoolhouse trailhead and headed home.
A photo from the top of Question Mark wall, August 1993. |
Dave heading up the snow slopes to Lone Peak's summit, August 1993. |
Cory, Wasatchvoyage sitting atop the summit, August 1993. |
Our camp on the summit of Lone Peak, August 1993. |
Return to Lone Peak 15 years later. May 29th, 2009.After the summer and fall of 1993, life started to change with obligations and responsibilities, and reaching summits was put on the back burner. Nearly 14 years had passed, with only having a few summits chalked down during that time. However half way through 2008 last year, the desire to get back out flung to life again, more fervently than ever. After making a weekly goal to hit a peak, the entire upper area of the Lone Peak Wilderness Area was on the list. And what better time to climb these peaks than on consolidated spring snow! North Thunder Mountain, South Thunder Mountain, Bell's Cleaver, and Rocky Mouth Canyon Peak had aleady earlier been accomplished throughout May. All the approaches to these peaks had been done via Bell Canyon, with over 6,000 feet of elevation gain on each of the three seperate trips during the three weeks prior.
After reaching these peaks, I decided to finish up the area on Friday the 29th. After reading Joseph Bullough's excellent pages on the peak and routes, I decided to traverse Bighorn Peak from upper Bell Canyon, my final peak on the Salt Lake County highpoint list. The main goal was Bighorn, then possibly Lone Peak.
I got started pre-dawn with a headlamp, the pack loaded down with snow shoes, crampons and my axe and SLR camera. Getting up into upper Bell Canyon went swiftly after becoming very familiar with the area from the other trips up the canyon. Within a couple hours I found myself at the upper Bell's reservoir, and then traversed onto a small ridge skirting the west side. This ridge lead conveniently up into the upper bowl of Bell Canyon. The views were inspiring in any direction.
Upper Bell Canyon and Bighorn Peak. |
Looking down into upper Bell Canyon, with Lone Peak on the left. |
I made my way to the saddle on the east side of Bighorn Peak, changed out the snowshoes to crampons, stowed the trekking poles and broke out the ice axe. The climb ahead to the summit of Bighorn was class 3, with a mixed route of rock and snow.
Bighorn Peak's east ridge. |
After a fun climb up this ridge, the summit was reached. The narrow summit was crested with a nice cornice. The views all around once again were exceptional.
Bighorn Peak's Summit. |
After downing a clif bar, taking a GPS reading and absorbing the awesome scenery, I began heading down the class 4 west ridge. This route seemed a bit more challenging than the east ridge approach. Several granite gendarms make traversing this ridge area a delight. I traversed snow on the southern portion of the ridge higher up, then climbed down a series of smaller cliffbands, reaching the gendarms. The route then crossed the ridge to the north, dropping beneath the ridge on a fine but steep snow traverse. Once this portion had been negotiated, another rocky portion of the lower ridge was traversed to the west saddle above the Bell Canyon headwall.
Gendarms on Bighorn's west ridge. |
Above the saddle on Bighorn's west ridge, looking at Lone Peak. |
I looked up at the final climb up to Lone Peak, checked the time, and started up the ridge line. From this point the summit was above about 700 vertical feet, about half a mile away. The route up was easy class 2, crossing the ridge mainly on snow, then exposed rock above. Soon I found myself at the slightly lower south summit of Lone Peak. The knife ridge and main summit of Lone Peak stood beautifully to the north.
Looking at Lone Peak's main summit, and ridge from the south summit. |
After resting on the south summit for a moment, I headed down to the ridge area. The memory of Don Dawson kept clawing at me at this point. I reached a point about 30 vertical feet beneath the south summit where the ridge traverse began. This point looked somewhat technical, as the ridge is at it's most narrow point. To the west is a vertical drop into the Lone Peak Cirque of almost 900 feet, to the right is the snow chute and it's steep pitch dropping down into upper Bell Canyon roughly 1000 feet below. I placed my axe, though somewhat uncomfortable as the snow depth was only about one foot, and dropped about 6 feet down a rock to the questionable snow below. Warm temps had made the snow surface about 6 to 8 inches of fine slush. This was a spooky moment, as a fall down the chute directly below would have been extremly hard to self arrest with the present snow conditions. Also this was the same location where Don Dawson had slipped to his death 25 years earlier. Fortunately the crampons bit in decently, and I crossed the snow to the remaining rock section of the ridge to the base of the north summit. Once climbing the final class 4 blocks to the summit, I was there!
The summit marker, a bit worn since the previous visit the peak. |
Beautiful view along the ridge, south summit and Box Elder and Mt. Timpanogos. |
Looking north east from the summit across Bell Canyon, and the Cottonwood Ridge. |
Looking east from the summit at the Alpine Ridge area. |
An odd sense of satisfaction was felt on the summit, however it was some what counteracted by knowing of the descent and traverse ahead. After spending about half an hour on the top, I headed down, and traversed back to the top of the chute. Getting back up over the rock seemed to be challenging, finally I was able to get the pick of my axe wedged between two rocks, and I was able to pull myself up and over. From there I climbed back down to the saddle west of Bighorn, only stopping to admire the view of Bighorn's incredible west face.
Bighorn Peak's west face. |
I dropped down from the saddle into the steep headwall area into upper Bell Canyon. After down climbing several cliff bands, the steep snow slope was reached. I tossed several rocks down onto the snow at this point to intentionly trigger a small wet slab slide, which I used to climb down about half way, then glissade the rest of the way down. The snowshoes were strapped back on and the crampons stowed in the pack. After getting down about two miles and 2500 vertical feet into Bell Canyon, the hiking route began, and I made my way back down the canyon and into the heat of the valley, meeting several people on the lower trail making their way up to the waterfall area in the canyon.
This was a fantastic hike and climb, completing the goal to reach all 32 Salt Lake County Highpoints, and reaching an incredible alpine peak I haven't stood on in over 15 years. Roughly 7,000 vertical feet, and 14 miles were traveled, a new personal best. This trip will be added to the archive of memories of this incredible area. And it won't be the last! Images
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Wasatch Range (Central) > Lone Peak > A 15 Year Hiatus from the Lone Peak Monarch.
