Mountain biked the Monroe Canyon road for ~4000 ft of vert. Very nice gradient for climbing, not difficult and lots of outstanding views. A little gravelly in a couple spots makes you cheeck your speed, but mostly hardpack.
ALTERNATE ROUTE NOTE: ~8900 ft is Mud Spring and first a ATV road heads off east, this does wrap around Monroe peaks north Ridge, but I could not tell on maps how much farther it went from there. Just south and uphill of this is a signed trailhead labelled the Nielsen Creek Canyon. I took this on my bike for a couple hundred yards on the way down and it was ridable up to that point and had been at least somewhat taken care of with sawing of downed wood, including recent maintenance, despite the seldom used look of the trail with its pine needle covered trail. This could be a possible hiking route as on the old Caltopo maps it shows the trail going up Nielsen creek though not quite connecting to the 78 that runs from Eagle Flats. Seems like a good alternative for those that would like to hike the peak and not ona road most of the way as it would be pretty simple to summit from there.
This was my 73/142 4,000+ ft U.S. prominence peak. Great views despite the road, just got to be more creative in finding fulfilling routes on these types of list peaks.
apachedino - Aug 4, 2017 11:29 am - Hasn't voted
Alternate route (also good for biking)Mountain biked the Monroe Canyon road for ~4000 ft of vert. Very nice gradient for climbing, not difficult and lots of outstanding views. A little gravelly in a couple spots makes you cheeck your speed, but mostly hardpack.
ALTERNATE ROUTE NOTE: ~8900 ft is Mud Spring and first a ATV road heads off east, this does wrap around Monroe peaks north Ridge, but I could not tell on maps how much farther it went from there. Just south and uphill of this is a signed trailhead labelled the Nielsen Creek Canyon. I took this on my bike for a couple hundred yards on the way down and it was ridable up to that point and had been at least somewhat taken care of with sawing of downed wood, including recent maintenance, despite the seldom used look of the trail with its pine needle covered trail. This could be a possible hiking route as on the old Caltopo maps it shows the trail going up Nielsen creek though not quite connecting to the 78 that runs from Eagle Flats. Seems like a good alternative for those that would like to hike the peak and not ona road most of the way as it would be pretty simple to summit from there.
This was my 73/142 4,000+ ft U.S. prominence peak. Great views despite the road, just got to be more creative in finding fulfilling routes on these types of list peaks.