South Tent Mountain August 2012

Helpful Info for those wanting to climb

I will try and put in some details/updates as of 8/11/12 that will be helpful for those looking to summit this peak.

1) The drive from Manti was a little over an hour and 15 minutes in our Jeep Cherokee with pretty good conditions on the road. The dirt road from Spring City to Skyline was in great condition while Skyline Drive was definitely the roughest part but very doable.
2) I was blown away that there is no real trail considering this was a county highpoint in a beautiful area relatively close to population. Also, there is no trail up to the saddle between North and South Tent Mountains---it's a lot of bushwacking. You should take the route up North Tent first!
3) The trailhead/road/starting point to go up North Tent has been destroyed so watch carefully. You can clearly see what looks like a trail going up North Tent but you will have to wing it starting out to make your way up the ridge. From what I could tell, the starting point is right there close to where the dirt road turns off in to the meadow.
4) I could not find a summit register (also surprising for a county highpoint).

Sanpete County Highpoint Trip Report

We drove the hour and a half from Palisade State Park just south of Manti. Dirt road from Spring City was in good condition all the way to the turn off to Skyline Drive. Skyline was a bit rough but in good condition. Definitely slower going than the well graded dirt road up from Spring City. Since there is no signage I definitely recommend using your google maps GPS to make sure you are in the right place. Once we got to the left hand turn in to the meadow below the Tent mountain peaks we went down a couple hundred yards and parked.
We did NOT see the trailhead going up North Tent on our way in and attempted to gain the ridge by going down the dirt road and then bushwacking up towards the low point of the saddle between North and South Tent. On the way out, it was clear that there was some semblance of a trail going up North Tent and I wish we would have looked closer for it on the way in. If you look close, you can see where the trail used to start---it is very close to where you take your left turn in to the meadow area where you park.
It's quite a steep bushwack up to the saddle, but once you are on the ridge, it's beautiful and it's pretty nice. There is still no real trail aside from about a 100 meter section of defined trail near the top. We ran the ridge up to the summit and spent some time taking in the views and relaxing on top. There is a marker on top but I was unable to locate a summit register. We also went past the summit to get a look down in to Joe's Valley.
Once we were ready, we ran back down the mountain. I forgot to mention that the wildflowers were great. We ran the dirt road section and much of the ridge and total trip time was around an hour. Hopefully this is helpful for anyone wanting to climb this high point.

Images

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