Ben Lomond Peak via North Skyline Trail

I've hiked up the North Skyline Trail several times about 2 miles to the same point, even biked it once, but I've never made it to Ben Lomond via that route before, mainly because I didn't want to hike 16 miles, but since I have a Grand Canyon backpacking trip coming up I figured it's time to get some long hikes with significant elevation gains in them. The trail is pretty nice except towards the beginning where there are serious problems with erosion, and damage from motorcycles which result in a trail with a V shaped rutt. The trail is shared by hikers, mountain bikers, quadriped pooping machines, and motorcycles. The North Skyline Trail is also part of the Great Western Trail. Looking at the ridgeline going across from the North Ogden Divide to Ben Lomond you would assume that the trail just climbs to the ridge and flattens out until you get to the final ascent of Ben Lomond, but that's not the case, you're steadily climbing almost the entire time as you'll see in the elevation profile included with the images. Sure it's flat for some sections, but there's not a 5 mile section of flat. Being Labor Day there were plenty of hikers up there and fortunately few of the aforementioned quadripeds. There were several mountain bikers, but I didn't see any past the 1500 ft elevation gain and 2.5 mile mark. I decided to wear a Falke performance compression shirt I was given to test out last Spring, and it's probably the first time I've worn it that it actually regulated my temperature better than not wearing it at all. The other times, it either made me overheat, or made me freeze. I wore it under a Nike poly tee. 

So the trail can be broken down into a couple different sections:
Mile 0-2 Climbing the canyon side of the N.O. Divide
Mile 2-4 Climbing the Eastern side of the ridge overlooking the Ogden Valley (Eden/Huntsville)
Mile 4-6.5 Hiking along the Western side of the ridge
Mile 6.5-7.5 Climbing the Eastern side of B.L.

In all it was 15.5 miles and 3,850 ft in elevation climbed

View photos of the trail

Willard Peak

With Willard Peak under my belt, I've now climbed 7 Utah county high points, and have 19 left. I took the dirt road that climbs up to Inspiration Point (it's on Willard Mountain). The road had become much rougher since last year when I last went up there, but it was still very doable in lil' red. There were a ton of ATV'ers up there. It truly is the best way to get around on those roads. It's certainly much faster than having to negotiate all the obstacles. The starting point for the hike is at the spring that flows onto the road in Willard Basin. This trail heads up to an alpine lake right below the peak -- well, about 800 feet below the peak. There are two trails from here, one heading East around the lake onto the ridge, and one heading West onto the ridge. They meet up, so either direction is fine. The trail heading East is nicer to hike on. Once you're close to the ridge, there's a trail that climbs the North side of the ridge, overlooking the lake, and eventually leads you to the bare rocks that make up the peak. From that point, you're on your own. The granite on the peak gives great traction. Close to the top there's a giant crack in the mountain. I'm not sure how deep it is, at one point all you can see is black, and it's so narrow that light only gets down there for a couple minutes a day, but it is long, and it's hard to miss. On top there are 3 potential high points. I think the one in the middle is the actual highest. It consists of a chunk of rock jutting up. The GPS said they were all the same height, so the coolest spot was chosen as the high point. The actual trail to the peak is all fine and dandy, but you can get up there by going down the trail towards Ben Lomond Peak for a ways, and then at your chosen spot just start climbing up the rock. It's a good way to go if you can't find the trail, which was my case. There were some mountain goats that we crossed paths with on the way up. Some motorcyclists on the trail to B.L.P. stopped to check them out as well. From the loud conversation overhead halfway up the peak, the goats we're freakin' sweet. Willard Peak is by far the most geologically interesting peak I've been on. You can see for yourself in the pictures.

In All, it was 1,524 ft climbed over 4 miles.

View photos of the trail

Wheeler Canyon -> Green Pond Trail

I guess after having made it as far up as I could go at SnowBasin, the only logical thing to do next was to start lower and try to get to the top, to do that you start at the Wheeler Canyon trailhead right next to the Pineview Reservoir dam. Wheeler Canyon is a wide trail, and is a lot of fun to come down riding over all the rock outcroppings on the trail. Only problem is horse crap, as usual with forest service trails. Anyway I was feeling like I could climb about 3000 vertical feet or more, but to do that I would've had to start a couple hours earlier. To get to the Needles Lodge from Wheeler Canyon would be 4300 vertical feet, just for reference. I only made it to the top of the Green Pond Loop Trail 20 minutes before the sun set. Around that point in time I pulled the sweetest move -- my front tire found some rodents underground burrow, and since the rain had softened the ground, my tire dropped straight down about 4 inches, which wouldn't have been a big deal except my front tire had a big rock in front of it that I was going to ride over. The sweet part is what happened next, I just endo'd, yup, right over the top. Since I was going up a small hill at the time it was a slow, graceful endo. That's not the best part though; I endo'd right into a nice stretch of mud, and I had an impressive bloody dent in my lower leg! It just doesn't get better than that, being all covered in mud looking like you went to war on your ride, with the wounds to prove it. Since I didn't have much time to get down off the mountain I took the Old Snowbasin Highway back to the Art Nord trailhead (max speed, 39 MPH on the highway), and went from there to the Wheeler Creek trailhead.

All in all, 2,384 ft climbed over 14.3 miles

SnowBasin -- All the way to the top

After weeks & weeks of climbing the mountain I finally climbed all the way to the top. I wasn't planning on going all the way, but once I saw the Needles lodge, I knew I'd be very disappointed if I didn't get there. For this ride I took the Needles Trail from the parking lot at the base. Once I was into the middle section of the mountain I took the Diamond Trail up to the Philpot Trail where I eventually rejoined the Needles trail. I excruciatingly made my way from there up the final ascents to the lodge. I parked my butt at the lodge for about 20 minutes, just chilling before I headed back down. For the trip down I took the Porcupine Trail, effectively covering most of the mountain. It took 3 1/2 hours to do all this, and the sun had set by the time I made it back to the parking lot.

Earlier in the day I was at the Outdoor Retailer Show's Open Air Demo Day at Willard Bay. While there I came upon a glove manufacturer who let me borrow a pair of biking gloves to test out on a ride. I don't know if they realized that I meant a real ride, but dangit, that's what it was. So these gloves showed a lot of promise, but seriously fell short. The first thing I noticed was a massive seam between the thumb and the forefinger that dug into flesh whenever I gripped the handlebars. Everything else was good for a couple miles, and then my pinkies started to complain from the seams around those fingers. I kept going & then I started feeling my skin being rubbed raw from excess material bunching at the base of my fingers. Near the top I noticed one of the design elements on the glove had started peeling away. When I looked at the gloves on the top I noticed that the padding which was prominently raised on the palm was almost as flat as the rest of the glove. Between the seams, the bunching fabric & lack of padding my hands were complaining the whole way down. When I took the gloves off my palms were on the verge of being all pruney from lack of ventilation for the palms. One last thing, the terry wipe pad on the glove was teeny tiny for a guy whose sweat glands act like sprinklers. I was wishing I had my regular pair of gloves in my bag. They're a 10 year old pair of Specialized gloves, mostly leather, no padding at all which are still as functional as the day I bought them. Thanks Specialized.

All in all it was 2600 ft of elevation climbed and 12.5 miles.

SnowBasin -- Green Pond/Last Chance Loops

Snowbasin is becoming a welcome retreat this summer with the heat that the valley's have been having. The increased electric bill for keeping my place cool is proof enough of that. It's totally worth the 30 minute drive up there (40 minutes if someone drives the canyon at 25 mph). I've been going up 3-4 times a week, though I certainly don't post about every time. The Porcupine Trail is by far my favorite trail up there, downhill at least. It has some sweet jumps and some good amounts of trail that aren't encumbered with switchbacks. Towards the top there's a large rock that's right next to the trail that you can ride up on and jump off a 2 foot drop back onto the trail. It's an open invitation for some tacos -- with my bike at least.

As of Saturday I've ridden every foot of trail on the mountain. My top 3 trails are Porcupine -- downhill, Green Pond Loop -- clockwise, and Last Chance Loop -- counter-clockwise. You can come up with some pretty creative combinations with all the trails up there, and that can give you some good opportunities for some more uphill in your ride if that's what you're after. I'm still not a fan of the development of the switchbacks. Like I've said before, the majority of them are really tight, and you come up on them without warning. They're also covered with a deep layer of fine dirt that resembles talcum powder. This hides some rocks, deep cuts, and other obstacles in the way, and makes tight turns at any level of speed an uneasy prospect. Compounding this, a lot of the switchbacks have downward slopes on the exit portions instead of banks, so the natural course of a bike, is right off the trail. Before I slowed down to a crawl on these switchbacks, I made out with a couple endos because of that design. Which brings up a question -- were the switchbacks planned this way to force bikers to slow down, or is it a result of a lack of planning & foresight on the trail designers part?

Back to the subject at hand, I decided to make one big loop out of the Green Pond & Last Chance Loops. This was a good combination resulting in 8.4 miles of trail climbing around 1500 ft. This route took me my preferred way up the Green Pond Loop, and gave me the chance to do the Last Chance Loop the opposite way of what I've done before. I didn't like it that much to be honest. I think next time up there I'm going to try these loops in a figure 8 pattern. It will cover more mileage and be a little more climbing, but It'll be a better ride. Overall, though, it was a great ride. It doesn't even feel like you've climbed 1500 ft throughout the whole ride, maybe just half.

Powder Mountain Race Loop

This was my 2nd attempt to ride the race loop. The first time I forgot my GPS & the coordinates for the turnoffs from the double track to single track. I don't know if they still use this trail for racing, but if they do, it doesn't look like it's been raced on lately. You can get directions there & the coordinates from utahmountainbiking.com. Some of the singletrack sections are a lot of fun to ride. Others look like they haven't seen a bike in more than a year (probably because riders couldn't find the trails). On portions of this trail you'll get really close to nature as the trail gets swallowed up by overhanging trees & plants. It's at those times that all you see is your line through the plants and you hope there isn't a large rock in the way that you can't see. Other parts of the singletrack are plagued with the after effects of burrowing rodents. At other times you'll stop & wonder where the trail goes. In the end though, it's a fun ride, and now that I know where all the turnoffs are I can have a little more fun & ride through it faster. Only the first turnoff onto singletrack is marked with a cairn. The singletrack is also marked with small pink flags (welll, they used to be pink at one time), so if you haven't run over one in a while, you're probably off the trail. The directions on utahm..b...com are fairly accurate, only things I'd clarify are that at 4.2, the DT does not become ST, you have to turn off on a singletrack trail. If you see a ski sign for Combome Canyon, you went too far. I went about 3/4 of a mile past the ski sign before turning back and added another 400 ft of climbing to my ride. 2nd clarification, at mile 4.9 at the lift house, go around it to the north & down the hill (this isn't on my map, I went to the south of the lift house, but managed to get back on a little down the road) It'll look like you're just going to drop all the way down to the nether regions of the resort, but there's a road off to the left that you hop on that will take you back up to the lodge. 3rd clarification -- that single track you have to find off the parking lot is really an old entrance to the parking lot. If you want to do this ride, I suggest finding someone that knows the route. The first time up we didn't see a single piece of singletrack, mainly because we didn't know where we specifically needed to look at each invisible intersection. The singletrack intersections look even fainter than game trails.

Not including my jaunt way off the beaten path, the actual trail is something like 5.75 miles & 850 ft elevation climbed throughout.

Ogden Peak

With a season pass in hand, getting to the top of Ogden Peak was never easier. Without a ride to the top, you'd need to go through an exhausting climb from the base of Snowbasin to the top, or for the ultrafit, you could climb it from the Ogden side all the way from the valley floor up one of the many canyon trails that lead to the top. You really won't see any signs pointing to any of the trails going up to Ogden Peak. Some of them are pretty new, and even while I was up there, the Snowbasin crew was working on portions of the trail that lead up to the ridgeline. From the ridge to the halfway point to the peak the trail seems to be nothing more than a game trail. A real trail comes into view as you cross the ridge coming up from Strong's Peak. This trail is marked with massive cairns -- impossible to miss. This trail leads to the service road that climbs Ogden Peak to the towers. You can really go any way you want until you hit this road -- walk the ridgeline, bushwhack, whatever. Getting up the service road is the steepest section of the climb. Sharing the summit are several radio towers, and a helicopter landing pad -- a mighty small landing pad -- really close to the towers. Storm clouds were brewing in the morning, but by the end of the hike blue skies were back out & more people decided to come up onto the ridge.

It was 3.33 miles to the top & back & around 1300 ft gained.

View photos from this trail