Lone Peak

For this months blog I was looking at some of our mountain climbing pictures and I came across a couple of pictures of Lone Peak. This is my favorite mountain to climb in Utah. Not very many people climb it, and the trails at the top aren't very good. These pictures are of the second time we climbed Lone Peak. We had tried the year before, but from the Alpine side. Sarai was with us on that climb and it was brutal. It was even steeper than the Draper side and we had to do a lot of bouldering. These pictures are from our last hike from the Draper side up Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder is a super steep trail with no breaks for about 5 miles. Then once you get to the top you make your way to a meadow and then from there the trails stop and you have to make your own way up. The reason why there aren't any trails is because the top of the mountain is granite. There's a valley rimmed by vertical cliffs of granite. To get to the top you enter must get on the ridge. The ridge is pretty steep and a little scary in some places because you have steep drops on each side. Once you get close to the top the drops become even more dizzying, with thousand foot drops on both sides. Rachel didn't feel inclined to go the last 100 yards because it's super dangerous. I, however, could not be restrained. Must be that Stone's blood I have in me. The very top of the mountain is a flat piece of rock about the size of a table. On three sides there's a vertical drop of over a thousand feet. It's pretty nerve racking, but it's awesome. I would recommend this climb to anyone, but you better be in good shape. It's a long hike in and even longer hike out. The hike took us about 12 hours. On the way down I came way too close to a rattlesnake. Luckily I had my ski poles out in front and was making lots of noise, so it heard me coming and decided to get off the trail.