Jayson, Nolan, Brett & Bryan's Big Adventure
Check out the slide show below, and then read on for the full details of one of our favorite highpointing experiences so far.
Even planning this hike was a bit of a challenge, as I had just got married in May and was still exposing my passion for hiking and highpointing to my new beloved wife. We were poor, still going to school, and expecting a baby girl at the beginning of the year, so it would have been easy to justify skipping a highpoint this year and putting off hiking altogether until we could afford the essential equipment I was needing, but Nolan kept me excited about doing our second highpoint by constantly reminding me about King's Peak being next on the list. Being a bit nervous that he would move down the list without me, I shared with Stephanie how important this was, and that we would need to find a way to prioritize it into our budget and schedule.
I remember clearly Stephanie's quiet exasperation when I purchased my new hiking boots for $110 in Idaho Falls one Saturday, along with wool socks and polypropolene sock liners. Years later she confided that she didn't understand why I "needed" new boots just for hiking and why a $35-$40 pair wouldn't work just as well. Later, she similarly quietly accepted my "need" to purchase a $75 sleeping bag that stuffed into a sack rather than the kind that folds in half and then rolls up with elastic straps to secure it into a tight roll. Over time, she has come to understand my "need" for certain things, and I have equally come to accept her "need" of other things. We're quite the perfect match.
Anyway, having acquired now all the basic equipment I was lacking, I was committed to climbing King's Peak at the end of the summer just prior to starting my Master's program at BYU. In fact, we had just moved from Twin Falls to our rental house in Provo the week before we had planned to make the trip. Stephanie was 3 months pregnant, there was plenty more to do to get ourselves settled into our new home and get ready for school upon my return from the hike. I didn't even have a part-time job arranged, and Stephanie was looking for work too, so we would be able to pay rent and buy food. It was a stressful time to say the least, but I left for the hike regardless, comforted in part that Stephanie's mom would be there with Stephanie until I returned.
I planned to meet Jayson, Nolan & Bryan at the trailhead on Thursday around noon. I stopped in Heber City to get some gas and to purchase a Utah fishing license, then in my enthusiasm to get there, I got on the road and didn't think twice about not knowing exactly where I was going. I had passed a little town called Tabiona before I realized I had missed my turn. I debated turning around and retracing my path nearly all the way back to Heber City where I could catch the right turn, but I finally figured I was making such good time that I should be able to lengthen my trip by a couple of hours and see some new countryside, some of which was beckoning me from the map I held in my hands. I didn't have a phone I could use to communicate my plans with my brothers, so I just moved forward through some new scenery at a comfortable pace toward Vernal, where I would turn north to pass the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area and then cut over to the trailhead at Henry's Fork Campground. As my exuberance heightened further, apparently so did my speed, which I was forced to realize when lights began to flash behind me. I pulled over and greeted the cop graciously, to which he responded sternly asking if I knew how fast I had been going. I sheepishly replied that I may have been going 65. He said, "You were actually going 72 mph, and as you can see by the sign, you have just now entered the city limits of Duchesne, and the speed has slowed to 45 mph. I was all alone on this isolated highway, and I had failed to notice any signs or any town at all coming up. So, I accepted my fate and continued my drive with the jitters until I finally crossed the border into Wyoming, where I decided for some reason I could go a little over the speed limit and not worry so much. I arrived at the campground at 2:00 pm expecting to find my brothers anxiously awaiting my arrival, but they weren't there, and it wasn't long before my jitters returned wondering where they could possibly be. While I waited anxiously for my brothers to arrive, I chatted with other hikers about their trips, most of whom had turned back because of a four inch snowfall the night before. I was getting even more nervous that this trip was simply not going to work out. Fortunately, after all of our trials up to this point, things finally began to fall into place in our favor.
At around 5 pm, after hours of my anxious praying and worrying, they finally pulled into the campground. Apparently, they had encountered some car trouble with Bryan's new little Ford Ranger. We didn't waste any time getting on the trail to make up as much ground as possible, so we would have less mileage the following day.
We hiked in 2-3 miles to Alligator Lake, where we set up camp in the dark and slipped immediately into our sleeping bags for a good night's rest after a long, difficult day. We awoke early the next morning to hike to the campsite just below Gunsight Pass, where we would camp for the night. We passed through some beautiful scenery within some shady evergreens most of the way and some lakes along the trail, where we purified and replenished our water supplies. After 7 miles of easy hiking with our backpacks, we reached the campsite, set up camp, had some dinner, tossed an ultimate disc around a bit and reminisced about our former days as we typically do. Finally, we settled in to rest because we knew our morning would come super early.
Sleep came easy, but in the middle of the night we awoke to sheep bleating their hearts out all around us, but the noise began to fade as they wandered slowly away. I think I drifted back to sleep, but was again awakened by the incessant bleating of what sounded like a younger sheep that may have been lost from his mom. It seemed to go on for more than an hour before again I fell back into my peaceful slumber. The next morning, we awoke at 5 am to get a headstart on our long day. In our early morning preparations, we ran across that lone, young sheep that had been crying all night, only we discovered his crying had stopped not because he had wandered away, but because he had died just 15 yards from our tents. It looks like he must have wandered over the edge of a small cliff and had hit his head on some rocks when he fell. No wonder he was crying. Anyway, it made for a long, sleepless night.
We made good time getting through Gunsight Pass and winding up the final switchbacks to summit this magnificent peak well before noon. We signed the register, enjoyed the view from the top and began the descent back to our tents near Gunsight Pass. The plan was to stop at Dollar Lake and do a little fishing, but we all decided instead to tread onward all the way back to the trailhead. That made for a super long 19 mile day, but it was refreshing to have this trip in the bag. We slept well that night, but the next day, we were quite the pathetic sight for people to see, with all of us shuffling around like old men whose muscles didn't work quite right anymore. We were extremely sore to say the least. We stopped in Evanston to develop our pictures at Wal-Mart, and we had to hold each other up with every step we took. King's Peak was defiinitely a trip we'll remember for life.
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