Lone Peak Cirque in the Wasatch Mountains is Utah’s version of the Grand Teton. It is a long approach to get there (5,000′ of uphill on loose dirt), it tops out at around 11,300′ and it has some of the best, cleanest granite in all of the state. As if the multi-hour approach wasn’t hard enough, over the last three to five years, new housing developments have continually wiped out the trailheads, so just finding a way up there has been a challenge.
Heading into Lone Peak Cirque from the Corner Canyon/Draper City approach.
I hadn’t been up there this season, and was completely thrilled to see that not only has the City of Draper opened the Corner Canyon road, they have put up burly fences and outlawed motorized vehicles in the area. Yippy! In the past, the entire area had been trashed with illegal roads, campfires and tons of litter. Now it looks much better, and while they were at it, they even cut in a nice new hiking trail.
We hiked up/back in a day, which is fairly common, although camping overnight in the Cirque is a treat as well. My partner for the day was Dr. Geoff Tabin who moved to Utah about three years ago. Geoff was the third or forth person to complete all Seven Summits and he runs the Himalayan Cataract Project, as well as squeezing in lots of climbing and skiing.
We ended up doing the Center Thumb Route (five pitches, 5.9) as many of the other classic routes had people on them, and the Center Thumb is a beautiful line.
Geoff collecting gear while following the second pitch.
The weather was perfect and we weren’t in a hurry, so the entire car-to-car trip took about twelve hours.
The Center Thumb route is directly above Geoff’s head. We’ll be back!
Geoff Tabin floating through the crux of the Center Thumb.
The only downside of the entire day was showing up at “The Cotton Bottom” bar and grill fully anticipating a beer & burger…. and finding them closed. Sigh - Sunday in Utah. A small price to pay.
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Setting up a Tyrolean Traverse (as pictured below) is often logistically harder than the actual climbing involved to get there.
In this case, Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite Valley, Rick Lovelace and I hiked to the valley’s rim, rappelled from the fixed anchors on the right-hand side of the photo down into the notch between the wall and the spire, then climbed the spire while trailing a rope which was still fixed to the anchors. Once we got to the top of the spire (5.9 A2) we pulled the rope tight, anchored it off, then Rick used rope ascenders to climb back over to the rim while trailing a second rope. Once he got there, we rerigged the ropes so I could follow and then we could pull the ropes clean. It is a convoluted process, but well worth it in this case as it puts you in a spectacular location thousands of feet above the valley floor.
The group pictured above did the traverse after us, and just about when this photo was taken I called over to the guy in the middle of the rope and said “Hey, you might try to go easy on your rope - it looks like it is fraying.” He totally stopped and put his head down for a while until I realized that he didn’t know I was joking, so I called over again “Just kidding!” to which he called back “Don’t f*ck with me right now. I’m feeling very fragile.”
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