Sugarloaf Peak

Today we hiked to the top of Sugarloaf Peak. The picture above is the lifthouse at the top of the Sugarloaf Chair Lift. It should look familiar to many of you - even without the snow.

We started our hike in a parking lot close to the top of the Albion Chair Lift. We walked down past Alf's Restaurant (formerly known as Watson Shelter) near the bottom of the Sugarloaf Chair Lift. Then we started a long slow and sometimes steep climb up towards Sugarloaf Peak. We walked through several familiar areas that we recognized from the days when we used to ski at Alta. About halfway up the mountain we came upon a Marmot (they look like giant squirrels - see the picture). We hiked past the top of the Germania Lift and then through Sugarloaf Pass. On the pass we could see Mt. Timpanogos to the south, Twin Peaks and Mt. Baldy to the west and to the north we could see the tops of all the different mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. From the Pass we walked past the Sugarloaf Lifthouse and went up a short but very steep climb to the top of Sugarloaf Peak. According to our GPS system we were standing at 11,018 feet and we had climbed 2,088 feet from our car.

Standing on top of Sugarloaf Peak we could look several hundred feet straight down at Cecret Lake (pronounced Secret Lake - a long time ago the lake was misspelled by a miner when he staked a claim in the area. The misspelled word has stuck and it is still used today).

Looking directly east on Sugarloaf Peak is a magnificent towering rock formation known as Devils Castle. To get there we had to walk along the top of a ridgeline that on one side was a sheer cliff towering over Cecret Lake and the other side was a steep drop off over a boulder field looking down at a lake called Pittsburg Lake. Ricardo tried to stay as far away from the big drop off over Cecret Lake as possible but Flori had no problem with the heights and bounced along the edge of the cliff like it was no big deal. Ricardo tried not to look.

Once we got to Devils Castle we realized that to get to the very top we would have to climb up a series of several short cliffs and boulders with major exposure on both sides - something similar to the bad parts of Angels Landing in Zions but without the chain - yikes!!

Ricardo thought it would be best to bypass the climb to the top and thankfully Flori agreed. That meant to get back down we had two choices - go back the way we came over the ridgeline to Sugarloaf Peak or go down along the north face of Devils Castle up, over and around several major boulder fields. We decided to be adventurous and go the boulder route.

The trek down was slow but fun. Flori did a great job of choosing where to go and we made it down with only one fall on some loose rocks. In short it was a blast. As we descended we kept hearing voices but couldn't see anyone. Finally we looked up on the north wall going up to the top of Devils Castle and saw two climbers inching their way up the sheer cliff (look at the yellow dot in the middle of the picture). They were roped to each other but nothing else. We sat and watched them for a while.

After reaching the bottom of the boulder fields we decided to finish our hike on the trails near Cecret Lake. The wildflowers were unbelievably beautiful. Our photographs don't do them justice - they are something that really has to be seen in person.

As we came around a bend in the trail we suddenly found ourselves about 20 feet away from a giant bull moose standing in the trees. He didn't seem to pay any attention to us so we slipped by but as you can see from the picture he did turn and take a good look at us. Luckily that was all he did.

All in all the hike was great fun - especially seeing the magnificent views and all of the areas we knew so well from our skiing days. The round trip was 5.81 miles which took us 2 1/2 hours to complete. But we spent almost another hour stopping to look at the views and the flowers.

Enjoy the photos.