Mount Olympus (UT)

My childhood home was near the left edge of the photo.

My next scheduled summit after Humphreys (below) was Mount Olympus, which rises magnificently above Salt Lake City to 9,026 feet.  As a kid, I lived south of the city for several years and would look up at the mountain with awe.  When my big brother said there was a trail to the top, I desperately wanted to go, but they said I was too little.  So, instead, I would stare at the steep slopes and imagine where the invisible trail might be and how tiny our house would look from the tippy-tippy top.  I was in my 20s and living in Washington State by the time I became serious about hiking.  But that childhood mountain in Utah always beckoned.  Inexplicably, it’s taken me decades to finally make the trip.

9. Mount Olympus:  The forecast (June 30) was for sunny and hot, 100 degrees-plus in Salt Lake City.  From my cheesy motel in Nephi, I sped to the Mount Olympus trailhead for a somewhat late start at around 8:15 am.  The first quarter-mile is quite steep and I was a little past that when I suddenly realized I had forgotten to toss my one-gallon water jug into my daypack!  I searched my pack and found a 20-ounce bottle of flavored vitamin water I just happened to drop in the pack the day before.  The brand was Lifewater.  The flavor was “yumberry pomegranate.”  Okay, I did not want to descend to the car and re-climb that first pitch, not so much for the added effort, but because the trail was still in shade and the time lost by retrieving the water jug would steal all that shade away.  But could I get all the way up (a gain of 4,200 feet) and back on two and a half cups of water?  I experienced severe dehydration in the Grand Canyon once and certainly didn’t want to get into that fix again.  On the bright side, I’d eaten a quarter of a good-sized watermelon for breakfast and had already drank a liter of water, so, for the moment anyway, I was well hydrated.  I looked down at the rental car that held all that luscious H2O, looked up the mountain, and looked at my Lifewater.  I chose Life.  Lifewater.  I headed on up, promising to turn back if things got too ridiculous.

The trail eased off, but elevation was quickly gained and the views were outstanding much of the way.  The trail made the most of what shade there was, seeming to have been designed and located with summer heat in mind.  Patches of warm sunlight warned of my little predicament.  A fellow I met on the trail advised that a nice long shady section awaited higher up.  I reached a trickle of a stream in cool forest and knew that there was at least an emergency supply of water there if worse came to worst.  As it turned out, the rest of the climb was never too hot and thoroughly enjoyable, shuffling up some exposed shale to a high flower bed among tall firs and the first good view of the summit not far above.  I still had half my bottle of Lifewater left.

The 3.5-mile hike becomes a scramble for the last 200 vertical feet, including a short section of exposed, easy moves up a shallow rock gully.  Here, a family of five was descending.  One mentioned they had spotted a rattlesnake in a crevice at the top.  Great.  My favorite reptile.  Not.  I danced over the last of the summit boulders almost expecting a hidey snake to take a chunk out of my bare calf.  I did not see, hear, nor poke around for a snake, nor did I feel much like sitting down on the boulder pile for a rest.  After a few snapshots and a gaze out toward my childhood home, lost somewhere in the confetti of development that spills ever wider across the broad valley, I reversed course and headed down.

The mighty Wasatch.

The summit rocks.

Note climber scrambling in the gully.

Mailbox summit register.

I descended the steep section as another couple came up, warned them about the alleged snake, then enjoyed a bit of a rest and most of what was left of my yumberry pomegranate at the saddle.  I would have lingered there if not for the hot sun baking my bones and being down to the last dribble.  I finished that off about twenty minutes later.  At the trickle of a stream, I opted to pass on the intestinal risk therein, and basked in the cool woods a spell before continuing down, down, down into the heat, knowing all the water I could ever drink was less than hour away… a half-hour… ten minutes.  There’s the car!  I was parched, but not ferociously dehydrated.  The gamble paid off.  I’d made the summit and was soon guzzling water like it was nectar from the gods.  When I turned on the ignition, the car thermometer read 107 degrees.  It read high from sitting there.  It was really just a chilly 102.

 

For the heck of it, I drove over to the house we lived in off 23^rd East, parked in the street—nothing like it was so many years ago—and stared up at the mountain awhile, trying to imagine where the trail went.

Miles (RT):  7.0 miles; elevation gain: 4,200 feet

Cumulative mileage and gain:  28.1 miles / 12,990 feet

 

My childhood view of Mount Olympus. I remember racing
horses here (bareback!) when it was a dirt road.