King's Peak Trip Report

“14 Sat:

Well finally the day arrived. I got a called from my friend at 5:30 AM saying that the other guy has not arrived at his house yet, I tolded him it was only 5:30 that he wasn't suppose to be there until 6:15 AM. I got another call at 6:30 telling me he got lost looking for my apt. we met on the highway a few miles from my apt. It was really windy in the canyon, could barely open my car door. Was this a bad omen for things to come? Well we arrived at the TH at about 10:00 AM, we compared gear and talked. My friend was carrying about 60-70 pounds, the other guy was carrying about 40-45 pounds. Off we went, about after 1 1/2 miles on the trail I saw something moving on the ground, you won't believe this, it was a parekeet green and hopping around, I bent over and touched it, he just turned his head and looked at me. He could not even fly, this pissed me off big time. Some #&%!$s just left him there. I'm pretty sure he froze that night or something eat him, I'm still pissed thinking about it today. Well after about another mile or so we stopped for lunch. We saw a moose in the meadow just standing there checking us out. A few Gray Jays came over for lunch also, man these birds just love to stop over when you stop to have something to eat. We did about 5.5 miles in about 2 hours, not too bad. We arrived at Gunsight Pass (11,888) in about 5 hours. We setup camp here. We planned on doing King's the next day very early because of the snow. We heard the snow was getting mushy around 8:30 AM. It got down to at least 32 degrees that night/morning.

15 Sun:

We got up around 6:00 AM which was OK, but was still a little late according to my friend. We left at 7:15 AM. We took a short cut through some boulders, I mean alot of boulders around 2 miles worth with 500 elev. gain. This saved us about 1 mile of flat trail. I would have felt better doing the flat trail, but the experience was great. We arrived at Anderson Pass which is about 1 mile below and about another 800 feet elev. gain to go. I just looked up at this peak with a knife edge to it and some snow and said lets do it. I never been this high yet, (our campsite was higher than anything I've done so far). It looked pretty tough especially with the snow. All my fears were done when we reached the top. Finally I've done it King's Peak, really it was not bad at all, kind of easy really. We got there in 2 hours, 3.2 miles with 2,000 elev. gain. The site was awesome, we stayed for about 20 minutes talking and checking out the scenery, a few birds were flying overhead (13,528+). What the hell were they doing up there I thought. LOL Now it was time to get down, the snow was starting to get mushy. I slipped a few times, but it was OK. When we got down I took one last look and said to myself I did it. When we arrived at camp we decided to move to another location to maybe do another peak or just leave from there the next day. Well after about a 1 mile we stopped and decided to just hike all the way out. This was a total of about 9-10 miles. I said wait, I'm still recuperating from what we did about 1 hour ago. Well my friend said we will take a break after about 1 hour of hiking for about 10 minutes till we hit the trailhead. I agreed. Off we went. Man this killed the #&%!$ out of me, but I did it. This was the most I've ever done in one day. On the way back we saw a moose with her calf, she was laying in the grass while her calf just stood by looking at us walk by. Also my friend asked if the parekeet was still around the area which we thought he was, I just looked at him and said he was toast. There was no way in hell he could survive the night, defenseless as he was (did I mention before that his wings were clipped). Well all in all this was a backpack I will remember for a long time. It pushed me to some limits I did not know I was capable of. I have my friend to thank for this. Sorry, but I have no pictures to share.”

“Wow Wasatch,

Congratulations on bagging the summit!

Thanks for:
a) the trail report and
b) someone's lame attempt to put their budgie down.”

“Sounds like a fun trip, aside from the abandoned bird. Very cool you saw three moose though. Congrats on the summit!”

“It could have been a budgie also. We were not in South America. I still get pissed thinking about it.”

“Great report, but where is King's Peak?”

“Highest peak in Utah”

“Thanks for answering. When we were up there we though we saw some higher. There were a few around us that were listed as 13ers also. Gilberts Peak is only 80-90 feet lower, but no trails. This is what we (really the other 2 guys were thinking of doing).”

“Congrats! Sounds like a trip you will always remember.”

“Congratulations on your high peak! Sounds like a great trip! One of the neatest things about getting high is the views. For me, its cool to identify the places I've been. Or, pick out places to go next time. Its amazing what you're capable of doing out there. I scare myself sometimes. Glad it was easy for you. Thanks!”

“Nice trip report Wasatch. I wish we had peaks like that out here in the midwest.”

“Speaking of views, I can now recognize peaks/mountains in the Wasatch Mountain Range while I do dayhikes. It's cool to pick them out. Maybe someday I will be able to pick out the ones I've been to in the High Unitas.”

“Congrats and thanks for the trip report....”