Y Mountain Summit (Oliver's Post)

My sister Beth and I made a goal at the begining of the summer to take advantage of living so close to so many beautiful mountains (by take advantage I mean climb them). So far we have hiked up Ensign Peak (above the capitol building in SLC), Rock Canyon, Slate Canyon, Hickman's Bridge (in Capitol Reef Ntl park) and on Saturday we hiked the Y.

After sitting at the top of the Y on Saturday night, we decided to explore the trail that keeps going up past the Y. We hiked up for about 15 or 20 minutes and ran into a couple that was just coming down from the top. They told us it was at least an hour and a half to 2 hours more. Because it was so late we turned around. Beth had Monday off, so we decided if our bodies had recovered by Monday evening we'd return and try to make it to the top.



Monday night we started our hike at about 10 min to 7:00 pm. We made it to the top of the Y in about 40 min and took a few minute break. Then took the trail up and around into Slide Canyon. The next hour of hiking was pretty easy. Beautiful views of the lake and valley bellow kept getting better as we switch-backed our way up the canyon. The trail takes you up to what I think is called "Bear Flat Meadow" where we found the fork. The right fork takes you up and around into 1st Right Fork in Rock Canyon. That trail looked like it continued with a pretty similar grade to what we had been hiking for the past hour. The trail on the left however, looked pretty tough. No more swtich backs, just up, up, up. Beth and I were not prepared for this tough part of the hike. I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for the mosquitos that swarmed around us every time we tried to stop were the only thing that kept us going.

Despite the mosquitos and my heart wanting to explode, the aspen forest and mountain meadows were beautiful. We finally made it to the peak around 10 oclock. WOW what a view! The sun had set already, but the last bit of orange and purple were still lingering above the mountains across the valley and it was dark enough that you could see all the street lights. What a scene. After a few phone calls and a few granola bars, we reluctantly started our treck down. After a pretty uneventful 2 hour hike down in the dark (we had flashlights) we found ourselves back in the parking lot.

Thanks Beth for the fun adventure.