Sugarloaf, Baldy, Hidden, AF Twins and Red stack peaks with Jun Jsh and Mark:
I think this was the best pre-work run of the year so far. Up at 3:30 to meet the guys at the LCC park n ride at 4:30. We took two cars and left one at Snowbird and then jumped into Jun's and drove to the lower Albion Basin road where we parked and started. As soon as we got out of the car we could smell smoke and it was pretty thick for the first few miles. I felt like I was back at the Ritz dance club smoking cloves circa 1990. My stomach felt like crap and we were all moving slow. At the Catherine Pass trailhead I stopped for a quick break and that seemed to help my stomach, but it didn't settle completely for about an hour. We slogged up to the top of the Apline ridge where we were greeted by the standard wind slap in the face. A few more minutes and we topped out on the first summit of the day (Sugarloaf).
After a quick break we ran the ridge over to Baldy where we stopped again and had a break. I downed a gel and then we ran over to Hidden Peak. I love this ridge! It is one of the most scenic places in the Wasatch. At the top of Hidden Peak we could see the next objective, the two summits of American Fork Twin peaks, the high point in Salt Lake County. The ridge over to AF Twins is a bit sketchy with some scrambling and Jsh decided to head down the road while we continued on the ridge.
I really loved the scrambling across the ridge, but it did slow us down a lot while we negotiated a few precarious spots. Incredible! I'll post some pictures later. After the spicy section it is a scramble up some loose rock and boulders to the top of the east twin. Another sweet view and out 4th peak over 11K for the day. Does it get any better? We ran over and tagged the west twin and then negotiated the ridge over to Red Stack Peak where we took another break.
The descent off of Red Stack is horrendous! Steep, boulders and nothing resembling a trail. It sucked, but after that we picked up the dirt road above the Gad Valley lift and ran it in back to Snowbird. Awesome! | 