Last fall, a large group of my family hiked Box Elder Peak. For a couple years, I had been eager to climb Box Elder, a lopsided point sandwiched between Mount Timpanogos and Lone Peak that hasn’t gained the notoriety of either of those showier mountains. This desire began when a hike through the lower third of its trail proved unpeopled and appealing. Therefore, to properly explain the buildup to Box Elder, and because I haven’t written about our 2020 and 2021 treks, I will step back to all the steps before the steps up Box Elder. Then, I’ll explain how we ended up negotiating a mountain in the dark.
2020: Summer of Sanity’s Strides
During the worst period of COVID fears and inconveniences, hiking was our sanity. On countless evenings, Jason and I hit the hillsides after work. This repetition led to discovering many new paths within close range of our house and many ways these trails were connected. It also resulted in much hiking in dark’s cool shadows. Were those shadows foreshadows of hikes to come?
Amongst the trails we traversed that summer were Pine Hollow Peak, Lone Rock via Jacob’s Ladder, Peak view, Two Hollows, Mercer Mountain, Eagle Crest, Deer Creek-Dry Creek, South Maple Hollow, Horsetail Falls, Maple Hollow, Mercer Hollow, Bonneville Shoreline, Telegraph, South Fork Little Deer Creek, Pork U Pine, Hoof and Boot, Hog Hollow, and Willow Hollow.
I can’t overstate how much these excursions got us through that period. Without the exercise and the variety provided by nature, my mental space would basically have been the psychological equivalent of a junior high school student’s locker stuffed with expired yogurts and gym socks grayed from lack of washing.
2021: Summer of Smoke
Last summer, COVID intermittently let up and reclaimed its hold on society in an indiscriminate manner. Jason and I found ourselves in the mountains often again, perhaps not with as much COVID-induced desperation but with an urgency all the same. In August, our air became unwholesome due to fires on the West Coast. So, every time it cleared a bit, we gushed outdoors to hike or run. We ended up doing more than 20 miles a week for most of August in this spontaneous state. I should mention, the year before had been smokey on occasion as well, but haze seemed less consequential than germs at that time.
We scrambled up the Dog Lake, Steep Mountain, Mill Canyon, Gloria Falls, Donut Falls, and Lame Horse Trails, along with many in the Suncrest and Sensei systems. Additionally, we participated in the Wasatch Trail Run Series at Solitude in the end of August. Despite the event’s name, this race wasn’t necessarily a run. Depending on one’s stance on darting 4.6 miles up a mountain, “swift hike” might be a more appropriate title. Apparently, I felt fairly casual about the idea because it took me one hour and four minutes to complete the course, which equated to a pace just over 18 minutes per mile (18:21). I finished 10th out of the 15 in my age group. Jason kept a pace of 15:22 and came in fifth out of eight at 53:48. On a side note, there was a 1% chance of rain that evening, but it 100% rained on us a bunch, and thunder was our start gun.
Now that you are up to speed on our backstory, affinity for darkness, and general lack of speed, let’s head back to Box Elder Peak and tie everything together. Box Elder Peak is 11,101 feet high, about 600 feet shy of Timpanogos’ elevation. The trail to it requires 11.4 miles of hiking and gains 4,931 feet, which doesn’t sound too bad except when you consider 1,500 of those are found in the ascent from the saddle. Parts of that section have as much as an 82% grade, but we’ll come back to that tricky portion in a minute.
Although we did this hike in October, usually not the best time to exceed 11,000 feet, the weather was perfect, the scenery exquisite, and the crowds nonexistent. The fall leaves transformed the already striking hillsides like a shimmering frond prom dress. We only passed five groups in the first few miles of the trail and none thereafter. By the time we crossed an incredible knoll littered with massive granite boulders reminiscent of Middle Earth, all other trekkers were behind us. Shorts worked well as primary apparel up to the saddle. However, since it was nearly midnight when we finished, at that point temperatures were down into the forties, and jackets were appreciated. Why so late? That topic will be covered in due time gentle blog browsers.
Let’s return to the area between the saddle and the summit now. As I already mentioned, this is a challenging segment. What I didn’t previously state was that our necessary pace made it much more difficult. We weren’t keen on trying to find the path across the ridge in the dark, and we were running out of time to avoid that scenario. Between the rush and the grade, we wore ourselves out. However, the exhaustion paid off, and we made it to the summit at 6:30, half an hour before sunset, at least six of the hardiest (or foolhardiest?) members of our group did. That gave us just enough time to descend back to the saddle before the blackness became absolute. Incidentally, we had a 13-year-old in our group, and he made it to the top without complaint, which was a bit uncharacteristic for him. “Are we there yet?” doesn’t count as a complaint, does it?
How did we end up debating the approach of night near the pinnacle of a mountain? First, we started our hike much later than we should have due to several factors. Between kids with music lessons, traffic at the mouth of American Fork Canyon, and typical family tardiness, our trek didn’t begin until about 1:20 in the afternoon. Second, most people take between 5.5 and 8 hours to complete this trail, but it took us 9.5 hours. Yup, your math is correct; we finished at 11:00 PM. Since we had a lot of youngsters in our group, I’ll go with blaming the whole scenario unfairly on them. Works for me.
Frankly, I liked hiking back in the dark. The silence and focus were refreshing. With stars aplenty and the misshapen silhouettes of mountains forming a mysterious backdrop to the thickening shade, there was much to enjoy and absorb in the blackness. However, one unfortunate effect of the dimness was my father falling on some rough terrain. One of his grandsons was excited to help with his handy first aid kit. It turns out the kit was filled with Shout wipes instead of alcohol wipes. LOL!
A week later, Box Elder Peak was covered in six to twelve inches of snow. Man! We squeezed that hike in at the perfect time! With that, our topping finished for the season. Box Elder was two years in the making and one delicious fall afternoon (and night) in the undertaking. I hope it won’t take two more years to plan and embark on another such spectacular, if leisurely executed, summiting.