Grandeur Peak Loop - June 19, 2024

[scatman]

I had read that they recently had completed the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from the Pipeline Overlook back to the West Slope Trailhead for Grandeur Peak. Since I had the 19th off from work, I decided that I would check it out for myself.

I got an early 6:30 am start and headed up the west ridge to the summit of Grandeur. Once on top, I took some time to take some pictures and eat a snack. I then proceeded down the Church Fork Trail until I reached the intersection with the Pipeline Trail where I stopped and had lunch. After getting a bite to eat, I headed west along the Pipeline Trail all the way to the Pipeline Overlook. At the overlook, I took another break and enjoyed views of the Salt Lake Valley. I then verified that the new shoreline trail does indeed exist, and I took it back north to the Subaru waiting for me at the trailhead. Total loop distance is approximately 12 miles, with and additional mile added from the old trail due to all the switchbacks on the new section of the Shoreline Trail.

This report will have a lot of pictures of wildflowers, some good, some bad. It's definitely the right time to be on Grandeur if you like wildflowers, particularly in the Church Fork Drainage, but even the West Slope and the Pipeline Trail had impressive numbers of wildflowers still at their peak.

I loaded up my pack to 24 pounds to get some weight on my back hoping to get some training for my backpacking trips later this summer.


Overview map - this shows the old trail that heads northwest back to the trailhead and not the new Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I'll have to work on getting that on the map.


The Sube at 6:30 am.


This is encouraging. I guess it must be there.


View of Grandeur from the west at the West Slope Trailhead


Sunrise on Mount Olympus to the south. I might be attempting Olympus with my son next Friday.


Sunrise on Stansbury Island to the west


REI down below on 3300 South. It will come into play later in my report


Vetch


Parleys Ridge to the north


A piece of the Dragon's Tail to the south, which is another route (the best in my book) up Grandeur


Evening primrose



Penstemons - The mule ears down low were pretty beaten up. They improved the higher I got on the western side of Grandeur


A steep ascent on the west side - roughly 3300 feet in two miles - even the switchbacks
don't offer a lot of relief for my old knees.


The eastern end of the Dragon's Tail


A nice thin layer of green shale paralleled the trail for a short distance


A bumblebee enjoying a flowering thistle



Hookers onions were plentiful throughout the hike


Biscuitroot


A dead mountain mahogany


Hawksbeard


The sun has finally caught me and this lone mountain Mahogany with the Dragon's Tail in the background


Grandview Peak to the north in the far distance. Lookout Peak is at the far upper left of the image too.


Perkins Peak on Parleys Ridge


Dale Peak on Parleys Ridge


Wasatch Beardtongue


Wild rose


Mule ears


Grandeur summit ahead


More Wasatch beardtongue


Larkspur


Slope full of mule ears


Sticky geranium


Horsemint


American Vetch


Mad it to the top


View of Olympus from the Grandeur summit


Triangle Peak across Millcreek Canyon - Lone Peak in the far distance


Mount Raymond


Gobblers Knob


Church Fork Peak, with Mount Aire just beyond to the east along the Millcreek Ridge


Scat summit shot with my sandbell to help weight down my pack


Deseret Peak way off to the west over the Oquirrh Mountains


Another shot of Deseret Peak taken with my 75-300 zoom lens and a 1.4X teleconverter. I had to manually focus this one.

More shots with the zoom and teleconverter


Lone Peak. In the foreground is the knifes edge ridge between Mount Olympus and Triangle Peak


Triangle Peak


The yurt on Church Fork Peak


Downtown Salt Lake City


This one is for @Janice - University of Utah, taken with just the 75-300 mm zoom lens


View up Millcreek Canyon


Sticky geraniums - Moving down into the Church Fork Drainage now. The wildflowers were tremendous in the drainage.



Yellow salsify


Lewis Flax



More roses


Skyrocket


Choke cherry and California ninebark - I remembered ninebark this time @Ugly.


Groundsel


More skyrocket


Forget-me-nots


View down the Church Fork Drainage


Phacelia


Common yarrow


View of Grandeur peak from the Church Fork Trail


Globemallow


Cinquefoil


Solomon's seal


Ninebark


Lunch time at the junction of the Church Fork Trail and the Pipeline Trail


Hound's tongue



Workhorses for this hike


View back up Millcreek Canyon from the Pipeline Tail



Penstemons on the Pipeline Trail


View across Millcreek Canyon


I guess this is why they call it the Pipeline Trail.


Grasshopper


Looking up at the summit of Grandeur from Scout Hollow



Views across the canyon


The Pipeline Trail becomes more exposed the further west you go on it


The switchbacks up Rattlesnake Gulch


Trail intersection sign


More onions


Fleabane


Toadflax


Forest Service Boundary


My old friend Olympus reappears


Last view up Millcreek


View of the switchbacks of the new section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail as seen from the Pipeline Overlook. The old trail went
by the two water tanks at the lower left of the image


My last break at the overlook


The new Shoreline Trail, with Grandeur Peak above


Ran into this green caterpillar on the trail


Grand collomia


The old trail down below


Coming back around to the Dragon's Tail


Aargh! E-bike! I almost went full grizzly again @Rockskipper! Hate 'em!


Shoreline Trail heading towards the West Slope Trailhead


Spider Milkweed


Dropping down to the trailhead


Looking back up at Grandeur in the afternoon this time


Back at the Sube


Stopped by REI on the way home to recycle some bicycle innertubes and to pick up @TractorDoc a fuel canister for his backpacking
stove. Hopefully he will whip me up some buckwheat pancakes in the backcountry while using it.


The End.

 

[Bob]

Grasshopper, when you can run up those switchbacks in you pics .... You will be ready for the ones at deer creek......

 

[Ugly]

12 miles is great! that is not just recovery, but pretty much recover-ed-ed.
(All depending on how you feel)
It looks like a very nice midweek hike, and up that face of Grandeur is no joke. I would have deducted 5% of my praise if you had done the loop counter-clockwise, but only because then you would have summitted after the miles going up to Church Fork. If you had started at Church Fork it would have been a 25% deduction

I did not know that globemallows were also purple, but I see it now. I also think that I might remember Ninebark next time, but no guarantees.

Also, any reptilia? or ungulates?

 

[Janice]

University of Utah

Great to see - thanks, and I'll pass it along! But the wildflowers are what I enjoy the most.

 

[TractorDoc]

Nice writeup Hugh!

I think my favorite flower is the beardtongue. Hound's tongue might be a close second.

I hope REI did not tell you to get me the giant fuel cannister for Hidden Creek!

 

[scatman]

Grasshopper, when you can run up those switchbacks in you pics .... You will be ready for the ones at deer creek......

If I had run up those switchbacks, I'd still be facedown at the top of them.

 

[scatman]

12 miles is great! that is not just recovery, but pretty much recover-ed-ed.
(All depending on how you feel)
It looks like a very nice midweek hike, and up that face of Grandeur is no joke. I would have deducted 5% of my praise if you had done the loop counter-clockwise, but only because then you would have summitted after the miles going up to Church Fork. If you had started at Church Fork it would have been a 25% deduction

I did not know that globemallows were also purple, but I see it now. I also think that I might remember Ninebark next time, but no guarantees.

Also, any reptilia? or ungulates?

Counter-clockwise is not allowed.

I saw five lizards, but was only quick enough to get a picture of one of them. I was really hoping to extend my rattlesnake streak to two hikes in a row, but that didn't happen.

No ungulates.



And I forgot to mention that I saw I few of these

 

[scatman]

Nice writeup Hugh!

I think my favorite flower is the beardtongue. Hound's tongue might be a close second.

I hope REI did not tell you to get me the giant fuel cannister for Hidden Creek!

I got you the medium canister. You'll use half of it making my pancakes!

 

[Bob]

If I had run up those switchbacks, I'd still be facedown at the top of them.

I wouldn't make it to the top running

 

[Rockskipper]

Aargh! E-bike! I almost went full grizzly again @Rockskipper! Hate 'em!

I think you should go full grizz while someone records it. It would make a really interesting future post, plus a good scientific study on humans imitating Ursus horribilis or some such thing (but skip the afterwards What's Cooking post).

 

[scatman]

I think you should go full grizz while someone records it. It would make a really interesting future post, plus a good scientific study on humans imitating Ursus horribilis or some such thing (but skip the afterwards What's Cooking post).

Who could we get to record it?

 

[Rockskipper]

A videographer grizzly bear or else maybe @Bob.

 

[scatman]

A videographer grizzly bear or else maybe @Bob.

I'll have @Bob carry around the 12 pound 1D Mark IV with him then. I know he will enjoy that. It should take some good video though. I think I'm at my maximum grizzly between 60 and 65 degrees. It will decrease the warmer it gets. Anything above 90 degrees and it is a no go.