Approach to Mt. Belknap.

This photo was taken September 25, 2010 while heading up to the summit of Mt. Belknap at 12,139 feet. I found the approach to be a bit longer than anticipated due to the forest service closing the road to motorized traffic due to forest fires to the north.

Started from Big John Flat at about 9,500 feet, rode up to the saddle at 11,500 feet, descended a bit on the Kimberly Road, then re ascended to the Bullion Saddle area. Several funny looking people of quads were staring at me near the saddle area. After a brief hike a bike, I was able to ride much of the ridge to the south side of Belknap. Nothing like riding at 11,000 feet over scree and talus!

Once reaching the base of Belknap, and knowing those people (duelling banjo folks) were back there, I decided to shoulder the bike up the steep scree slopes of Belknap about 600 vertical feet all the way to the summit. I had a feeling those people wouldn't make the effort to summit Belknap that day.

I left the bike at the summit, dropped down the west ridge, hiked over to Mt. Baldy, another Tushar 12,000 foot peak and back. The bike was still there as expected. The rest of the ride out was tiring, the whole ordeal taking about 8 hours round trip. Still though, there is no place like the Tushars in central Utah!