First Mt. Olympus Ascent

First Mt. Olympus Ascent

Sam, a peak-bagging trail junkie friend, has been bugging me for a while to come join him up in SLC and the stars finally aligned for me to do so – to celebrate his birthday with a bunch of Orange Trail Monkeys up on Mt. Olympus. This was one of the peaks on my bucket list last year, but I failed to bag it.

I knew these guys were fast and although Sam claimed he would be going slow, I still opted to start 20 minutes earlier than him. It was hot and steep.

People coming down were warning of lots of rattlesnakes, but I didn’t see any.

The trail just climbs and climbs. You climb about 3500 ft over the first 3 miles of trail.

Towards the top, a straight up section affectionately dubbed “Stairway of the Gods” was swarming with flies and gnats. I must have swalled 4-5. A few made me gag and almost throw up as I tried to spit them out.

From the saddle at mile 3, you hang a left and climb another 500 ft. over only .2 miles to the summit.

I was thinking they would catch me, and had seen them down below once,  but they didn’t. I scrambled up to the summit and had it to myself for a good 10 minutes before the crew showed up. Sparklers, watermelon, and a loud happy birthday sung. It was a lot of fun.

We switched our headlamps on and made the descent, ending with some cake at the cars.

Steep but gorgeous. Worth it.

Mt. Olympus (1)
Steep from the get go!

 

Mt. Olympus (4)
Looking down towards the valley after about a mile and a half

Mt. Olympus (5)
Looking South from the Olympus Saddle

Mt. Olympus (7)
A Mountain Goat, as I climbed from the saddle to summit

Mt. Olympus (11)
Summit cairns that Chris (or Jeremy?) promptly toppled

 

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