Gents, the trip was awesome! The sights, the smells the colors, and the weather. Wow! Let me start off with some back ground and info about the hike, then I'll talk about the blades that I brought and used.
My friend Matthew is an Alumni from Wasatch Academy, which is a Private High School in Mount Pleasant near my home of Spring City. He's from Spring City. It's a tradition at Wasatch to hike Nebo every fall and Matthew did it 3 or 4 times with them. I went twice with him and them. I also hiked Nebo 3 times with the Snow College Outdoors Club in years past. Been planning on hiking Nebo all year and settled on the weekend of September 17th and 18th or September 24th and 25th. After finding out that Wasatch was going the 17 and 18th, I desided to go with week with Matthew and them.
10+ Years ago Wasatch just went up on Saturday for the hike. But more recently they started sending up groups of students and Faculty the night before. This is a great idea because they have check points setup Friday night before the main group heads up. They had between 5 and 6 check points on the mountain. This makes sure all the students get off and are well taken care of IE have water/food and medical needs are taken care of. Matthew and I were kind of flying solo, but still kind of with Wasatch. Now that we know whats going on, let me get to what you all want to know about.
For a lot of the Andrews Ridge trail you are generally heading west till you are about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up, then you head north. Well about 1/4 of tghe way up (heading east) you come to a spot called The Meadow. It's about 8,000 feet up. Lost of grass, scrub oak, bushes and on the north slope, Maples and Aspens. Well we took a break in the Aspen grove on the north side. You sit there looking out acrost the valley below to the north Which is Bear Canyon and Bear Canyon Camp ground. The colors were amazing. There wasn't a lot of yellows and browns yet, but the contrasting Greens and Reds were incredible. I'm sorry, I forgot my camera so no pictures, you'll just have to imagine it. Lots of Greens and slashings of all shades of reds and pinks. And that was Friday. Mind you, I'm out of shape, but working on it and Matthew is in the same boat. So it took us probably 3 hours to bakcpack to the Meadow. Normally it's 1.5 to 2 hours. Also the trail is about 8 miles long.
After the Meadow we make our way up the next ridge and it's starting to get near dusk since we are on the east side of the mountain. The wind on the ridge near dusk was intense and blowing from south to north. Any time we were on the south side we would get cold and feel blown over, but the north side was okay. and on the spine of the ridge was as bad as the south side. Views were amazing.
After dark we made it to the top of Andrews ridge, were heading north and dropped into a kind of Alpine meadow on the east side of the mountain. There's a little knoll and meadow that looks like a great place to go sledding or skiing durring the winter (It's to bad the roads are closed or I would be back in January to sled there). This area is where Wasatch was setting up one of the Check Pounts. It was called "The Campsite". The wind wasn't to bad because of the ridge to the south, but we still had plenty all night and part of the morning. There is room on the hill for a tent or two and people just sleeping under the stars which Matthew and I did. There's a grove of Douglass fir trees. 15 to 20 yards north of there with great places to camp also. That is where Wasatch actually setup do to it having more shade.
45 to 60 yards north of the grove (It also makes up the campsite area) are 2 springs that come out of the mountain. Here we get out of the main forested area and into more grassy slopes, shaill and some wind swept trees. The Campsite/spring area is abotu 9,400 feet up. For the most part I said there. From the hill which extends off a meadowed slop you can see into Sanpete Valley and into Utah county. Views are amazing. Looking down at Bear Canyon Saturday morning I noticed that the Maples went through more changes in color and that the Aspen groves were starting to go yellow. The red trippled over night. By the way, temps stayed semi constant. Mid to upper 60's durring the day and mid 40's at night. Weather was perfect. You could not have asked for a more perfect weekend to go, unless maybe this weekend coming up.
Along the trail I ran into a few people I knew from Spring City. That was pretty cool. Ben said hi on his way up to the top and had lunch with me on his way down. Matthew had left his pack at camp and taken a Camel pack to summit Nebo. While I was in camp waiting for him, I helped route students throught the check point, bandage a few blisters and refill water bottles from the spring using my water filter. The water was sweet and clear, but I filtered it anyways. There are some cliffs above the springs so I hiked up there when I wasn't helping. The last 5 times I've been there, I've wanted to hike/climb to the cliffs but never had the chance and since I did, I took it. Amazing views, if Yuba Reservoir wasn't tucked away against the mountains to the south, I could have seen it. Saw into the valley where Richfield Utah is though and there was a fire down there so tons of smoke that way.
The hike down was slow do to the steepness, but also because I wanted to see everything again. On the way up, I made sure to look behind me from time to time to know what things looked like. This helps if there are no trails and gives one a better understanding of the area. Seeing things at different altitudes also helps. It was a hard, fun and spiritual experience. There was time to commune with Nature, contemplate things and be at peace. So worth the pain. My legs and shoulders were killing me when we got home, but that didn't matter. I would gladly go again this fall to experience it and new stuff again.
Okay, some of you want to know the blades I had, well I'm finally to that part. I carried Lisa, my EK Night Fighter my Spyderco Centerfanti III folder and a Camillus Premium Stockman. Used Lisa and the EK Night Fighter to do a little trail clearing but thats about it. The folders were used to open packages, cut medical tape and pull slivers. Way to windy and dry to have a fire at the Campsite. Down at the Meadow would havae been okay because there is less wind and more open space to clear a fire ring. Oh well. The Views were worth it!
Heber
