Order of Visit: High Point #23
Date Visited: September 7, 2020
Route Taken: Unita Highline Trail #25 – 64 miles (one-way) as part of my 2020 UHT thru-hike
Type of Terrain: High altitude trail up to Anderson Pass, followed by a steep, unmarked rock scramble the final mile to the summit
Elevation: 13,528 feet
Ancestral Lands: Eastern Shoshone, Ute
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The Eastern Shoshone people originally called the highest peak in Utah’s Uinta Mountains by the name Tei’an-Ku-ai, which means “peak with a small tip.
The high point was renamed Kings Peaks, toward the end of the 19th century after Clarence King (1842-1901), the famed geologist, mountaineer, and the first director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Clarence King was born into an affluent Rhode Island family and attended Yale University, where he studied applied chemistry, geology, and physics. He graduated in 1862, amid the U.S. Civil War. And while he was an avowed abolitionist, his privileged background enabled the 20-year-old King to head to the mountains of the Western U.S. rather than join the war effort.
In 1863, King arrived in California, where he met California’s first State Geologist, Johiah Whitney. He soon joined Whitney’s survey parties as they explored the northern Sierra Nevada and the Yosemite region, studied the massive Sequoia trees, and discovered fossils and thermal hot springs.
King was part of multiple mapping surveys for the California Geological Society over the next three years, including the 1864 expedition that discovered the state’s highest peak, which they named Mount Whitney in honor of Josiah Whitney.
King made a bid to climb the mountain, first attempting Mount Whitney’s west side in 1864, but he and his partner turned back when they ran out of provisions. He returned to Mount Whitney in 1871 and approached from the east side, but accidentally summited neighboring Mount Langley instead. He finally met success in 1873, but his triumph was bittersweet. Three fishermen from the Owens Valley completed the first known ascent of California’s highest mountain one month prior to King’s successful summit bid.
In 1866, King lobbied Congress to secure funding for his own ambitious geographic survey of the Great Basin Region. He led a survey team along the 40th Parallel, covering parts of northern Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, southeast Idaho, and northern Nevada. This project lasted for over a decade and became one of the Four Great Surveys of the West, along the Army’s 100th Meridian Survey led by George Wheeler (namesake of New Mexico’s high point), Ferdinand Hayden’s survey of the Yellowstone region, and Wesley Powell’s expedition down the Colorado River.
Although the 40th Parallel Survey would ultimately become King’s greatest scientific accomplishment, it wasn’t the only reason for his notoriety.
King vaulted into the national limelight in 1872 after a chance meeting on a train with two grifters from Kentucky. The con men swindled many prominent San Francisco investors into funding a diamond mine in Colorado. However, upon inspecting the site, King proved that uncut diamonds and rubies had been planted there solely to fool investors. His dramatic exposure of “The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872” was splashed across the newspapers, making King a national celebrity.
In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes seized on Clarence King’s high profile and nominated 36-year-old to be the first Director of the newly created U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). With little guidance on what the agency was expected to do, King began by creating a series of maps to help miners, agriculturalists, engineers, lumber companies, and economists.
One of the most intriguing footnotes of King’s life is that he spent his final 13 years leading a double life!
During a visit to New York City in the late 1880s, King met an African American woman, twenty years his junior, named Ada Copeland. King hid his true identity from Copeland and began a ruse in which he “passed” as a Black man (purportedly of West Indian descent) named James Todd, even though he had fair skin and blue eyes.
King and Copeland entered into a common-law marriage, which produced five children. And for more than a decade, King would alternate between portraying himself as an anonymous working-class Black husband while at home in Brooklyn and as a wealthy white geologist while in Washington, D.C., or New York City. (For more about this fascinating story, check out the book, Passing Strange by Martha Sandalweiss.)
King continued this charade until 1901, when he was dying of tuberculosis and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to find a cure. He finally admitted the deception to his wife in a letter and urged Ada to move to Toronto, Canada, with their children, where he believed there would be less racial prejudice.
Utah’s high point isn’t the only geographic feature named in King’s honor. Clarence King Lake (on Mount Shasta) and Kings Peak in Antarctica were both named after him. His image is also cast on the bronze Amateis Doors in the U.S. Capitol, along with other notable American scientists, such as Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison.
(Photo credit: New York Daily News)
TRIP SUMMARY
My hike of Kings Peak will remain one of the most memorable adventures in my life, if not for the summit itself, but because of what happened in the immediate hours afterward. I should also make clear, I didn’t take the route that most highpointers use to get to Utah’s state high point (i.e., the 27-mile round-trip route using the Henry’s Fork Trail from the north). Instead, I tagged the summit as part of my thru-hike of the east-west running Uinta Highline Trail in early September 2020. This meant, I trekked over 60 miles before making it to this mountain.
My morning began near Fox Lake, approximately 17 miles east of Kings Peak. The day was filled with fairly gentle terrain, but it wasn’t easy, given that I was hiking at or above 11,000 feet the entire way. Yet, I was on cloud nine because my route had already provided me with a rare sight I’d been searching for several years!
As I made my way around one of the lakes the prior afternoon, I saw a moose! I’ve been hoping for a wild moose sighting on so many of my other backcountry hikes in Maine, Minnesota, and Montana. Yet they always seemed to elude me.
After thousands of miles of hiking under my belt, I was on the verge of believing they were just mythical creatures, like dragons or leprechauns. But then, I spotted a moose on the opposite bank of the lake, plunging her head under the water to graze! My photo is admittedly poor because I didn’t want to get too close, but I assure you, it was definitely a moose! In Utah!!
Still riding high on my moose-sighting, I was ready to bag myself another state high point. It took me the better part of the day to get to Painter’s Basin, just below the range of mountains I’d need to summit. Each time I looked out ahead of me at the various peaks, I’d think, “man that mountain is high.” Then I’d snap back to reality with the realization that it was inevitably shorter than the one I’d ultimately need to climb if I was going to the top of Utah!
I stopped for lunch around 1:30 pm, hoping to replenish my energy before the climb. Yet, as so often happens at high altitude, I had no appetite. It took all my effort to chew and swallow some calories and build up the energy for the task ahead. And the entire time I was eating, I was looking at Kings Peak looming on the horizon. It was going to be a beast. No doubt!
After leaving the Painter’s Basin, it was time to climb up three long miles to Anderson Pass at 12,700′. This was not easy, let me tell you. As I slowly trudged up the switchbacks, my 20-pound pack felt like someone had snuck a pile of bricks inside it. Other hikers were making their way back down with nothing on their backs, and I envied them the luxury of leaving their packs at camp. However, I was continuing west after my summit, so I had no choice but to lug my whole kit-and-caboodle up this climb.
Somewhere below Anderson Pass, the trail leveled out onto a sort of tableland. It wasn’t exactly flat, but it was easier than it had been up to that point. I just needed to keep my eye on the prize – the triangular-shaped peak ahead of me. That sharp outline in the distance marked the pass. And once I got there, I could finally drop my heavy pack and ascend the final mile and remaining 1,000′ of elevation without it.
I’ll admit, as I headed up, I felt like I was trudging through invisible water. This isn’t the first time I’ve been at a higher elevation. Far from it. Yet, perhaps the 60 miles of hiking over the past three days was finally taking its toll. My legs were just so heavy, and every step was laborious. It wasn’t until 3 pm that I finally made it up to Anderson Pass and could see the valley on the far side of the mountains.
There was virtually no one in sight, so I dropped my pack beside the trail and left it there. I didn’t have the slightest worry that someone would come up here and take it. With a bit of wind picking up, I quickly grabbed my rain jacket and beanie hat for a little additional warmth, and then it was time to tackle the boulders to the summit without the extra 20 pounds on my back.
I took a 90° turn at Anderson Pass and began heading south up the steep ridgeline toward Kings Peak. There was no real trail to follow from here up to the summit. It was just rocks, talus, and boulders heading toward the sky. Not even a cairn to use as a guide. But, it didn’t seem that all that far to the top. I could just scramble up and back down again, right?
As it turned out, it wasn’t that simple. I had to slowly pick my way up the rocks, careful to watch where I was stepping. Some of the rocks were clearly unstable. Others appeared solid until you put your weight on them, only to watch them precariously shift. I kept looking up toward the highest point above me and used that as my guide for where to go. And when I finally reached it, my heart fell. It was merely a false summit, and there were several more ahead of me.
The spine of the mountain was a knife’s edge, covered with boulders rather than the flat path I had hoped it might be. Consequently, I had to pick my way through the rocks just below the silhouette of the mountain for close to an hour. Each time I made it to a spot where I thought I might finally be near the top, my hopes were dashed. Just one more false summit.
Then, the ridgeline dipped down several hundred feet before making the final push to the real summit. The journey was mentally exhausting. Don’t get me wrong, I like a choose-your-own-adventure route from time-to-time. But I was simply too beat from my journey out here. I just wanted to get to the dang top already.
I eventually made it to the real summit around 4:05 pm. It had taken me 50 minutes to go one mile! I was tired, but elated all the same. Not a soul was out there with me. It was Labor Day, and I had the mountain completely to myself!! I spotted the small wooden sign propped up against some boulders, and then took out my phone to capture myself on the summit of my 23rd (and possibly most challenging) state high point!!
With that obligatory photo complete, I took a few minutes to appreciate the views and noticed the distant views of the other mountains seemed hazier than they had been the past few days. A major cold front was supposed to roll in this evening, and the winds must really be kicking up to create that haze. Of course, that’s when I admitted to myself that I needed to get started on the inevitable journey back down to my Anderson Pass before it got too windy up here, too!
This descent was definitely going to be one of those treks that’s just as difficult as the ascent. Without a path or blazes to lead the way, I was completely on my own to get off this mountain. I’ll admit it was a bit of a chore, but I eventually made it back to my pack around 5 pm. Just enough time to hike the next few miles down off this ridge and down to lower ground to make camp for the night!
DETAILS
When to Visit: Kings Peak is best accessed in the summer. As part of the Uinta High Range, this mountain is covered in snow for about half of the year, and late-spring or early-fall snowstorms can make summiting on the rocks both difficult and dangerous. In fact, within hours of my own summit in early September, a blizzard came through the area and dropped several FEET of snow on the area!
Getting There: Kings Peak is located 75 miles due west of Salt Lake City, Utah as the crow flies. However, the most direct hiking route begins at the Henry’s Fork Trailhead, which requires a 150-mile drive from Salt Lake City up into southern Wyoming and then back down into Utah.
Hikers can take a multi-day hike that follows the Henry’s Fork trail south along the river, over Gunsight Pass to Painter’s Basin, and then up to Anderson Pass and on to the summit. The total distance from Henry’s Fork Trailhead to the summit is 13.5 miles (one-way). This route is significantly shorter than the 40- and 60-mile options along the Unita Highline Trail that I used.
Entrance Fees/Permits: None.
Parking: There is room for approximately 20 cars to park at the Henry’s Fork Trailhead.
Accessibility: This hike is extremely strenuous. Hikers will experience high elevation over a period of days, and the final ascent from Anderson Pass to the summit requires about a mile of boulder scrambling at 13,000 feet.
Bonus: When you’re done seeing the top of Utah, why not head back to Salt Lake City and hit up Uinta Brewing brewhouse pub for a Kings Peak Porter (if it’s available). Or try out their tasty line-up of outdoor-themed IPAs to celebrate!
Resources:
- Hiking Kings Peak (Utah.com)
- Kings Peak via Henry’s Fork Trail (All Trails)
- Backpacking Kings Peak (The Outbound Collective)
- Use Caution When Taking on the King of Utah Peaks (Deseret News)