Hiking: Antelope Island, Frary Peak

Bison are frequently spotted on the island.

I think one of the most interesting hikes around the Salt Lake Valley, is the hike to Frary Peak on Antelope Island. The actual elevation of the peak (6596 ft.) isn't high in relation to the peaks of the Wasatch or Uinta Mountains--or even the tallest peaks in the Oquirrhs--but the landscape is entirely different. Pretty much barren of trees, although there are a few junipers here and there, and down in the ravines you can see small clumps of oak, maple, or some other deciduous trees, the landscape is mostly grassland and sagebrush. And the geology is different as well with dark rock outcroppings appearing throughout the peaks and ridges of the island.

The hike itself is best done in a season other than summer as I would wager that it gets pretty hot in the summer months and there is virtually no shade. Fall is the perfect season to do it, and my brother Mike and I found out to our relief that the no-see-um flies had maybe died off for the year. I wouldn't bank on that though. Antelope Island is always a place where you should have bug spray on hand as there are times when the biting flies can be maddening.
Wildlife is plentiful if you take the time to search it out on the hillsides and down in the flatlands. Bison are often seen along the trails and from the ridges you can look down and spot groups of them feeding on the grasses. Saturday, when Mike and I went on our hike, we spotted numerous buffalo and on the way out, a herd of deer down in the lowlands. Some others along the trail had spotted a Bighorn sheep and other wildlife that we hadn't seen.

At this low altitude, wildflowers are still around if you look.

This sunflower was calling my name.

Early portions of the trail are steep as it makes its way up to the ridge. There is a 2050' elevation gain over the course of the hike, and much of that is in the first mile.  Once you are up high, it levels off and only occasionally climbs or drops steeply, most of the time the trail crisscrosses the ridge allowing views of the Great Salt Lake to the west, and the Wasatch Range to the east. The higher you get, the more expansive the views and you can see south to the Oquirrh Range, Southwest to the Stansbury Range, Stansbury Island directly west, Promontory Point way up north, and many other points of interest.

View west with Stansbury Island in the distance.

There are still some fall colors on the way to Frary Peak

Stansbury Island with whitecaps on the lake in the foreground.

The trailhead sign says that it's a 3.2 mile hike and there are markers every half mile along the trail. I think that the 3.2 miles is a bit off now, because they have redone the trail on the last portion in the past couple of years and it is longer as it curves around the peak and goes up gradually, instead of the nearly straight up "stairs" from years gone by. I don't think they have yet changed the mileage posts to reflect this new trail, but I would guess it added another quarter mile to the trek.

I got a bit higher and took a pic of Mike down on the trail.

That being said, it's a doable trail for most people who aren't in horrible shape. If you are not in great shape, going slowly will help you to make it to the top, where the reward for the effort is pretty amazing.

Mike looking like a viking explorer.

On top, look for the USGS marker. It's on top of a rock right where the trail gets to the top. That is the highest point, and it's worth standing on just so you can say you made it to the very top. The cairn in which a mailbox is placed for writing notes may be a bit higher, but my recommendation is that you avoid standing on that, as it will fall down, and you with it.

Don't stand on the cairn!!

You won't find lodgepole pines, aspen, or thick underbrush up here. What you will find especially if you can go during the week, is peace, and solitude, unusual landscapes, and amazing views. Well worth the few hours of your time to do this adventure.

Looking southeast from the trailhead, Wasatch Mountains in the distance.

Sunset hike to the Salt Lake Overlook

I needed a hike during my vacation week, which was a stay-cation. I had canceled my hike on Thursday morning, so that I could do some other things that needed doing, but I didn't want my entire vacation to go buy without getting at least one hike in. I decided to try an evening hike to try to catch a spectacular sunset and get some pics. I got off to a later start then I'd wanted. The trail to the Salt Lake Overlook begins up Millcreek Canyon, just east of the Millcreek Inn. There is a trailhead parking lot for the Desolation Trail there. That parking lot and any other bare spot around for a quarter of a mile, was filled with cars. There was a wedding reception at the Millcreek Inn, and the parking for that place itself has only about ten spots, so obviously guests were parking in the trailhead parking lot and everywhere else. I tried driving up the canyon and the only available spot was about half a mile further up. I tried down below and found a spot a quarter of a mile away, but I'd be walking downhill on the way back so it wasn't a bad option.
I started hiking at about 7:15 and made it up to the Overlook by about 8:40. The sun was getting close to the horizon and there were some clouds so I thought it might be possible to get a nice shot. One thing I found out though was that the sun was too far north and would be going down behind a nearby mountain instead of Stansbury Island out in the Great Salt Lake, so a little later in the summer is probably the prime time to take this hike for sunset purposes. Still, even though the sun wasn't where I would've liked it, and the sunset itself wasn't one of those truly amazing spectacles that we all hope to capture with our cameras, I think I got a few pretty decent pics. Here's the one that I liked the best of all that I took:

You can see how it was going down behind the nearby mountain.

I thought I'd hang around a bit and see if I could get a picture of the city lights coming on down below and ended up with this:

Salt Lake lights at dusk

There were some other people up there with me, some teen girls (sisters and friends) and a woman who was mother to at least one of the girls. I left them up at the top and headed down. I strapped on my headlamp and as I walked down the trail, I saw a small speck of flashing green light on the trail. At first, I thought someone had dropped some kind of electronic device on the trail, but as I neared the light I found out that it wasn't anything man-made at all, but my light was reflecting from the eyes of a spider! That was awesome! I found out that the flickering was caused by my movement, not anything to do with the spider's eyes. After that, I saw numerous green flashes on the trail and every time, it was a spider. Once I saw a larger white light down the trail and thought someone with a flashlight was coming up, but that ended up being a bird sitting on the trail whose eyes reflected the light from my headlamp. That was awesome too!
The party at the Millcreek Inn was still happening, as there was a cover band doing all kinds of familiar songs as I approached the bottom of the trail. I was ready to rock out and listened to some hard rock on KBER as I drove home in the cool night air. I turned it down as I rolled into the neighborhood and pulled into the driveway just before 11:00.

Frary Peak - hiking Antelope Island

Yesterday's hike was amazing. First of all, know that it's about an hour and a half drive from my house to the trailhead for Frary Peak, which is on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. I wanted to get there early so I could capture the sunrise from the island with my camera, so I left the house at 4:30 (I was up at 3:45 getting ready). I arrived at the gate just about 5:30. I had checked online the night before to see when the gate opened, and the info had said 6:00, but having been there before when the gate was opened earlier, I decided to try it just in case.

Actually, I believe this was a new gate put in since two years ago (the last time I got there that early) and it was on a timer, I think. It wasn't open as I had hoped, so I had a half hour to kill in the dark waiting for it to open. I was tired because I got up so early, but I didn't want to tilt the seat back and try to sleep for 30 minutes, because I might keep sleeping and miss the gate opening. I looked out the window and saw the moon and thought I'd like to try taking a picture of it with my new zoom lens. I dug that out of my pack and stepped outside. Since I didn't want to set up a tripod, I free-handed it. Here's what I got:

So, when I actually was looking at the moon, it had a halo around it. For some reason, my camera moved this halo to the left of the moon, and as you can see, the moon is quite blurry. Of course, that's due to my not using a tripod. I think it kind of looks like how the sun might look from a spacecraft.

At about 6:04 the gate finally opened and I drove to the east side of the island, to the trailhead. The hike started out amazingly well. I was feeling alive and vibrant--great actually. I kept the long lens on the camera thinking that now would be a great time to experiment with it and find out what it could do. The moon was still up as it began to get light and I tried to get a good picture of it with mountains, birds, etc., in it. Here are some of them:

Again, this was free hand and I think for being free hand, I got a great image.

After I took the picture of the moon over a small peak (not Frary Peak) I took a few more pics and then finally did my last moon pic of this raven with the moon beside it:

Of course, as I do on every trip, I took some flowers home to Ann. Here are some of them:

I didn't see any close-up bison like I have before, but I saw these mule deer across the way. They were skittish and I had to use the full 300 zoom power of the lens to capture an image of them:

It was only a little over two and a half hours before I made it to the top. Just before the top there is a place where you have to go down quite a ways and back up again. It is the steepest part of the trail. Here's a pic of the top of Frary Peak from an adjacent peak, that makes it look much easier than it is:

That image in no way shows how far you need to go down, or how challenging the climb is back up, but I finally made it to the top, as shown by this U.S.G.S. marker:

From the top you can see a long ways. You can see how low the water is in the lake. Here's a picture of that with a vast stretch of beach that isn't there when the lake is full:

Of course, there was me up there taking the pictures. I was hungry for second breakfast by then so I dug out my peanut butter sandwich (Krema Peanut butter, which is peanuts only, and blackberry preserves), and some dried apricots.

Of course, I needed more documentation that I had actually been there. I was setting up my tripod to take my own photo when a couple of young guys showed up. I went out of my comfort zone and asked if one of them would be willing to take my picture. I guess I asked the right guy because he told me after he took a few shots that he actually had tried to take people's portraits for a living, but it wasn't steady work because too many people had digital cameras these days. Anyway, here's one of the pics he took of me:

So, I actually did make it to the top. All in all it was a great early morning hike. I'm not sure if I burned off an entire pound. I was tempted to stop at the gym where I normally weigh myself and see, but I would've needed to dress in my gym clothes instead of my heavy blue jeans and long johns to find out. I'll have to wait until Monday. As for the lens, it did pretty well until the little switch on it that switches it from "Normal" to "Macro" got stuck on "Macro". I couldn't fix it and don't know if that's permanent or not. I will have to work on it later.

If you go to Frary Peak, or anywhere on Antelope Island, take bug spray. I got up there early enough that I missed most of the biting no-see-ums on the lower part of the trail, but everyone I met coming up was complaining about them, and they were there in force the last time I hiked that trail. Consider this a fair warning!