Morgan County High Point Trip Report

Thurston Peak

Date: June 25, 2003
Author: Ben Knorr

I left work at 5, and headed up Farmington Canyon sometime near 5:45. The road is low-clearance 2wd capable, but can be slightly tricky in a few places. The road is also right on the edge of the mountain, with some big drop-offs along most of the route (no guardrail). There is a campground a few miles up the canyon that looks decent, and another area for camping even further up. Once the road starts heading north near the end of the canyon, it deteriorated to a freshly graded soft dirt road that had some big rocks here and there. My car is low, but I made it up to the gated portion below Francis Peak. There is a high clearance 2wd/4wd road that snakes behind Francis Peak, and around some other peaks along the ridge that you could take to get pretty close to Thurston. I walked this road to its end and continued on a single track trail that snakes around some other peaks on the ridge.

I encountered a steep snow field on an eastern facing peak, which wasn't difficult on the northbound portion. The trail was great overall, but becomes less distinct below Thurston. I bushwhacked straight up the hill all the way to the peak and spent a few minutes enjoying the view, and checking both highpoints (I forget which is actually the highpoint). My GPS strangely showed the peak as 50 feet higher than the plaque shows it as.

The way back was great too, as the sun was setting and the western view was amazing. The flowers along the trail looked even more amazing in the setting sunlight. Upon reaching the snow field on the way back, it was frozen now since it had been in the shade long enough, which proved to be somewhat scary to me. I hadn't brought an axe or anything, and even though I stepped in my footprints from the way there, it was close in a few cases (I couldn't dig into the snow at all). It was a hundred foot slide or so into some rocks, so I was very happy to be past it. The sun finally set, and several 4x4 people appeared along the ridge, seemingly from out of nowhere. Apparently the roads go between the trail by Thurston all the way to Bountiful Peak to the South.