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.