Timber Creek

Timber Creek

I met up again with Dean on the evening of July 2, 2006, my third day climbing P5k prominence peaks. I climbed Pilot Peak earlier in the day and Arc Dome and Hayford Peak the previous two days. Pilot Peak was a tough climb, so I was glad to see Dean who had climbed South Jefferson today. Dean was parked along the access road above the Timber Creek Campground along side the Girl Scout Camp area. All the regular campsites were occupied and we were just dirtbag car camping, so any place that was relatively flat would meet our needs.

Dean arrived early and had already been up the road to nearly the end. We decided to hike from our campsite the next morning. The next morning we got an early start and headed up the road. In ½ mile the road ended, but a quad track continued. We followed the quad track another ½ mile before it also ended and a foot trail continued up Timber Creek. This isn’t a difficult or long hike, so there isn’t much of an advantage into driving any further than the end of the road. In fact you may just tear up your rig (like Dean did) if you drive up the quad track.

This is a beautiful hike. The creek was running and beautiful, the wildflowers were in bloom everywhere, and the trees and grasses were all still lush and green. We followed the trail up the creek for about 1 ½ miles until we started hitting patches of snow across the trail. The trail was pretty much petered out anyway, so we just headed east cross country directly at the summit. The vegetation was short and easy to walk through. In fact, we sought out the green patches between the scree and talus patches because the hiking was easier on the grass and wildflowers.

We took our time and climbed the last 1,500 ft to the summit of North Schell Peak up this cross country route. It was a beautiful day and we were the only hikers on the mountain. Imagine that, the 4th of July weekend and we had this beautiful mountain to ourselves.

On the summit we enjoyed the views in all directions and made sure we preserved our memories in our cameras.

This entire hike was only about 6.3 miles with 3,000 ft of elevation gain from the Girl Scout Camp. It took us about 3.5 hours to complete the hike. This is a good hike to bring spouses and children on. No, Dean isn’t my spouse or child. Another P5k to check off the list and one of the easier ones. Now, on to the next one, Ibapah in Utah.

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