Ostler/Spread Eagle Traverse

I've been meaning to climb Ostler Peak for years, and I finally reached the summit on a spectacular hike/scramble over Ostler and Spread Eagle Peaks. From the Christmas Meadows trailhead, the loop over both peaks is 16.5 miles (11.3 miles of trail and 5.2 miles of scrambling) and involves about 5000 ft of total elevation gain.

I arrived at the trailhead at 6 AM expecting a parking lot full of cars (this should be the busy season) to find only 3 vehicles. I hiked to the crossing of Ostler Creek 5.2 miles in and walked southwest through open forests to the start of Ostler's north ridge.



Fun scrambling took me to the summit at 6.6 miles (cumulative mileage). Views in all directions were outstanding, especially looking east all the way to Kings Peak over the rugged basins and ridges of the western half of the Uintas.



The ridge over to Spread Eagle was only 2 miles long but took a couple of hours; the terrain is loose, and there are some cliff bands to work through on the west ridge of Ostler.



The roughest part of the day was steep drop down the north ridge of Spread Eagle; you lose 1900 ft of elevation in .6 of a mile. The terrain is very unstable and time consuming to negotiate.





At the bottom of the ridge, I worked my way down to the stream running out of the basin between Ostler and Spread Eagle, and I followed it west through the woods down to Stillwater Fork. At 10.4 miles, I met up with the trail and hiked the six miles down-valley back to the car. Fantastic day; round trip was 9 hrs.

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