My new bride Beth and I, having been married on July 4th, had planned for months to spend a few days in the Moab area of southeastern Utah as sort of a 'mini-honeymoon'. We were able to work our schedules out so that we'd have five days to do our trip. We left our house in Chandler on the evening of Tuesday the 29th and overnighted in Flagstaff, then covered the 350+ miles to Moab, making a side trip to tour Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah boundary in the Navajo Nation. We arrived in Moab on the 30th in the midafternoon, and spent the rest of the day just walking the downtown, checking out the bookstores, and playing tourist. Our plans included visits to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, as well as a highpoint, of course. The La Sal Mountains lie to the east and southeast of Moab and dominate the skyline, rising 7,000+ feet from the valley floors. We had our choice of two diifferent county highpoints: Mt. Peale, San Juan county's highpoint as well as the highpoint of the range, and Mt. Waas, a subsidiary peak of Mt. Peale and the highpoint of Grand county. With not enough time for both, we opted for the grander of the two: Mt. Peale. Originally we planned to do the peak more toward the end of the trip but the weather reports indicated we should take advantage of a brief dry spell and go as soon as possible. As a result, we made the hike on the next morning, the 31st.

Arising early from our hotel in Moab, we covered the 40+ miles via US-191, UT-46 and FR-073 to get ourselves to La Sal Pass, which sits directly south of Mt. Peale. We got dressed and started the hike about 8:30 a.m. local time. The sky was mostly clear with a high cloudy haze, and very humid. At La Sal Pass there is a small parking area, and just west of this pass is one of two old roads that lead north into the drainage areas below Mt. Peale. Another road, about 3/4 mile to the east, leaves the main road before the pass and ends at spot elevation 10,243 ft. We considered the various options and decided pretty much to ignore both roads for now and hike in directly up the grassy slopes from the parking area. We followed faint paths and old eroded ruts and very soon, we entered the forest, hiking by reckoning due north. We came out into the open again, then re-entered the trees, where I found a good path that we followed briefly out into the open again. We surmounted a small knob, marked with a spot elevation 10,428 on the map. We took a breather here and assessed our route.

The standard route up Peale is to hike up an obvious talus gully on Peale's west flanks. From the parking area it is easy to see, but requires about a mile of hiking through the meadow/forest mix to get to the base of this gully. Of course, in the trees, it is not always possible to keep this gully in sight. Nevertheless, it is easy to stay on a northeasterly bearing, and numerous faint paths help. From atop our perch on knob 10,428, we could see the eastern of the two roads that head north into the trees toward the gully. We decided to hike down to it, then follow it north. We did so, and once again re-entered the forest at a point where this road made a very sharp left turn up a steep slope. I found a faint path that soon led to a more substantial one on the east side of the drainage, and we simply hiked up this steepening path through the trees. The ground was giving slowly away to rocky talus, and after a short strenuous stretch, we came out onto the base of our intended gully, leaving the last of the forest behind us. We were very near the spot elevation 10,700 noted on the map. We took another break here, having spent about 45 minutes to get here.

We started up this gully. At first we followed a mixed path through wildflowers, soft dirt and rocks. In short order, we were hiking on talus only. While it was steep, and some slabs were loose, it was mostly very safe, the gradient never getting much steeper than 20% and often not that steep at all. But it was tedious and tiring. Previous hikers have beaten in paths here and there, but in many cases we simply had to pick our own way through the rocks. Mostly the talus ranged from football sized rocks to biggies about the size of a small vehicle. After about a half-hour in which we gained about 700 feet, we took another break. Ominously, I noted that the clouds way up on the ridge were starting to get 'puffy'... however, Peale was still clear, and we has a strong southerly wind, and mostly clear skies to our south. It seemed the clouds were building in the basin north of Peale. In any case, I felt we were safe but our window of opportunity was tightening. We had gained more than half of our elevation and had about one mile of hiking to go. I felt we should be at the top within an hour easily. After our break we got moving. Following the talus gully up further, I found a use-trail that leaves the gully and starts directly up the rocky and sometimes-grassy slopes. This use-trail appeared to cut off a lot of distance and put us on the ridge not far from the summit, so we decided to follow it.

The use-trail degenerated quickly into a loose scree path, and we left it and pretty much hiked by sight up the slopes to the main ridge. The footing was not the greatest and we got slowed up by this. Nevertheless we reached the main ridge, where we were met by a hiker making a traverse from nearby Tukuhnikivatz to Peale. Also at the ridge, we could see the full effect of all the cloud buildup. There were lots and they were definitely storm clouds. Yet our ridge was clear and Peale was clear. I told Beth we had maybe a half-hour and that we'd better hustle. On the ridge itself a sometimes obvious path is visible in the talus; we followed it past two knobs and summitted right around noon. The hiker had beaten us there by a few minutes and was relaxing ... in the buff, although he had kindly covered up his naughty bits. Literally as soon as Beth and I hunkered into the windbreak to rest, we could hear thunder. Just barely enough time to swig some water and snap some photos, we immediately started down, maybe spending about 90 seconds in all at the summit.

I have to admit I was quite spooked and just wanted down off the main ridge as soon as safely possible. Beth and I, followed by the nekkid hiker (now dressed... named Miguel and seemingly a real cool fellow), walked 'with purpose' down the ridge to where we had met it coming up. Our plan, weather permitting, was to stay on the ridge and meet the gully a little farther west where the slopes weren't so nasty, but the weather prompted us to get moving down, and so we descended this awful use-trail, much of the time doing boot-glissades in the soft dirt or simply sliding on the butt. We soon reached the gully proper (where we'd left it earlier) and took a deserved rest. We were now well down off the ridge, and the storms were on the other side. We ate lunch and pretty much took the long rest we had intended to take at the summit. We got moving again, and got bonked a few times by small hail just as we entered the trees. We followed a good path out, emerging onto the road mentioned earlier. We decided to walk out this road to the main road, then walk the three-quarter miles up the main road back to my truck. Partly I didn't want to reascend the knob and try to find paths through the trees, but I also wanted to view this road for its quality. It's definitely four-wheel drive, but mainly because of a few short steep rocky stretches. Most 4wd vehicles could probably handle it and cut off about a mile overall of hiking. We were back to my truck at just before 3 p.m., a total of 5:45 on the route. I reckon we hiked about 5.5 miles round trip and had a cumulative one-way gain of 2,800 feet (including 200 feet lost and regained when we descended the 10,428' knob.

We spent the remainder of our two days exploring Arches National Park, a visit out to Deadhorse State Park where the views there rival those of the Grand Canyon (and with about one-thousandth of the crowds), and a day in Canyonlands National Park, in which the road in (UT-211) washed out after a flash flood while we were in the park. They allowed 4-wheel drive vehicles to pass through the debris, but passenger vehicles were stuck. I'm not sure how they eventually got out. The road was strewn with pretty good-sized rocks and lots of tree limbs, logs and other crud. We made a good decision to hike Peale when we did as the storms were pretty bad the remainder of our time, with the La Sals being socked in by storm clouds pretty much 24 hours a day.

Final comments about the routes: If I were to do this peak again, I drive up the eastern of the two north-trending roads, as mentioned above, and park where convenient, and start the hike from there. I'd ignore the western 'northerly' road as it ends high on slopes and requires some obstacle-crossing to get to the intended gully. And, I'd give the use-trail that trends away from the gully a miss. It's just too messy. Instead I'd climb the gully almost to near the very top, and only leave it at the last moments where tufty grass and vegetation would seem to allow for the better footing to meet the ridge proper. In any case, we had a blast and it is a great climb... and surprisngly tiring given its relatively short distance. Hiking on talus is never exciting, in my opinion.