After descending off of Fishlake Hightop Peak in Sevier County, I traveled north a short ways into Sanpete County and a go at its highpoint, South Tent Mountain. Three county highpoints are concentrated close by one another, all peaks atop the Wasatch Plateau and obviously, a result of fortuitous county boundary declarations. The drive from Fishlake took me through Salina, Manti and Ephraim and covered about 80 miles, but being a Sunday, traffic was extremely light. I was in the Ephraim-Spring City area right about noon. The weather was holding up well, with just some minor puffy clouds building over the peaks. Rain – even a small amount – could render the approach roads up to South Tent impassable, hence my minor concern.

The journey up to the Wasatch Plateau starts in the small town of Spring City, about 10 miles north of Ephraim. I followed the road directions as described in High in Utah, following Road 100 South east past a few homes to 500 East at a corral. I continued east along some unnamed road at a jog at the corral, then continued along it as the road turned to gravel and entered the Manti-La Sal Forest. The road became narrow, and quickly, started to gain somewhat steeply and in places, with very annoying washboarding. Even so, it wasn’t a bad road overall. I passed a number of vehicles with trailers parked along the road in clearings, and higher up, lots of people on ATVs. I should have picked up on the hint. The last 3-4 miles of the road to the plateau was very narrow, steep, extremely exposed, rocky and rutted. Yuck. I just went slow, in first gear, and hoped for the best. One small part of the road had sloughed off the mountainside, leaving just a narrow portion for me to squeeze through. I finally came up to the top of the ridge and the junction with Skyline Drive, roughly 13 miles since leaving Spring City. The weather was steady.

I turned south onto Skyline Drive (marked as FR-1 on the little plastic posts). From here it was another 3.3 miles to go. The road was deeply rutted the whole way there. This is the realm of ATVs, and I saw at least a dozen of them, whole families out for a Sunday excursion it seemed. The ATVs can handle the ruts just fine – and probably add to them of course. I seemed to be the only fool in a truck up there. I was in first-gear 4-wheel drive low the whole way, trying to balance along the raised sections but just as often, bounding and scraping through the awful ruts. In time, I arrived at my destination, a small pullout near an old road that snaked up North Tent Mountain. Again, the weather was holding up well. I could see how any moisture would make these roads really awful in short order. I had full supplies and gear with me in case I needed to camp the night up here. Just the same, I hoped I didn’t have to.

I parked at the pullout and got my stuff in order and started the hike in, right about 1:30 p.m. The guidebook suggests following the old road up North Tent Mountain, then working across the easy saddle to South Tent Mountain. I tried this, but gave up almost immediately as the road was in horrible, torn up shape. Instead, I had a hunch: the map shows a feature running across the base of both peaks called Beck’s Ditch. I thought this might be a good way to work my way toward South Tent and avoid the dense foliage and grasses. I found the ‘ditch’ quickly after descending across open grassy slopes about a quarter-mile. It turned out to be an irrigation canal of some sort, maybe even part of the water-catchment network used by the cities below. The ditch was hemmed in by good-sized berms, and sure enough, the berms were free of heavy brush and featured some paths I could follow. I walked the berm about a half-mile, maybe gaining 50 vertical feet, until I was below the saddle connecting the two Tent peaks. When it felt right, I left the ditch and started up the slopes to gain the saddle.

I walked across on open area of very dense high grasses and flowering brush, then found myself at the base of the hills. I just started up the hillside, following some rocky drainages and zig-zagging whenever I could, eventually working my way to the ridge and saddle, about 400 feet of overall gain. This section was short but quite strenuous, so I took a break when I achieved the ridge. Quite by luck I was actually right at the lowest point of the ridge and saddle. I quickly found an obvious use-path running along the top. After a rest I started up the path, and within 20 minutes had made up the last 400 feet of elevation to gain the long, narrow summit of South Tent Mountain. I found the benchmark inside a cairn, and one witness marker. The actual highest point seemed to be inside a small stand of brush a few feet from the benchmark. I signed in, stepped around and snapped a photo of North Tent. I spent maybe 10 minutes on top, then started the quick hike down. I made great time back to the saddle, then good time down the slope back to Beck’s Ditch, from where I retraced my steps to my truck. The round trip hike had covered about 2 miles total with about 900 feet of gross gain, including some loss (and regain) when descending to Beck’s Ditch in the first place. It was 3:30 when I got back to my truck, and while the hike had gone well and I enjoyed the outing, I really wanted to get down these nasty roads and back to civilization. Thankfully, the usual summer afternoon mountain rains never materialized.

The drive out was just as bumpy and scrapey as coming up. For the steep descent back into the forests, I just clutched the wheel and didn’t look down. I made these bits just fine. Actually, I was rumbling along in the lower forests, where the road wasn’t so steep and exposed, when I hit some washboard, enough to make my back end yaw and fishtail and very nearly pull me to the side of the road … talk about a moment of sheer terror! By this time, though, I was well down the mountain and just working my way to the cities. I succumbed to temptation and decided to stay a night in a hotel in the city of Mt. Pleasant. This put me in good position for attempts at the other two Wasatch Plateau county highpoints: Monument Peak (Carbon County) and East Mountain (Emery County).