God, Light, and Kings Peak, Utah

One of my goals in life had been to hike to the highest peak in Utah, Kings Peak, and back, in a single day. I had talked with others who had accomplished this goal and decided that I wanted to make the attempt. The round-trip distance from the trail head at Henry’s Fork to the top of Kings Peak and back is 36 miles. One can shorten this distance by 4 miles if one goes up and down the slide which is just below Anderson Pass. Anderson Pass is just below the top of Kings Peak. A friend of mine, Todd Galbraith, said that he wanted to go with me and make the attempt. We figured that at a 3.5 miles per hour walking pace, we could complete the hike in under 11 hours of hiking. If we were on the trail at 8:00 am, we could hike to the top and back by 7 pm, just before dark. On a beautiful fall Saturday morning in October 2001, Todd and I left Salt Lake City by truck at 5:00 am and headed north through Evanston, Wyoming to get to the Henry’s Fork trail head by 8:00 am to start hiking. We were so excited to get out into the beauties of the Uintah Wilderness area. We each had over a liter of water and enough snacks and trail mix to last us through the day. We each had a jacket. I also had a first aid kit, water-purification tablets, a poncho, a flashlight and an emergency blanket (the aluminum foil $1 compact kind). Other than that, we were dressed in light shirts, athletic shorts and hiking shoes. The weather report indicated that it would be a warm, beautiful day, with temperatures in the Uintah Mountains reaching up to about 70 degrees. We were looking forward to hiking in this beautiful mountain paradise. In the fall of the year, the leaves of the many oak, maple and aspen trees turn many shades of orange, yellow, red and brown. This mixture of color with the green pine trees and the reds and grays of the rocks and cliffs of these majestic mountains, is an awe-inspiring sight. It is so pretty to be in this environment in the fall of the year.

Kings Peak is the highest mountain peak in Utah at a height of about 13,500 feet above sea level. The trail head at Henry’s Fork is about 9,500 feet. The first 12 miles or so of hiking is quite easy. The trail is well used and there is a gentle incline for the first 1000 feet of ascent. It is a dirt trail with lots of rocks and roots in it, but it is easy to hike if one is watching for these hazards. At about the 12 mile mark, one can stay on the main trail and continue a fairly slow incline around a ridge to Anderson Pass or one can take the shortcut trail which goes up the slide to Anderson Pass. When we arrived at the 12 mile mark, storm clouds started to form in the distance and we decided to take the shorter route. We wanted to save time and we did not want to get caught in a storm. We also took a moment and knelt in a meadow just below the slide to pray. We thanked God for the beauties around us and we asked for a blessing for ourselves, for our families and for our country, to help us be safe, protected and cared for. I remembered thinking silently how grateful I was for the many blessings that we have in this country. The events of September 11, 2001 were still a very fresh memory and I remembered thinking how fragile life can be, but how wonderful it can be also. I silently asked God to bless us with experiences that day that we ought to have. I felt that this day would be memorable. I felt that we would have experiences that we needed to have. After a moment of prayer and contemplation, Todd and I headed up the slide. It was harder than we thought and as we reached the top of the slide, it started to snow on us. We scurried to a few boulders that appeared to be big enough to offer us some protection from the storm and we hunkered down to see what happened. I have never had an occasion to use my emergency blanket before, but this looked like the right time. I pulled it out and Todd and I covered ourselves to keep the snow off from us. It soon stopped snowing and we decided to try and make the summit before the snow continued.

The clouds had broken somewhat, and even though we could see storms in the distance, it appeared that we had enough time to get to the top and then head back down. Several other people were in the same predicament that we were, and they too decided to head for the top. A few people passed us who had already reached the summit and were headed down. Todd and I achieved the summit at 2:00 pm.

The top of Kings Peak is gorgeous. One can see fifty miles clearly in each direction. It is so pretty. Steep cliffs are to the immediate west of the peak, and one can see the peaks of Baldy and Reed mountains in the distance to the west. The many lakes of the region are visible, and we could see another storm developing to the east, just past Atwood Lake. A second storm was coming up the Henry Fork drainage that we had just come from. It was moving towards us on the west side of the canyons. It was magnificent to watch the storm move in along the mountains and cliffs. With the crack of thunder and lightning in the distance, we decided that it was time to get off the mountain. About eight other people were at the summit with us and we visited briefly with them, ate some lunch, drank some water and headed down the mountain. The storm moved in quite quickly and it was soon snowing again. The rocks that we were hiking over became wet and slippery and we had to be careful as we climbed down. There are no trees above the slide and there is very little protection from the elements. We decided to continue hiking down. It was much easier going down the slide, but by the time we were at the bottom of the slide, the snow had turned to rain. As there was no place to get out of the weather, we decided to keep hiking out. We were wet and we looked like two drowned rats.

My waterproof jacket was not very waterproof, but it was better than what Todd had. After about an hour of hiking in the rain, the storm broke and the rain quit. We stopped to rest, eat some trail mix and granola bars, drink some water, wring out the water in our socks and change some of our clothes. Todd put on my dry jacket, as his jacket was not waterproof at all, and we continued down the trail. We were making pretty good time, but with the wet and muddy trail it was going to take us longer than we expected to get down.

The sky was slightly overcast the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. The rain was gone, but the trail was wet and slick. We took it a little slower than we had planned. As the dark slowly engulfed us, we heard elk bugling in the meadows to our left. We saw a bull moose in a meadow to our right. The full moon tried to shine through the clouds, but it didn‘t provide us with much light. At 8:00 pm we still had about 3 miles to go. Todd had a sore knee and I gave him some Motrin. My muscles were getting sore also. The last three miles of the trail were hard to see in the dark because of the thick timber and oak along this part of the trail. Thankfully I had put a flashlight into the day pack. I pulled it out and it illuminated the trail for us so that we could see the trail, and so that we would not stumble over the obstacles of rocks and roots in the trail. We could no longer see without the light from the flashlight.

It dawned on me at this point that there are times on our journey through life when we need the light of God or others to shine for us. Like the flashlight, the light of God can illuminate the path of life to help us avoid the obstacles that may come our way. I believe that the light is in us, it is in our day pack, and sometimes we just need to turn it on. Sometimes we just need to ask for it. Sometimes our neighbors or friends have a light that they can share with us.

I have often had light illuminate my trail in life. I believe that it is a gift from God. It is all around us. It is in Nature. I am grateful for this light. It is a light I do not completely comprehend, but I know that it is there, because I have seen it. Light is a miracle and it is there to show us the way through life. Sometimes we just have to turn it on. That day, on the trail to Kings Peak, I learned to turn on the light, and good things happened.