A few weeks ago, my neighbor asked if I would do Kings Peak with him. He had never done it before and wanted his teenage son to experience a character-building backpack outing as well. I am always up for an adventure and gladly accepted the invitation to be their “guide”. The plan was to mimic my first time up Kings since that felt to me like the baseline experience for something that challenges a teenager while keeping expectations simple. Our itinerary looked like this:
- DAY 1 – drive to trailhead (3 hours), hike to Dollar Lake (3 hours)
- DAY 2 – summit Kings (most of the day)
- DAY 3 – hike out (3 hours), drive home (3 hours)
Not intending to cut this trip short, it turned out to be a one-night stay with how good things went.
DAY 1
We left Salt Lake around 9am with the intent to grab that greasy burger at the Mountain View Drive Inn before this adventure, rather than after. There was no particular reason other than to mix it up for my 3rd time doing this trip. Plus, with two teenagers in tow, I figured their appetites would require more than just snacks along the trail heading in.
With bellies full and hiking legs fresh, we were on the trail by 1pm.
Elkhorn Crossing
Chatting it up along the way, we reached Elkhorn Crossing just shy of 2 hours. This trail junction is almost exactly 5.5 miles from the Henry’s Fork trailhead. For sake of consistency tracking, 2 hours is the same amount of time it took to do this section last time I did it. Everyone was feeling good.
After a short rest at Elkhorn, we crossed the creek and continued along the Henry’s Fork Trail for another 2 miles to Dollar Lake.
The forecast called for some clouds that afternoon with a chance of rain as the evening hours rolled in.
Dollar Lake
At the 7.5-mile mark, our pace remained consistent to Dollar Lake in under 3 hours.
We set up camp about a mile up from Dollar and got dinner going.
Not long after, some rain had moved in but nothing much to worry about.
It was time to call it a night after filling up our water and getting things organized for tomorrow.
DAY 2
The next morning was pretty casual since we gave ourselves all day to summit. We got up around 7a, ate breakfast and started off for Gunsight Pass about 40 minutes later.
Standing on Gunsight Pass around 8:20a, we looked down into Painter Basin after the first 2ish miles.
A Tale of Two Cutoffs
On my first trip to Kings in 2017, we didn’t know any better and dropped down into Painter Basin for the “long way” around to Anderson Pass. I wasn’t using CalTopo back then but now saw that route referred to as the Gunsight Cutoff (since I guess it cuts off from the main Gunsight Trail).
I was smarter on my second time up and stayed high from Gunsight Pass, following the well-traveled trail that cuts along the east slope of Dome Peak (aka West Gunsight Peak). CalTopo shows this to be the Dome Peak Cutoff Trail.
That is what we did on this trip to shave off some time and distance.
Top of the Toilet Bowl
Three miles from our camp, we reached the saddle right across from Anderson Pass. This is also the top of the chute, referred to by some as the Toilet Bowl. I’ve gone down that chute twice now, on both of my previous trips, and not too interested in doing that again.
Anderson Pass is now less than a 1/2 mile away with the summit not much further thereafter.
That was one of the busiest days I’ve seen up here as we approached Anderson.
These views down into the Henry’s Fork Basin were amazing as we worked our way up that north ridge.
It was 10:23a when we hit the summit. Those 4 miles from camp, with 2,300′ of elevation, took us a little over 2 1/2 hours.
We snapped summit selfies, munched on snacks and then started our descent around 11a. We were still behind that long string of people now all headed back to Anderson Pass. While we waited in a line that resembled Disneyland, I looked to my right and saw people coming up from the Dome Peak Cutoff trail directly across the valley below us. I said to the group, “hey, what do you guys think about dropping down here and cutting over to that point we came up?”
Cutting Off Anderson Pass
The slope angle didn’t look too bad and no one wanted to stay behind this conga line to Anderson. Boulder hopping was boulder hopping, so why not do it in the direction we needed to go anyway.
Cutting off Anderson Pass worked out quite nicely. In fact, we thought it was much more efficient… like, something I would try again next time we do Kings.
Once off that eastern slope, we crossed the upper basin and picked up the same trail from this morning all the way down to camp.
We were back at camp by a quarter after 1p. Our summit stats for the day were 7.4 miles and 2,488′ of elevation in 5 1/2 hours. We did good! So good, we looked at each other and said “now what?”.
Should We Stay or Should We Go
We discussed our options over a nice Mountain House lunch. Considering the original plan of staying two nights, we could have spent the rest of the day wandering around the basin. Maybe explore Lake Blanchard and Cliff Lake or move camp to the other side near Bear Lake and see what’s over there.
However, with our summit push going so well, that opened up another option we didn’t even anticipate to be an option. The thought of leaving a day early now meant our teenagers would make it home in time to hang out with their friends. I think you know which option won.
