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Apr 13, 2019 — A little over a year ago, our group set out into this area of Zion for the first, the goal being to bag a bunch of little peaks, with the finale being Rabbit Ears Peak. We ultimately only made it to that peak, skipping the others due to time constraints, but I vowed to come back for them. Yoshi was the only one excited about it, so a year later, here we were. We set out into the backcountry, this time bagging Dead Tree Peak, Elkhorn Peak, Turkey Peak, and Subway Peak. I would say this map, route, and the photos below are more helpful than the previous trip report, but I left both adventures up on my site for reference. For reference, our trip to Rabbit Ears Peak follows the standard Subway route for a while, whereas this route took us down a sneak route, dropping us right where we needed to be. Also, since we were more acclimated to the area, we made some better choices for navigating the brush/washes.
Enough prelude, here's the novel... I mean hike! From the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead, we walked along the lovely forested Wildcat Canyon Trail, then headed south along the Northgate Peaks Trail to its end, a nice lookout at the great peaks and view. We took note of how far we'd be going before dropping down into the gully just west of Northgate Peaks East, where the social trail fizzled out and we continued southeast toward a pair of large bumps, marking the head of the ridge we'd follow down. Our route led between the two bumps and then we stuck to the ridge crest as best we could, where a few cairns helped alleviate our slight concerns that we were on the wrong ridge. Eventually, the ridge drops into a couple of gullies, where a few Class 3 moves brought us to a grassy flat spot a few hundred feet above the Left Fork of North Creek (The Subway). A little route-finding led down into a dirty, steep gully on the right, which dropped us into the canyon. Almost directly across the canyon was the famous (for those who like exploring this obscure area of Zion) jughandle arch that marks the Class 4 scramble out the south side of the canyon. This brought us steeply up another gully and up to higher ground, a spot I'd been to multiple times. It felt good to be back, and to know where I was in general.
From here, there are no more cairns, so it's best to just refer to the map attached. We worked up to a saddle between two small unnamed peaklets to the southeast that drained south and started curving southwest. Instead, we decided to bushwhack east to head over to the two more interesting-looking peaks (Dead Tree and Elkhorn) before going over to Turkey Peak. This was the most rough bushwhacking of the day, and overall wasn't awful. It led us to a creek draining from east to west, at the northern base of Elkhorn Peak. We followed it to the gorgeous, massive slickrock bowl that separates Greatheart Mesa to the north and Elkhorn Peak to the south. A Class 2+ scramble led us to an incredible feature on the face of the white slickrock: a trail! Well, not really. But it looked so perfect that if I'd seen a photo of it out of context, I'd think it was human made. We followed this "trail" to the saddle of Dead Tree and Elkhorn, where we headed east to Dead Tree Peak first. Typical slickrock leads to a Class 4 move that I got scared on. It was sandy and I just got in my head. It's not particularly exposed, just very steep. I reluctantly admit that Yoshi gave me a sling to use to get up. The summit views on Dead Tree Peak were really incredible.
Back at the saddle of Dead Tree and Elkhorn, we headed up the Class 3 east slope of the latter, summitted, and continued down the steep Class 2 west slopes down into yet another slickrock wonderland, complete with running water that drained along our route. Our next destination was Turkey Peak, to the west. It looked fairly unassuming from all angles, but we were happily surprised with how incredible it ended up being. Don't write it off just because it doesn't have slickrock all over. We followed the developing creek headed west and were stopped by a gorgeous waterfall, which we bypassed on the left, following an animal trail. After the waterfall, we inspected the cliffs of the Turkey Peak mesatop's east slope. They seemed formidable, and although a route might take you up there, we decided to continue north through a notch. In hindsight, we probably would have saved some time had we looked for a route, since our premature scramble up the east ridge of Turkey Peak ended up being slow-moving. However, we didn't regret it. We pulled an unexposed Class 4 move and countless Class 3 moves, so if that's not your thing, find another route up (probably by continuing to Turkey Peak's north slope rather than the east ridge). The views of the surrounding hoodoos were amazing, and the afternoon light gave the monoliths of Zion peaks extra charm. The ridge passed over a high point (Peak 6097) that I included in my map because it felt notable. A bit of bushwhacking and animal trails searching led to the Class 2+ summit of Turkey Peak, where the views of South Guardian Angel were unmatched. After spending a bunch of time taking in the views and identifying the many backcountry peaks, we located a gully we thought might work to lead north (luckily it was our first try), and continued up the creek we had left earlier to bushwhack, completing our loop.
Our last peak of the day would be Subway Peak, a small lump just south of the Left Fork of North Creek (The Subway). After backtracking a bit toward Left Fork, Subwy Peak came into view to the west. We did some weird route-finding which I removed on my attached map, instead only including the best route we could find. This involved following a south-draining creek, then heading west to a gully that separates a sub-peak of Subway Peak from the true summit. A Class 3 unlikely-looking move at the ridge crest leads to easier scrambling to the summit. The views of South Guardian Angel from here are amazing. There's a decent view into Left Fork, and of course your regular heart-attack overwhelming beauty of the wild and remote surrounding landscape.
We still had to drop back into Left Fork of North Creek, and then ascend back to the Wildcat Trailhead via the same route we descended earlier in the day.
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Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I'm not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!
