Hike Mount Holmes Henry Mountains BLM, UT

Oct 24, 2019 — Mount Holmes was a totally unexpected treat. What appeared to be a bushwhack in the middle of the desert turned out to have some fun scrambling and route-finding, along with some of the best desert views I've experienced to date from a summit.

Starting out along the side of UT-276, we dropped into a wash that paralleled the road and followed it until we found a not easily located old road leading generally east through the desert. It winds around and undulates a bit and eventually leads up to a break in some big sandstone cliffs. At one point just before ascending to the cliff break, the road forks - take the left fork. Once through the break in the cliffs, we meandered through the desert on slickrock sandstone and mostly pleasant terrain. We soon reached the major northern ridge of Mount Holmes. This is the ridge we would follow to the summit. The ridge became riddled with sandstone outcroppings, mostly avoidable by keeping to the left (east). If you find you're getting cliffed out, just leave the ridge and keep to the east side, sticking low. We made our way to the base of a big sandstone butte, which we avoided by wrapping around the east side and along a somewhat narrow ridge. This ridge brought us to the base of some volcanic-looking rock pinnacles, and the route-finding got a little tricky. On the ascent, we side-hilled on terrible rock but found a better way on the descent (which is the route I included in the attached map). Basically, hug the cliff face and ascend as soon as you find a Class 2+ gully which leads back to the ridgeline. Doing this avoids the scree slope to the east and the sketchy rock pinnacles to the west.

Once on the volcanic-looking ridgeline, the route eased up in terms of scrambling and instead became a steep ascent on an animal trail to the summit, where a short Class 2 section of small talus led to the summit. The views of Lake Powell were stunning.