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Sep 09, 2019 — Stansbury Island is beautiful island/peninsula on the Great Salt Lake, and it definitely rivals the beauty of the more popular Antelope Island. I actually preferred it because of the relative solitude. The route to the highest point of Stansbury Island is a little funky to get to because the region around the main road is riddled with private property and mining, so a round-about route is required to stay on public land. I won't claim that I went through private property on the way back, but the option is available and I've included this viable route in my map, but it's not recommended. Additionally, my route takes a somewhat more fun ridgeline ascent than what seems to be the standard, easier route (dotted blue line on the map).
Starting from a dirt road just off the main Stansbury Island road, I followed a fenceline to a rock outcropping, then trekked through the tall grasses along the western base of the foothills. After spending some time traversing north across the grasses, I located a ridge that I ascended east for a few minutes until getting to the remains of an old road system that weaves north along the foothill slopes. There's no "correct" route here, but overall I liked my choices as I wrapped around the base of the range and I would recommend it.
The old road started to curve east into a minor drainage, and it wraps even farther north before the standard route leads to the aforementioned saddle. Rather than continue on this old road, I decided to instead just head up the closest ridge to see what I would find. After a steep Class 2 shallow gully, I got to a random ridgeline with some fun Class 3 moves. It's short and sweet, and a nice addition to the day. If you want to keep the route a little easier, rather than heading up the shallow gully continue along the old road (follow the blue dotted line on my map). Both routes lead to the saddle to the south of Stansbury Island High Point.
Once on the ridgeline I continued north, encountering some Class 2 and then some really light Class 3 just before the summit of Castle Rock. The short traverse from Castle Rock to Stansbury Island High Point was a bit more spicy. A Class 4 headwall greeted me at the saddle of the two, but I opted to head to the left around this headwall in search of an easier and more likely route. The scrambling can get a little cryptic here, since the blocks are large and obscure the view of what's to come, and the route isn't totally obvious. A few bouldery Class 3 moves and some light route-finding around rock monoliths brought me to the grassy summit.
Like I mentioned, from the summit of Stansbury Island High Point, a light Class 2 route that's otherwise mostly just a grassy walk leads west to the dirt road used to enter Stansbury Island, but this is partially on private property and I dont recommend going this way, but that's the only reason I wouldn't recommend going that way.
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