Temple Mountain

temple mountain - 6798' - Class 5.4
march 2015

Overview

Temple Mountain itself is not a very difficult climb, but that is beside the point. This mountain means a lot to me and finally, after over 6 years of staring at it and visiting the San Rafael Swell dozens of times, as well as two failed attempts, I reached the summit of Temple Mountain in March 2015. The first time I got a glimpse of this magnificent mountain was back in October 2008, just a couple months after I started college, where I was finally able to leave home and live on my own. I felt free and willing to take on the world during the fall of 2008 and even though I didn't know it then, my life was just beginning. Nearly 7 years later, Temple Mountain still allures me, and holds very strong memories of my new-found career exploring and venturing further and further from where I called home near Seattle. Apart from some family road trips as a young child, I saw this peak on my first visit to Utah, and the beauty of it stuck with me very well. At the time I never thought I'd ever be able to climb it, nor did I even know that's something people did. Instead, I was like a child in a candy store enjoying completely new territory with nothing but the fierce childhood memories of 7 year old me just being adored by Balanced Rock in Arches NP. At 18, I was wildly excited to return to Utah and I suppose the San Rafael Swell area got lucky as it was the first place I saw. I will always hold a special place for this area; Temple Mountain and Goblin Valley, and I'm happy to write this trip report describing my ascent of Temple Mountain.

What makes this day even more special was the fact I had just returned from an awesome trip to Argentina, and I was with Jayme, who I had only met a couple months prior. She was just as excited as I was, and for similar reasons I was back in 2008. She hadn't seen the really remote areas of Utah very much, and was very stoked to join me on a place that meant so much to me. I don't think I truly expressed how happy I was as we sat on its summit because, as many people know, I lack the ability to express emotion but she was able to pick it up! So the same day I returned to Denver from Argentina, I drove to Salt Lake City to pick her up and we drove down to Goblin Valley the next morning.

Chamber of the Basilisk

Since it was already about noon when we got there, I figured we would do a short hike in Goblin Valley and climb Temple Mountain the next day. This turned out to be really fun, as we hiked through the valley of the Goblins, and scrambled deep into the maze of buttes, channels and hills that makes this place so fun for kids. We crossed over the top, began descending a narrow canyon and quickly ran across the giant hole in the ground. There were a bunch of long slings around a huge rock which made for an awesome rappel anchor. I reviewed with Jayme how to set up a rappel and went down. As I passed through the opening, I entered a huge chamber capable of housing a 10 story building and reached the bottom after a long free hanging rappel.

Jayme started down as I held the rope and had lots of fun hanging in the air, looking around the massive chamber. There was a hiker who came into the chamber from the back who was watching us rappel. When we both got down, I looked around trying to figure out how this may have formed. I had some guesses but without spending lots of time analyzing all the rocks I wasn't able to make a good theory. We took some photos, then scrambled out and met the trail. The hike back was very scenic as the sun was getting lower in the sky and produced incredible lighting on the surrounding desert landscape. Upon arriving at the car, we took one more look at the valley and then drove to Hanksville for some awesome burgers at Stans Burger Shak.

Jayme hiking through the Goblins

Climbing up a small rock near the trail

Jayme rappelling into the Chamber of the Basilisk

Scrambling out of the chamber

Goblin Valley and Wild Horse Butte

Our shadows

Panorama of the San Rafael Desert

Temple Mountain

After an excellent dinner in Hanksville, we drove up towards Goblin Valley again, but continued on Temple Mountain Road through the reef and found a nice place to park near the mountain. Good thing we camped in the car as there were numerous motor homes and barking dogs and perhaps a couple wild drinkers nearby, but we were still able to sleep well. The next morning we went to the trailhead which is a large parking area with pit toilets and picnic tables. Many ATV roads start towards Temple Mountain from here, and many old uranium mines are seen scattered all over the cliffs. Dozens of old roads that are so unusable they are difficult to hike over also are found. Since I had hiked completely around Temple Mountain before, I knew how to get to the base of the mountain. We followed one of the well maintained ATV double track roads heading towards the mountain until we reached an old car that appeared to be a large Ford from the 50's and began heading up a small drainage. Cairns marked the best path up a small ridge a couple hundred feet or so to an old mining road. I remembered that this track switch-backed again so we continued straight up until we hit it once again and then followed it left. I was aiming for a large, red and black area of rock sitting at the upper end of the long white colored ridge that descends down the west slopes of the mountain. A short scramble up loose rocks brought us to the top of this ridge where the terrain abruptly ended in a series of cliffs dropping steeply north.

We took a break at the top of the long, wavy white ridge and I scouted the remainder of the route. We scrambled east up some very loose rocks and passed just below and north of a small white tower that probably hasn't been climbed. We gained the small ridge dropping south from the east-west oriented summit ridge and walked north to the base of the first real difficulty. There is a 12 foot step that is somewhat challenging to surmount. Last time I actually did climb it when Josh and I was there in June of 2012 but then I struggled to get back down, and we bailed since we figured we would need a rope for the terrain further up. This time, I again climbed it solo, but anchored myself above it and belayed Jayme up who made it perfectly. There is normally a pile of rocks placed at the base of this step to make it easier to start as it overhangs slightly and the best handholds are a bit high. We then continued up and scrambled above some intense exposure dropping below us down the west face, and I located what looked like the easiest way up the short headwall guarding the summit ridge. I climbed an easy 4th class block onto a ledge (which was actually overhanging but only 5 feet up), and belayed Jayme up. I was standing on a large ledge only 20 feet below the summit ridge and she belayed me up the final slab where I mantled onto the wide open ridge. She followed and we soon found ourselves on a small but roomy summit plateau. Since I had done research on both the east and west summits, and knew the east peak was slightly higher (and thankfully easier) we turned right and hiked over the lower, middle peak which wasn't more than a small mound of rocks and reached the base of the final scramble. From there it was only 40 feet of Class 3, fun scrambling to the summit, where I saw across from me the west summit, which was ever so slightly below the horizon with my eye level at the highest rock.

It was a gorgeous day and the views were spectacular. The entire Swell was visible and there was even some snow on the shady north slopes below us. We both sat on the summit for at least an hour enjoying the moment. I could not have asked for a better day. I spent some time down memory lane thinking about all the previous times I had been to this particular area and finally culminating it by sitting on top of the mountain I was drawn to so much with someone special.

Unfortunately, the time came for us to descend and we returned to the same spot we had topped out on the summit ridge, but I didn't see any anchors to rappel from. I walked west more and couldn't find anything either, so I located a large boulder just to the skiers left of where we topped out and wrapped a long sling around it. After pulling it hard it felt very secure but I had to clean hundreds of pounds of loose rock away to prevent the rope from catching on anything loose. I went down first on our 30 meter rope and made it safely down. Jayme then went and we scrambled down a few more feet to the top of the first 12 foot step where I slung a horn for us to rappel from. Soon we were hiking back down easy terrain, and reached the old ATV track in no time. As we hiked the old road back to the car the lighting on the mountain behind us kept getting better, as if the day couldn't get any better, the sun was illuminating Temple Mountain so perfectly, and we were able to get some great last photos to end the day.

The SW face of the east-west oriented summit ridge is the best way to reach the summit area and most people believe the NE summit to be higher despite the benchmark and the USGS maps placing the label on the NW summit. The red line shows the best way with the light green lines showing low 5th class spots. The Yellow line is a short variation but also adds an additional 10 foot low 5th class crack. There is a large rock just to the climbers right of where the route reaches the summit ridge to set up a rappel (Purple arrow and dots). I placed fresh cord here in March 2015. Then you can also lower or rappel down the first crux step, or down climb it with a long jump down at the end.