Circleville Mountain

August 1, 2017

This week’s adventure is an off-piste hike with a high degree of difficulty.  “Off-piste” is a term used at ski resorts for when you leave the groomed runs.  This hike has a moderate elevation gain of 1300 feet and I consider it difficult because there’s really no established route to the summit of Circleville Mountain.  As I “flew” the landscape on google earth the morning of my adventure and perused several maps, I noticed the nearest road or trail is still 2 or 3 miles from the peak and I didn’t want to just hike up a road.  There is a very large timber harvesting area on the north slope of Circleville Mtn. which offers numerous non-motorized logging roads that you could explore, but as far as I can tell, they would get you close, but force you to scramble up very steep sidewalls to exit the “bowl” of the drainage.  I am so happy with the route I chose and am glad to have learned to use techie-tools like my laptop and GPS.  The route could use a little refinement, but my first attempt was successful in these ways; the route got me to the top, I discovered and utilized historical routes (closed two-tracks), and encountered no dangerous pitches or extreme exposure.  From where I parked my car on F.R. 137 to the top of the mountain, this route looks roughly like the letter “C”, appropriately for Circleville, and heads generally south at first, then hooks gradually west.  The best part of this hike was the top, of course, where I was surprised with the variety of terrain.  There’s tons of wide open grassy flats, mixed with patches of spruce forest, some medium height but mostly stubby stunted out pine trees due to the harsh elements and high altitude.  My route near the top took me across a long field of volcanic boulders which you should avoid if you are letting your equine buddy do the walking.  The views to the east of Mt. Dutton with Birch Creek straight below you, and to the south towards Panguitch and Little Dog Valley are very fine.  

This trail will challenge you physically because the round trip mileage is near 8 miles and mentally because you’re following my orange flagging line through virgin forest, no tread, no signs, no cairns, no trail blazes on trees, NADA!  And to add to the confusion, timber was harvested here, so there’s bits and pieces of obliterated logging roads, slash strewn about, and my flagging line may deteriorate after a few months.  But you will be rewarded if you practice navigating using a GPS or Aps on your smartphone and work on your trip planning and preparedness.  Make sure the first thing you do is mark your car or camp as a waypoint, make sure you have a full charge, AND spare batteries, have enough daylight to get oriented, stay out of high, exposed clearings if there’s any chance of lightning, and share your plan with someone.  Allow a minimum of 6 hours to do this hike out and back, or if you’re crazy like me, stash a mountain bike at the end of F.R. 575 and make sure to mark it on your GPS, then, after summiting, “land-ski” down the super steep north west slope of Circleville mtn.  That piece of forest is so steep that I had to keep comparing my current elevation to my bike’s saved waypoint elevation to ensure I didn’t track too low as I navigated to a “needle in a haystack”.  It reiterated to me the power of the GPS as a hiking tool that day because my ride out was waiting for me  and I found it no problem, ending up only 20 feet below it!  If you dare, you will find this route by driving exactly 0.5 mile west of LeBaron Lake Campground on F.R. 137 and looking for a hint of an old logging road heading southwest and see my orange flagging.  Then connect the dots to the top of Circleville Mountain as you navigate Into the Tushars.