Yankee Hill
We weren't originally planning on doing Yankee Hill, but we'd heard that the trail had gotten rougher and needed a higher rating. Fortunately or unfortunately, we didn't find that to be true, but we still had a great time. We came off of Oh-My-God Road and drove by a lot of people getting ready in the staging area at the trailhead. It ended up being a pretty busy trail.
With a GPS and the track preloaded, route finding is easy. Without it, you're going to get pretty turned around. We chatted on the CB about how difficult it was before electronics, and about all of the places along Yankee Hill where we'd been lost. We were having none of that, though, so we cruised along without any issues.
When we came to Miners Gulch, we did that trail in a weird figure eight and then came back to Yankee Hill at the Miners Gulch trailhead. It's a big, wide area so we stopped for a picture of all of us in a line.
After that section, the trail gets fun. It's a rocky, loose hill climb for a while, and we really enjoyed ourselves. Then we came to a stop when we could see a Jeep in front of us with tail lights on. We could hear a Jeep up ahead that was working on getting through something. We waited our turn.
This was right before the optional playground area, where there is a section of larger rocks. We went through it without any difficulties. The group in front of us had stopped at the playground and that made it pretty busy, so we decided to push on and skip it this time.
The trail continued to be fun, with mini obstacles here and there. We all went up Yankee Hill, and the climb didn't seem to have changed. It was still long and steep, and a great time. We parked at the top to get out, stretch our legs, and enjoy the view. All we saw from other people were happy, smiling faces.
We still wanted to get to Kingston Peak and the day was getting short, so we decided to change our route for the rest of the day. The plan was to take Sheridan Hill over, but we decided to do Kingston Peak in the other direction, instead. We warn people not to do that, and we got to experience why (again). Even though Yankee Hill was busy, it was a great time and we were glad we checked it out.
Reports from Other Days: 6
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Yankee Hill. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
