Thunder above and a parking ticket below Mount Nebo

Mount Nebo gave me two warning systems, and neither was especially elegant. On the ridge, distant thunder made me stop and judge whether to continue. Back at the car, a ticket finally explained a parking-permit system that the almost empty registration box had failed to explain at the start.

The mountain was on my list for a more conventional reason: 1,673 m of prominence makes it an Ultra, and it is the highest point of the Wasatch Range. I had spent the night in Nephi, so the approach was short and the hike looked straightforward. The trail mostly was. The weather and paperwork supplied the complications.

A registration box with few clues

A short drive off the paved road led to a dedicated parking area where a few cars were already standing. I started walking and soon found a post with a registration box. Inside was one broken, empty envelope. There was no pen and no useful explanation of what I was supposed to do. I decided either the system belonged to another season or I had missed something, because there was not much else to act on.

The walking began gently on a grassy trail with scattered trees before entering the valley. The route was consistently easy to follow, and I met quite a few people. A few fallen trees needed short detours, but otherwise the trail was in very good shape. My route followed North Peak and Wolf Pass, and the Forest Service identifies this approach as North Peak Trail #089. Its description of the final climb from Wolf Pass as a rocky scramble along a narrow ridge matched the terrain above.

Deer and summer flowers

The greener middle section was better than I had expected. I saw several deer along the way, and they were remarkably unconcerned by hikers. One stood perhaps five metres away before eventually moving on.

Wildflowers were another constant feature. Purple daisy-like blooms appeared beside the trail, while higher open slopes carried mixtures of red and pale flowers. Combined with the green valley and good trail, this was already turning into the kind of short mountain day I enjoy.

Thunder on the ridge

From the valley the trail climbed steeply towards the North Peak ridge. Once I reached the ridge, the gradient eased and the walking became much more gradual. That was also where I began hearing remote thunder. I could see rain to the west, perhaps around 10 km away, and the thunder seemed to be coming from the same direction. I checked a lightning-monitoring app, but the wind direction gave me no useful answer, so I waited for roughly 20 to 30 minutes to see what would happen.

After about 20 minutes I had heard only a few, even more distant rumbles, so I continued. The traverse across the northern summit slopes was almost flat in places, with a few small descents.

At Wolf Pass, the saddle before the final summit section, I could hear thunder again. This time it sounded clearer and closer. Mount Nebo was already close, however, and I could not see an obvious threatening cloud over the route, so I decided to continue. That was my judgement on the day, not a recommendation for how anyone else should treat thunder in exposed terrain.

I reached the summit and met one person coming down. The views were good, and I could still hear thunder somewhere off to the side, but it remained remote while I was there. Mount Nebo sits within the Mount Nebo Wilderness and, as the highest point of the Wasatch Range, it was exactly the kind of summit that had put it on my peakbagging list in the first place.

Back into the green

I descended to Wolf Pass, traversed back north of the summit and started dropping towards the valley and the trees. Then the weather became more convincing. I heard quite a few rumbles from the direction of the summit, and the sky behind me looked much darker. Later the thunder seemed to fade again. On the way down I met several groups only beginning their hike towards the summit.

Small wildlife continued almost to the end, including a chipmunk on a fallen log and a dark bird moving through tall grass beside the trail.

The parking system explains itself

The registration mystery finally became clearer when I returned to the car and found a ticket on the windscreen. That encouraged some more concentrated research of the immediate surroundings. I found another post and box in a different place, along with a notice explaining that parked vehicles needed a day or annual permit. Yes, the car rather than the person.

I spent about 20 minutes trying to open the payment website, but the mobile connection was too slow to complete the process. The paper alternative appeared to involve filling out an envelope, putting $10 inside and leaving it in the box. I then spent another few minutes searching my bag for a pen, but without one that option failed too. In the end I drove somewhere with a better signal and paid online.

After the hike I returned to Nephi. I still had some time and wanted to work for a while, and by then Nephi had served as both my overnight base and my post-hike stop. Judging purely by the frequency of my visits, it was becoming a very nice place.

Mount Nebo is easier for me to remember as a sequence of contrasts than as an 830 m ascent: green meadows and close deer, then a broken ridge under distant thunder; an excellent trail, then a parking system explained by a ticket after the fact. The Ultra was the reason I came, but those details were the mountain I actually got.