The mighty Twin Peaks are the most visible and prominent mountains in the Wasatch front.

Statistics

5 - 6

hrs

1,574

m

1,574

m

25

max°

Difficulty

FATMAP difficulty grade

Extreme

Description

The Twin Peaks rise over 7,000 feet from the valley floor and top out just over 11,000 feet.

The access up Broads Fork is the "easiest" approach, but still requires over 5,000 feet of ascent and some scrambling.

The views of the Salt Lake City valley are well-worth the effort. There are many ways to the top of Twin Peaks, but none of them are easy.

The Broads Fork approach is the most straight forward and travels along trail for most of the way.

The trail starts on a well-defined path through the woods and up to the beaver pond where the route opens out into the alpine.

The trail heads south up the drainage along a good path until it hits the scree fields beneath the peak.

From here, it meanders through the loose rock then gains the ridge and continues to the summit for some of the finest views in the state.

The trail is well-maintained and easy to follow through the thick forest.

Continue up and over a nice bridge as you gain easy elevation.

The canyon begins to open up as it climbs through some aspen groves and eventually opens up as it reaches the beaver ponds.

Continue around the ponds to the west and stay on the trail as it follows up the main gut of the drainage.

A nice spring appears near the base of the eastern face of Twin Peaks.

Keep heading up canyon following the path and the cairns.

The trail continues up into the scree fields and staying on route can be a little tricky through the loose rocks, but there are plenty of cairns and staying on trail isn't that important - just keep heading up to the visible saddle to the east of the summit.

Once on the ridge, you can stay exactly on the high ground and you'll encounter a few 5th class scrambling moves, or stay lower on the south face and traverse into the gully.

Both variations will get you to the final summit ridge where you'll find a well-beaten path through the rocks and onto the east summit.

The quick hike over to the higher west summit is well worth the effort since you're in the neighborhood.