Hiking Box Elder Peak via the Granite Flat Campground Trailhead

Box Elder Peak is my new favorite hike in Utah County: you get views at over 11,000’ of elevation (nearly 5,000’ of gain), including some up-close views of the ridgeline between American Fork Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon all to yourself.

Alicia from Girl on a Hike has a great summary of the route, and a photo of the trailhead parking. Alicia suggests taking at least 3 liters of water, which I found about right for a warm September day. I crossed two or three small streams, but all in the first mile or so. After the first mile, there is no water.

The trail has about the same orientation as the Aspen Grove approach to Mount Timpanogos: facing east and mostly exposed to the sun all day. However, unlike the Aspen Grove approach to Timp, the Box Elder Peak trail has little stands of maples, aspens, firs, and pines that give you some welcome shade roughly every quarter mile or so.

The trail is well-maintained and largely free of rocks most of the route. Most of the trail is crushed granite which keeps the dust down while staying soft underfoot. Between the 2.5 mile and 3.5 mile marks the trail goes through hard granite rock on the trail, but only a few hundred feet of that section are steep.

As others have observed , the last mile of the approach is where the action is: 50% grades in some places, and you feel like you’re climbing stairs (but without the footholds)—a great workout for your calves. The last mile of trail from the saddle to the peak as found on most topo maps is either out of date or inaccurate, but as long as you are on the ridge or have the ridge within a hundred feet of your left, you’ll be fine.

I found at least 3 places on in the last mile or so where the trail seemed like it diverged and I wasn’t sure which way to go. On the way up I often took one route and on the way down I took another and found that I was probably following the “real” trail on the way down.

Two small streams cross the trail around 1 to 1.25 miles from the trailhead.

View of Box Elder Peak (right) from about the 2 mile mark.

Great Blue Limestone makes the trail dark gray and purple in some places.

Some sections of the trail felt like another planet:

Meadow in the saddle where Dry Creek trail and Deer Creek trail meet. This meadow is about 3.5 miles from the trailhead.

View of Box Elder Peak at the 3.5 mile mark, just past the Dry Creek-Deer Creek trail meeting.

View of Box Elder Peak with man-made erosion control trenches dug by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1941.

Looking east from about the 4.5 mile mark toward an interesting hoodoo.

The trail is well-maintained, even on the steepest parts.

The last half-mile of trail to the peak is not as steep as the preceding half-mile, but is rocky and more exposed.

View from Box Elder Peak: Another view of the Little Cottonwood Canyon ridge.

Some peak labels for your convenience:

View from Box Elder Peak: Looking north toward Little Cottonwood Canyon.

View from Box Elder Peak: Looking south toward Mount Timpanogos.

View from Box Elder Peak: Looking north, northeast toward Little Cottonwood Canyon. Sugarloaf and Devil's Castle form the southern wall of Alta Ski Area.

View from Box Elder Peak: Looking north into Dry Creek Canyon.

View from Box Elder Peak: Looking west, southwest into Highland and Alpine. Damage from recent fires is visible in the canyon.

View of the meadow where Dry Creek Canyon and Deer Creek Canyon meet.

One last look at Box Elder Peak from the meadow.

I made a new friend; he laughed at my dad jokes:

Muted fall colors (it has been a hot, dry summer).

Bright maples a few hundred feet from the trailhead.

My GPX track (view on Footpath ).

Last modified on 2020-09-15