Loafer Mountain and Santaquin Peak

June 20-21, 2025

I’ve wanted to hike Loafer Mountain for probably 20 years but it always seemed somewhat daunting. Now I’ve gotten into good enough hiking shape that I was confident I could handle it no problem. I chose to do both the high point of Loafer Mountain and also Santaquin Peak, which are close to each other but it requires losing and then regaining 400 feet of elevation in under a mile to hit both. Santaquin Peak is by far more popular but the high point of Loafer Mountain is two feet higher and I couldn’t resist doing them both. I wasn’t in any hurry to get there on Friday evening. I ate dinner at home with my family and then drove toward Payson Canyon and the Nebo Loop road. I was hoping to find a place to camp near the trailhead but it was clearly very naive of me to think I could find an open spot on a Friday evening. I drove a long way up the Nebo Loop and down a side road toward Santaquin Canyon but there was zilch. I backtracked and just slept in my truck at the trailhead. There was one vehicle there when I went to sleep before 11:00 PM but it was gone in the morning and I never even heard it go.

Loafer Mountain seen during my drive on US-6

Evening view down Beaver Dam Creek

I woke up at 4:30 AM and wanted to get on the trail by 5:00 but it was closer to 5:15. Two vehicles arrived together while I was preparing to hike and that group hit the trail shortly before me. I hiked by headlamp for about half an hour until it was light enough to see without it. I considered taking a shortcut up the ridge west of Mud Hollow, which would be quite steep but save three miles of hiking round trip, but from below it looked too brushy and I really didn’t want to bushwhack.

Hitting the trail by headlamp

Trail sign

Brushy ridge west of Mud Hollow

Partially full PBR on the side of the trail

I stayed on the main trail and enjoyed the views as I climbed higher and the sun came up. It was easy going until the trail switched from heading northwest to east. It was suddenly very steep and in some parts loose and gravelly. I kept climbing and finally topped out on the main ridge of Loafer Mountain where I emerged into the first direct sunlight of the day. There were great views from there including southern Utah Valley, and I stopped for my first break after nearly three hours of hiking.

Bald Mountain

Trail overgrowth

Mount Nebo

Flowers flanking the footpath

Really helpful trail sign

Steep and rugged trail

Steep and loose trail

Almost to the ridgetop, and sunshine

Purple flowers on the ridge

View down the trail

View of Payson, Elk Ridge, and Salem

I got going again and for more than a mile the hiking was the most pleasant of the trip. The elevation gain was less severe and there were gentle ups and downs along the ridge to break up the monotony of constantly climbing.

Snow on the trail

Above Mud Hollow

Santaquin Peak (left) and Loafer Mountain high point (right)

Snow drift on the ridge

Where the ridge began to get steeper, the trail broke off to the left but I stayed on the mostly trail-less ridge to get to the Loafer high point. There were a couple of pretty steep parts but nothing worse than I’d already hiked on the trail up. On the ridge and in some trees was some abandoned camping gear, partially covered with camouflage netting. Very strange. I got to the high point and found both a geocache and the summit register and signed the logs in both. My good friend Chris placed that geocache 14 years earlier and I was envious then that he’d done the hike. I sent him a photo through Snapchat from the summit letting him know his geocache was still in good shape.

Off-trail route up Loafer

Abandoned camping gear

Above the Left Fork of Loafer Canyon

More steep ridge ahead

Trail camera

Loafer Mountain high point

Loafer Mountain geocache log

View down Deer Hollow toward US-89

Loafer Mountain high point

Loafer Mountain summit register

Next was the most difficult portion of the hike, and one that I was very unsure of beforehand. It wasn’t really feasible to plan a route using Google Earth so I just started straight off down the hill toward the saddle between the high point and Santaquin Peak. The saddle was more to the north but my route took me mostly west where it was less steep. I reached the main trail and was relieved that the descent wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, but it still wasn’t very fun.

Santaquin Peak as I started down toward the saddle

Traversing a steep hillside

More steep hill

Back on the main trail

At the saddle I stopped and sat in the shade for a lunch break, then cruised up to Santaquin Peak. I spent only a little time taking in the view and reading some summit log entries, including one from the guy who parked his Dodge Durango next to me early that morning saying that he’d lost his keys during the hike. I also found another geocache before heading back down the trail.

Right Fork of Maple Canyon

Loafer Mountain

Left Fork of Loafer Canyon

Steep trail section

Last climb up to Santaquin Peak

Santaquin Peak summit mailbox

Hazy view toward Utah Lake

Spanish Fork

Santaquin Peak summit register

View toward Nebo

Loafer Mountain high point seen from Santaquin Peak

Santaquin Peak geocache log

The descent went fairly quickly. There was some soft snow to climb over in several spots that I hadn’t encountered on the way up due to summiting the Loafer high point first. One snow drift, the first one I saw on the way up, was surprisingly very much smaller in the afternoon. The steep and gravelly part was the worst of the descent–I had to go slowly and carefully to keep my feet from rolling out from under me. Back at the trailhead I’d hiked 12.9 miles and climbed a total of 4,200 feet of elevation. The Durango was gone so presumably that guy found his keys or had a spare. I think I counted seven people on the trail that day, which for me is a lot to see on any hike but it seemed like very few for a trail in the Wasatch on a Saturday.

Drifts on the trail