June 20, 2026
I’m trying to hike all the canyons between Miller Flat Road and Skyline Drive, and Booth’s Canyon is just another one of those which I haven’t yet been to. Instead of going to Skyline Drive I opted to make my destination peak 11,096′, since the peak is about 700′ higher than Skyline and makes a more logical turnaround point. I drove up Potter’s Canyon and parked near the mouth of Booth’s Canyon at the 66″ gate, which now has a brand-new logging road bypassing it. I started hiking just before sunrise, and there was smoke visible on the southern horizon which would get worse as the day progressed. Similarly it was windy, albeit warm, and the wind also increased throughout the day. There was no trail at first, then a faint trail as my route followed an old road up Booth’s Canyon. At times the road was obvious and others it just looked like a game trail. Down low there were a lot of carvings in the aspen trees.
After about a mile of ascending the road through the trees, the forest began to open up into some clearings with my first views of the ridgetops above the canyon. I saw a few elk at a distance but they didn’t notice me. At a spring shown on the USGS topo map there were some troughs and a healthy flow of water contributing to the stream in the canyon bottom.
Beyond the spring the road faded away. I went out of my way to peak 10,315′ to take in the views above Bennett’s Canyon and could see Miller Flat Reservoir in the far distance. Then I kept ascending along the divide between Booth’s and Bennett’s. The upper end of Booth’s Canyon was open and green and really pleasant to walk in. I had a good view of my goal, or at least the summit block containing peak 11,096′. Eventually I had to make a steep climb up the ridge that separates the main, east fork of Booth’s from its smaller west fork.
Once on the ridge I followed its crest the rest of the way to the peak. I startled some elk grazing along my route, and one was lying down and didn’t notice me. I had to make myself known and shoo it off. I could see a lot more elk grazing on the ridge between Seeley and Bennett’s canyons. On top of the summit block the terrain leveled out and I checked out a structure I’d noticed in the sat imagery. I’d assumed it would be some sort of summit shelter, and upon arriving I found the walls to only be a foot or so tall at most–so not much of a shelter.
I found the section corner marker shown on the topo map at 11,070′ and then continued to the high point. There are no spot elevations on the USGS map for either of the closed contour lines on the summit block so it’s unclear exactly where the highest point is, and I relied on the Peakbagger listing for both the location and elevation. There were a couple of little knolls on top that could have been the highest point so I made sure to stand on both of them, and somewhere between them, out in the open, was a summit register. There were only two names in the log: Mike Garratt, who placed the register there (as well as many others I’ve visited in the past), and Stav, who was there only three days earlier! There was no view to be had from the high point so I walked a few hundred yards west until I found a good vantage point over Skyline Drive to the north and Sanpete Valley to the northwest.
I took a different route for the upper part of the descent, going east into the head of Bennett’s Canyon (I won’t count that toward my goal of hiking that canyon!). I stopped for lunch in a shady spot and then hiked for over half a mile in upper Bennett’s before crossing into the head of Booth’s. There I hiked cross-country, or sometimes following game trails, along a route paralleling the ascent route I’d taken along the road. There wasn’t much new to see on the way down and I made quick progress. I completed the hike before 1:00 PM and had logged 8.4 miles with 2,100′ elevation.
Photo Gallery: Booth’s Canyon to Peak 11,096′
GPS Track and Waypoints: [KMZ] [GPX]