Trip report
Oct 22, 2019 — Excited to finally check out the Henry Mountains, a remote range in southern Utah, Matt and I planned a trip to the North Wash area for a few days of peaks and canyons. After forgetting my wallet in Las Vegas which added four more hours to my drive, very little sleep made me grateful for this somewhat short day to the Henry Mountains High Point, Mount Ellen. A somewhat decent dirt road with lots of sharp rocks (we got a flat on the way down) leads to the official Mount Ellen Trailhead. Although it's an ultra-prominent peak, we didn't want to only hike the high point, instead hoping to get the ridgeline, consisting of three peaks.
First, Matt and I decided to head south to hit Mount Ellen – South Summit, an easy ridge hike, before coming back down to the trailhead and following the official trail to Mount Ellen, the high point. The sweeping grassy ridgeline was pretty, and the views of the canyonlands and Capitol Reef National Park were pretty incredible. Bring binoculars if you have them to try to spot desert features too far away for us to distinguish. We continued past the high point to Mount Ellen Peak, where a trail switchbacked to this minor summit. We returned the way we came. Nice views, but pretty uneventful.