Getting to the West Slabs is beyond tricky. Its somewhere between a nightmare and an ordeal. The trouble is that the old trailhead was hidden when a neighborhood of Utah's specialty: mud-slide danger mansions were thrown up all around it. So no one knows where the trail is. I went looking 4 times and never found it. I tried several trails I thought were it and discovered they were not when I wound up at someone's back door (these a-holes hate hikers but have no problem pacing a private trail in. Neff's Canyon is in the area but will not get you there. North's Canyon is where I wound up 2 times, and North's Canyon gets one nowhere, unless one has pants, boots, and flesh that one does not mind throwing away after being cut to shreds by thorns and trees, or brings clippers along. But the short hike to where the gully in North's Canyon becomes unpleasantly overgrown provides very nice views well worth the visit and makes for a decent morning, any season. I got some nice pictures of a deer I spooked one sunrise. There are also some decent short climbing cliffs that get little traffic up North's and some spots to camp right at the base.
Okay, so finally I called a professional mountaineering company and asked how they could climb the West Slabs, a route they offer as guided day climb with rope. The owner went into a long and detailed description of the route assuring me I would not die in their hands, to which I stammered, "no no, I mean, how do you get there? How do you legally climb the thing? Is there even a trail or do you have right of way with some home owner?" Even she was stumped by that one, but one of their guides eventually told me the (wrong) directions to get there. But the key is, if you go, to look for a dead-end roundabout with some railroad ties hammered into a steep hill making steps and a little sign on wood that reads, "Trail" or some such other vague thing. The story this guide gave me is the owner finally gave up the idea of keeping climbers out of his yard and decided to cut his losses and at least keep them in one corner of it. Hurray for climbers for refusing to be sealed out of "our" public lands and the Mt Olympus Wilderness area. There are some tricky and I think, borderline illegal, methods used in Salt Lake to block access to "our" public lands. But climbers are independent people and I salute them in this case. We have a right to the most photographed and admired mountain in Salt Lake City.
Turn onto Oakview Dr (4275 South) from Wasatch Blvd, and then, do not follow the road to the end of Zarahemla as old internet posts advise. If you do that, you will end up at a very private fence and home. Instead take a right onto Jupiter, then follow Jupiter all the way- I think. There is also a street with "Islands" in the name. I apologize, but this has been a year. But a little scouting from there will get you to the right place. Jupiter will get you very close. Look for the railroad ties. Once parked, you will be on an actual easily followable trail within 5 seconds. That was very surreal for me, since it took me obscene amounts of stress to find the trail over several attempts and then just like that, it was simple.
Start early, and carry crampons, if you are going prior to June. An ice axe will be helpful, but you may want to forget that as you will have to either carry it as you climb stowed somewhere, or leave it and then come back down the same way. You will hike for about a half mile to a gully, then start going up. Depending on time of year, some or all of this will be steep ice from that point, and make sure you have good boots on if you tangling with this ice, or you may find it to be the toe-breaker kind. I went in my classic orange approach shoes which were not sturdy enough for crampon use, but as they are a moderate climber, I was able to use them at times to climb. Start early in the day in any case as the sun will start hitting these walls and making things less pleasant as time goes by, and because shadows and views are much better early. If you are on ice, be careful. I nearly fell through a hole as 10 feet of packed ice hollowed out underneath me. To save any future climbers, I enlarged he hole I nearly fell through and then climbed down under it for a strange, though poorly lit photo. It would have been a broken leg, so don't space out thinking you will wake up at the cliffs. Figure on 1-1.5 hours to reach the end of the gully and the base of the cliffs. You will know when the gully ends, though at that point, you have many options. There is at this point a Y fork with 2 new gullies. The left one leads to the Olympus North summit approach and people take that when planning to rapel over to the South Summit and down the hiker's trail (a long and pointless day I think, but probably good fun). To the right, you can go up some easy cliffs, a smaller peak if you decide the West Slabs look like more than you wanted to bite off, or at any moment, you can start climbing a line that looks good on your left. The cliffs can also just be jumped straight off. I zigged and zagged as I went up (and down), and thought things were pretty relatively equal at all points.
Once you reach the cliffs, you may want to use ropes. When I went, 2 teams came up after me and started breaking out ropes. A group of gentleman tried to politely talk me out of climbing solo without safety gear, but I quickly put 500 feet between us and then stopped to casually face away from the slabs and change my shoes from the oranges to the my true climbing sticky blues. I think they stopped worrying over me at that point. Ropes are optional, though I would say, uneccessary- if you feel the need to use ropes and climb in a team on a 65 percent grade with dry cliffs with huge knobby handholds, then you probably do not belong climbing. There are "walks" down either gully I mentioned earlier, so I would say pack light, move fast, and have fun. You can find some smooth fingerhold sections, and I did, with active effort. It added a few moments of spice to the day. The cliffs go for 1300-1800 feet depending on where you start and how high (East or on your left) you end up. To get down, downclimb, or work your way to one of the gullies. I did a little of each and found a very neat Beehive formation which you could stumble into. I can't describe it or circle it on a map, but if you go towards the Eastward gully, you will have a chance.
The holds are usually huge, there are several ledges to catch breath or recover if you are stressing, the views are fine, and the whole thing gets boring by the end, rather than exhilarating. I would rate it as a 5.5 typically, or 5.4, with some spots on any route hitting 5.6, or 5.7, and some 5.8 or 5.9 patches easily avoidable and harder to find on purpose. Downclimbing was tedious and hot (this was June). I fell in one spot, or moreso, slid, just near the ice pack and gully, as the walls were not quite vertical, and had to flip around and grab the ice or I might have broken something. I also used my blue shoes to get down which was painful, but well, its better to survive. Going down the ice gully was the worst part of the day, as it was immensely risky in my estimation. Without the crampons, I'd have been uncomfortable. The other teams I saw did not use crampons, and if they did come down my way, I don't know how well that went. See here's the thing about their ropes: they were barely halfway up when I was 2/3 down. And there was little risk of falling if one pays attention and is skilled. If one is not willing/able to pay attention (they had phones along), or is not skilled, then the West Slabs, and mountains in general, are not the place for you. Now let us define what I call The Still Wild West Paradox, as of this moment as I am making it up while typing: "If you need expensive gear (ropes, super deluxe shoes, GPS devices, 3-D color topo maps with glasses that will break!!!!!) then you don't need that gear, because it won't do you any good anyway." Or some wording that would make sense. I drive an old beater and often muse on how mechanics mention I might be happier with a new car, that has automated electronic computer codes that make identifying problems easier. Yes I think, and I can get those codes very frequently, because in such a sophisticated car there are a lot more parts that can malfunction. I don't carry anything into a wilderness that can break or malfunction in any way. (Okay yes a shoe could rupture, or split or and a band aid might be defective inside its wrapper, but these things cannot fail the way a rope could, by snapping or a GPS by its battery dying out.) I feel I am off topic.
I hope this helps you find the West Slabs. As for Triangle or Hobb's Peak- well if you have climbed every good mountain on earth, you may want to try for that one, but its a bloody lot harder to get to than even the West Slabs. I gave up for now after 3 failed attempts that tore up some pants, got me soaked, and nearly into what even I would consider trouble.
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