For the first time in my life, I was finally able to conquer the highest point in Utah—Kings Peak.

I was supposed to summit Kings Peak as I completed my thru-hike of the Uinta Highline Trail nearly a month ago, but that attempt fell way short as I developed major blisters on both my feet in the first two days of hiking 40 miles. I had to cut my thru-hike short.

My brother and his son salvaged their planned week of hiking the Highline Trail with me by regrouping and hiking Kings Peak from the Henry's Fork trailhead. They celebrated at the top by drinking the two Almdudlers I gave them in hopes of drinking with them when we bagged Kings Peak together on the thru-hike.

A month later, on Labor Day Weekend, my feet had healed sufficiently and a good friend of mine was hiking Kings Peak with his family and invited me to join them. It's actually the first time we've backpacked together in the 18+ years we've known each other.

We drove to the Henry's Fork trailhead and hiked the eight or so miles (13 km) into Henry's Fork Basin where we camped just off the east basin trail before Dollar Lake. It's only about 1,000 feet (304 m) of elevation gain from the trailhead to the basin.

Our second day was about a ten mile (16 km) round trip day hike to the top of Kings Peak. It is about 2,800 feet (850 m) of elevation gain from the basin to the peak. We went up Gunsight Pass, took the cutoff trail up to Anderson Pass, and then up Kings Peak.

Kings Peak was extremely crowded. There was a constant stream of hikers along the trail heading both up and down the peak and nearby trails. It's probably no exaggeration to say that while we were at the top, there was a minimum of about 30 hikers at the top with us. Seven of the nine hikers in our group summited Kings Peak.

From the top of Anderson Pass to the top of Kings Peak, it's basically a constant rock scramble for about 0.75 miles (1.2 km) each way.

I was finally able to enjoy my Almdudler at the top of Kings Peak and left a little bit of it there as it spilled when I opened it. I just wish I could have shared this celebration with my brother and his son a month ago as originally planned.

There were several fires in areas west of Kings Peak and the Uinta Highline Trail was closed between Deadhorse Pass and Rocky Sea Pass.

As we began hiking out to the trailhead, we visited with a couple of forest service employees that asked us how many were in our group and a few other questions. We in turn asked them how many hikers were up in the Henry's Fork Basin. They said they hadn't completed their count yet, but there were 250+ vehicles at the Henry's Fork trailhead the day before. If there's an average of two hikers per vehicle, that's 500—three per vehicle, then 750—four per vehicle, then 1,000+!! We had nine people in two vehicles. That's a serious amount of impact in only one weekend!

Side note: Almdudler is a unique soda drink originating from Austria (my mother's homeland) and is available at World Market stores.