Sunday Peak, Bohna Peak

17 July 2002

By: George Wysup

Sunday and Bohna, One Nice Hike

On June 9 last year my group hiked Bohna route 1. On the way up the steep road we encountered a steady stream on motorcycles racing down the road. This made for a rather dusty hike.

One biker, not in so much of a hurry, stopped to converse. We learned that their route started at the Sunday Peak trailhead, ascended to near the summit, then continued along a trail heading west, then south, along the ridge to the saddle just north of Bohna summit, then down the trail to our parking place, then along a dirt road back to the Sunday trailhead. More importantly, we learned that their organization had cleared the entire route.

I had heard of hikers trying this route between Sunday and Bohna and finding it choked with brush and difficult to follow. The info we received indicated that the route may be greatly improved. My curiosity was now ready to kill this cat and I aimed to try it.

On July 17 Sandy Burnside and I tried it from the Sunday trailhead. It appeared to have the hot weather advantage that the route never went below 6500', whereas the Bohna trailhead starts at 5500'. Also, the single hike would save a significant 16 miles of driving.

We did the easy hike to the trail junction near Sunday's summit; then we turned right instead of the usual left. The trail continued west through a pine/cedar/red fir forest, then turned south, steeply down hill to a saddle north of bump 6991', up this bump and down the other side to the usual departure point at the saddle (6480+) north of Bohna, about 2.5 miles from the trail junction. To my surprise, the entire trail was through forest (so thick that it was impossible to get a GPS to track except in a few clearings), and the trail was as easy to follow as the PCT. The motorcycle activity had not eroded the trail terribly. In short, this was a very pleasant hike, though it was warmer than we would have liked.

The stats: Mileage is a bit under 9 miles round trip; total elevation gain (from Sandy's altimeter) is about 3400'. We took a leisurely 6 hours for the hike. In comparison, the separate hikes are about 6 miles with 2400' gain. Incidentally, the route is shown quite precisely on Brent Washburne's old HPS map, and rather less so on the more recent ".tpo" file.