Nippletop Zion Peakbagging

We didn't finish our climb of Jenny Peak and Jenny's Nipples until almost 2:30 pm which only left us with a few hours before dark. And going along with our periodic Thanksgiving trip nipple theme we decided to knock out Nippletop!

Nippletop is another fairly obscure peak on the eastern end of Zion far away from the usual tourist-friendly activities in the main canyon. It's a good way to spend a few hours while getting in some unique views and welcome solitude assuming you're ok with a bit of loose 3rd class scrambling.

This was a part of this year's Thanksgiving trip aka the 2018 Turktacular!  This year I was out in Zion Utah climbing a series of smaller peaks. For the other days see the tag Turktacular 2018 and for what I've gotten up to other years see the tag Turktacular.



Yet again there's no reliable parking out here so you just have to use what you can find along the side of the road. We used the sizable turnout a short bit east of where the north ridge of the summit reaches the road.


Traffic was a bit of a zoo and wasn't helped by this fella deciding to strike a pose in clear view of the road. He seemed to stay there for quite a while based on the vehicle backup we could see from a distance once we started climbing.


We dropped off the road into a canyon and then started up the western side of the ridge leading to the peak. At about 5,900' there is a spot where it's condusive to cross a gully to easier terrain on the main northern ridge but other than that just take the path of least resistance and go up.


Once we reached the top of the bump north of Nippletop we could see the peak itself. As others have commented it looks far less nipple -ish than a lot of the peaks in the area.


The ridge gets photogenically narrow but it's easy going until the bit of 3rd class to gain the summit plateau.


As with most things route in Zion it's would be an easy move *except* for the fact your on crumbly sandstone.


The summit block is easy to pick out and you can either go around and back and do it easy or do it the fun way...



There was no register but we did find a rather pedestrian benchmark just noting the summit elevation.


Also the views weren't too bad. This is looking west back towards Jenny Peak and Watchman.

Looking back down the route we'd climbed

Since it was getting near sunset we had to hustle a bit and I had to work on not stopping every 3 feet to take another picture.


We ended up putting headlamps on for the last part of the ridge and if I hadn't been following a GPS I'd have missed the turn at 5,900' and things might have gotten a bit interesting.

And with that we drove back out the eastern park entrance to our campsite at Hi Point where we enjoyed a sizable campfire, warm food, and our traditional desert rum drinks!

Next up, Roof and Hepworth via Gifford Canyon! (After yet another drive back to Springdale)