Mineral Slab

Approach: Follow the paved trail and instead of taking the trail up Mill B South (towards Lake Blanch) stay straight and cross the creek, then hike up steep bank to an apparent old road. Or, take the Mill B South trail and cross the creek, then immediately look for a less-traveled trail taking off to the left on a flat bench (at a switchback). Take the old trail which is apparently an old road. Follow road and then game/social trails through the woods to the east, eventually reaching the west-facing wall which forms the west side of the Mineral Slab. Follow this down to the bottom of the slab, very near to the creek (Big Cottonwood Creek). Start up and route find the path of least resistance (or most resistance, if that’s your game). Staying near the west edge provided steeper and more interesting climbing (and the views were better).

Very similar to the West Slabs on Mount Olympus, only maybe a bit easier. Some of the slab can be walked up and some has steeper sections with fun climbing on usually solid, incut holds.

The slab gains about 1000 feet of vertical before it levels off and goes fairly low angle, continuing for a ways providing over 2000 feet of climbing/scrambling. Typically well featured climbing, although a bit smooth in places with some route finding required to keep the climbing easy.

Great views over towards Moss Ledges as well as Mill B South/Broad’s Fork too.

Near to where the ridge bends over to lower angle, there’s a couple ways to get down, involving some higher angle down climbing. Take care. Also, the further up the ridge one travels, the options to bail off the ridge become much more apparent. There’s also a break in the slab lower down, and, it seems possible to traverse off in several locations should weather and/or conditions change for the worse.

From the top, follow the west side of the base of the slab downhill using switch backing social/game trails. Goes fairly fast and easy. Not that brushy. At the transition of the ridge from steep enough to ski, to, almost level, there’s a bit of a wide bench that follows the base of the ridge on the west wide (this bench is bordered by a cliff band below it to the west). Open country for awhile, then into semi open forest. Eventually, the Mill B South trail will be gained for the easy romp back to the parking lot.

The Mineral Slab is located just up canyon from the "Mineral Slab Avalanche Area" sign in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Mineral Slab is viewable directly across from the Moss Ledges Picnic Area. The approach, however, is from the Mill B South/Lake Blanch trailhead.

If using a rope, take a standard rack of gear including a set of stoppers, micro cams up through a #3 Camalot (or equivalent). There will be some run outs depending on the line chosen.

No fixed anchors or gear.