The Jacobs Ladder route is the most popular and most used route up to Lone Peak. It is very steep and strenuous, and very dry, so bring lots of drinking water. You will need a good pair of hiking boots to complete this hike without blisters.
To get to the Jacobs Ladder Trailhead, take the Draper exit off I-15 and head east until you go up a short hill. There will be a shopping center on your right, and you will come to a light. Turn right or south at this light and go down the hill to the stop sign. Turn left or east at this stop sign onto a road known as Pioneer Road. Follow this until you almost get to the mountain, and then turn right onto Corner Canyon Road. This will turn to dirt, but any passenger car can make it. Follow this road for 4 miles from the stoplight at the shopping center. There will be a large pullout to the right or west of the road, and to the east of the road there will be two or three jeep roads going up towards the mountain. This is the Jacobs Ladder Trailhead. It looks like this:
Go up any of these jeep roads (they all connect) and follow them until you get to a fork that looks like this:
The fork goes right into the shadow and becomes a foot path and eventually connects up with the Jacobs Ladder Route. If you stay left on the jeep road, shortly you will come to another fork on the right, which goes to the same place as the previous fork. If you stay on the jeep road, you will climb a very steep and rutted hill (I saw a guy wreck once trying to navigate his way down this on a 4-wheeler). Climb this hill and you will come to sort of a crossroads that looks like this:
You go nowhere if you take the little trail that goes left. But if you go straight and down the hill, you will start up the hill on the other side on a route called Movie Road. If you want to stay on Jacobs Ladder, turn right and follow the trail up the minor ridge. Soon you will turn up a mojor ridge and that will be the steepest part of the trail. Follow this trail up the ridge for about 3 hours and it will connect with the Draper Ridge route at the 9200 foot level. Once you connect with the Draper Ridge route, turn east and follow the well marked trail through some meadows and pines. Don't follow any streambeds by mistake - they are not trails.
A shot taken from along the trail above the Draper Ridge Junction
Just keep following the trail through the forest, and soon you will get to a place where the trail is not so well defined, and you will have to cross a lot of granite slabs. Don't worry, there are cairns or trailmarkers the whole way. Make your way across the rocks, and follow the soon-appearing stream up towards the obvious saddle that gets you into Lone Peak Cirque. When you get into the cirque, look up at the three peaks at the top of the cliffs. The summit is the one farthest to your left. The easiest way to get to the summit is to cross the cirque to the left or north and try to look for cairns. They will lead you to a short climb with one or two easy free-climbing moves to get up to the ridgeline. If you don't find the cairns, just make for the saddle and the top of the ridge so you can climb the ridge towards the top. The last few hundred feet involve dangerous scrambling across rocks, but you should be fine if the rock is not wet. The top is a small flat-topped boulder with a tube and a paper and pencil to log your success. A man in Salt Lake keeps these records and goes up to replace them periodically. His name is "Grizz" Richard Randall and you can reach him at (801)553-9090.
The length of this route is 5 miles one way. The elevation gain is 5,643 feet. Lone Peak stands at 11,253 feet.
Some of my accomplishing pictures:
