The Big Cottonwood watershed traverse was the 2nd to last one that I did and is one of the more fun routes in the Wasatch, combining some of the best parts of the WURL and all the shenanigans on Wildcat Ridge. I believe someone did this the year before so it's by no means a first, plus it's the Wasatch so I assume that nothing is ever a first.
I started up Ferguson toward Twin Peaks because I wanted to get that section out of the way while I was fresh, since the scrambling has a bit more consequence if you mess up. The trail was a bit overgrown and toward the top of the canyon and is easy to lose, but make your way toward the ridge line and follow it up to Twin Peaks. This is where all the fun starts, so enjoy it as you make your way past Dromedary toward Mt. Superior. After Superior the scrambling eases off and it turns into a bit more of a romp up and down forested grassy knolls. Pass Cardiff and Flagstaff. After flagstaff, you pick up a trail, following it toward Davenport Hill, Honeycomb Peak, heading south east toward Black Bess Peak. From Black Bess Peak, head south. Tag Patsy Marley, Wolverine, Tuscarora and resupply at Catherines Pass.
This is where the route starts to feel a bit long. From Catherine's pass, follow the well worn trail past Sunset Pass up to Sunset Peak. The single track from here is less maintained and often times feels like more of a schwack. From here, follow your nose. If there was an obvious trail that cut under a peak just below, I followed that. This section was substantially longer than I wanted it to be and during the heat of the day was kinda brutal. I resupplied at Guardsman.
I didn't top out Guardsman Peak since there was an obvious nice trail that headed towards Scott's pass and I enjoy running on obvious nice trail. Stay on the single track all the way past Squaretop and follow the unmaintained trail out toward little water peak. This is where you lose the nice trail and start the schwack down toward Dog Lake. I resupplied there. Following trail 1159, I wrapped around a small knob and hit a saddle before heading straight up the ridge toward Soldier Peak. From there make your way to Wilson and then over to Gobbler's knob. From Gobbler's there's a trail down and up to Raymond.
From Raymond, it's a short schwack down til you cross the Desolation trail and then you're on wildcat ridge til just south west of Thayne Peak, where you leave the trail and follow some scrambly bits til you get to Mount Olympus. In the dark it can be a bit confusing, so make sure you have a bit of juice in your phone to help navigate, or bring you Sextant. After topping out on Mount Olympus I descended the normal trail.
Out of all the Wasatch watershed traverses, this one has the most vertical gain. I'm not sure if this one or the WURL would be faster. This one definitely has more trail, but it's 8 miles longer than the WURL and the scrambling toward Mount Olympus is pretty time consuming. Overall, it's pretty easy to support with Guardsman being halfway. I had people support me at Cardiff, Guardsman's and Dog Lake, BUT Zac Ramras who was supposed to support me at Cardiff was 10 minutes late, so I left without the support. In retrospect this was a bad call, because from Cardiff to Guardsman's is a long way and I ran out of food and water.
Just before resupplying at Guardsman's pass, my IT band flared up and I ended up walking most of the runnable trail for the rest of the adventure. It was quite disappointing. I ended up with a time of just under 22 hours and 30 minutes. Definitely worth doing once.
