--- Utah Valley from the trail up to Little Baldy (about N40 20.468 W111 40.021)

7 shot panorama of Utah Valley from the trail up to Little Baldy (about N40 20.468 W111 40.021), Canon S80, Original is 10K pixels wide.

--- Utah Valley From Y Mountain Peak

7 shot panorama of from Y Mountain Peak, Canon S80, Original is 10K pixels wide.

--- Rock Canyon from Y Mountain Peak

11 shot panorama of Rock Canyon and other stuff (Orem, Timpanogos, Squaw Peak, Cascade), Canon S80, Original is 14K pixels wide.

-p- The Y From The Top

This was a 5 shot panorama, Canon S80, Original is 11K+ pixels wide.

Y Mountain Peaks

This was the most grueling hike I've been on. It was long and steep and very hot on the way down. The dust, twigs and pebbles on the trail were very slick.

It took about an hour to reach the top of the Y from the parking lot. I was hoping that would be the majority of the steep trail but as you can see from the profile, there was plenty of really steep trail in the second two thirds. It took another two hours to reach the first peak. There is a long section of meadow trail that is very steep. We took our time to give all the grandmothers in the group a break.

The "peak" is fairly rounded so there wasn't much of an edge to look from, you could just keep moving forward and it got lower and steeper. There are trees that block getting a really good panorama. We took photos, eat some granola bars and enjoyed the view. I sent Sarah Wiley a photo of her house on my iPhone and chatted via SMS with her.

Since the front peak has the hiking trail so that's where everyone goes to view the valley. I noticed on my GPS that the true (higher) peak is in a little further east (or in back if you think on the side where the Y is the front) so I wanted to go up that just for bragging rights. Marsha wanted to wait at the spot on the trail between the two peaks, she was a bit tired. Yulin said he would go with me but he immediately decided he was also too tired for the two tenths of a mile of bushwhacking. I made it to the top in 15 min including a stop to take some photos.

I didn't expect much of the view from the back peak since it was away from the valley but I was pleasantly surprised. The view was even better than the front. Instead of the same old valley panorama you see from every peak, the view from the back peak was spectacular. The whole "7 Peaks" view was there for the enjoying beside a great view of Squaw Peak, Cascade and Timpanogos along with Rock Canyon. I took a bunch of photos including a couple panorama sets and hurried back to join the group. I had a harder time finding a good game trail on the way back but made it in ten minutes.

As I mentioned, the trip back was hot and tricky footing. Some people slipped and fell on their butts a few times. The long meadow part felt even steeper than the memory of the way up. We passed a lot of people who were just heading up, it was quite hot by then and I didn't envy them at all.

When we reached the top of the Y on the way back I took a couple more panorama sets, I stitched one together any it looks interesting, I'll post that to the blog. Yulin had a family thing that he was in a hurry for so he took off for the last leg by himself. Marsha and I took our time on the switchbacks from the Y. Since they are numbered 1 to 12, I called out the numbers as we reached each turnaround. I thought I forgot to call one out so I told Marsha we had to hike back up to make sure but Marsha assured me I had called it out.

It was a great hike and I'm sure I lost a few pounds. We have a bunch of photos on Flickr, check them out. All three of us were taking photos the whole hike. Unfortunately we didn't get any with all three of us in the same one.

-Mike


GPS Tracks: kml gpx

--- A muddy spot in the trail to Strawberry Peak

Strawberry Peak From Big Glade

Nutmeg and I parked on the Est edge of Big Glade. There were a lot of campers parked around the edges of the meadow. We took off on foot and headed to the peak about 5 miles away.

The trail was mostly clear of snow, just a few spots where we had to cross dirty piles of melting snow. The bigger problem was mud created from snow melt on the road. The next blog entry shows one of the problem spots.
I had chosen the trail for something flat but as you can see from the profile, it had plenty of up and down.

The walk back went quickly and we drove out through Daniel's Canyon. I was surprised to calculate the trip home from Big Glade at 44 miles.

As you can see from the track photo, Google Earth has lousy shots of Strawberry Ridge, not much detail and a lot of clouds.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Wilson Peak Hike

This was the third outing of the Intuit Utah hiking club. In attendance were Jeffry, Yulin, Kirk, Kirk's son Delan and Myself. We ended up running into the big RAGNAR race (see http://www.ragnarrelay.com/) and the trailhead we had planned on using was one of the relay exchange points at the end of leg 33 . When we arrived the exchange point team was setup but the first team was yet to arrive. We parked up the road in compliance with the police officer's instructions.

Jeffry got a little bit of local info from one of the race people. I started worrying about the stream we had to cross since I could hear the water raging from the trailhead. The local guy thought we would probably be able to find rocks to cross on but that didn't turn out to be true.

When we arrived at the stream it was clearly much bigger/deeper and violent than any of us had expected. Wading across was just up to the edge of iffy. I started bushwhacking up the stream looking for rocks or a log to cross, Jeffry started down. I gave up after a while because the terrain flattened out and the stream got wider. I was thinking taking off shoes & socks and wading was going to be the ticket. I got back to the road and the rest of the people were gone. The stream was so loud it was hard to even hear shouting. Eventually I found the other with everyone but Jeffry on the other side.

Jeffry led me to a aspen tree across the stream. My legs were wobbly but I made it across. On the way back most of us crossed a different spot where there was a low log to walk on and a higher one to hold on to with your hands. You can see both it the photos.

Once we were across the stream, the hiking was fairly easy. We were walking on a pretty good jeep trail though steep and rutted at times. The views were great and soon we heard and saw the first few runners go though the trailhead from up on the mountain.

We stopped a few times to take pictures and hiked all the way to the overlook point that has lots of antenna. I took a few panorama shots and will try to get around to stitching them together when I get a chance. Delan was collecting lots of rocks along the way to take home as souvenirs.

When we got back to the trailhead it was chaos on the magnitude of the Tour de France. The road was clogged with runners and support vehicles. We ended up finding that there were over 575 teams. I feared it would take hours to get down the road against the race traffic. We ended up getting in behind two other vehicles heading down and got back to Midway in surprisingly good time.

We didn't bushwhack up to the high peak (there is no real trail), so the hike ended up being a little on the whimpy side. I want to do it at some point, I think that will be a good one for Nutmeg and I some day.

Photos: flickr

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Father's Day

Nutmeg and I went on this walk on Father's Day morning. It was comfortable when we started but was hot by the time we made it back home. I was shooting for 7-8 miles but it ended up being an honest 6.7 miles. I didn't bring my GPS so this is a reconstruction using Google Earth so there's no altitude data so I can't create a profile. The tilted screen shot above from Google makes the outline look like a running man. It made me think about trying to do a walk to draw interesting shapes on Google Earth. Hmmmm....

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Bonneville Shoreline Trail From Rock Canyon North

This was a day of milestones. At 12.2 miles, this is the longest hike I have ever made. I also crossed the 100 mark in pounds lost since New Years Eve 2007.
Anisa and I started out at the Rock Canyon trail head at 8:30am after seeing off Carley for her ACT exam. We headed north on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail towards the car we had left on the north end of Mile High drive in the benches area of northern Provo. Anisa was in for two or three miles but my plan was for Nutmeg and I to continue on to Bridal Veil Falls. We saw Mark U at the trail head as we were getting out of the truck.

Using a track on my GPS I had download the night before and a track I had created on Google Earth, I thought we would be able to find a fairly direct route to Mile High Drive. As it ends up, the big gas line work that was going on in Provo last year totally messed up a lot of the trail. We ended up ducking through a few bard wire fences and had to bushwack around some "no trespassing" posted and fenced private property about a mile and a half into the hike. Once we got through that it was smooth sailing back to the car.

This section of the BST in Provo follows a lot of suburban streets. I'm told there is a better way to get back on the real trail than going all the way to East Lawn Memorial Gardens, but that was the only way I could find. There is quite a climb back up to the trail from there. You can see the climb on the profile at the bootom of this post just after the 4 mile mark.

The rest of the way to Bridal Veil Falls follows the same path Yulin and I took last week except in reverse. The long flat section that follows the "Smith Ditch" is fast and pleasant walking. I ran into Gary A from the Mac WordPerfect days. He was mountain biking with his daughter. We chatted for a little while. Gary needs to send me a map showing the secret BST trail entrance in Provo that he told me about. Maybe he will post it in a comment here, hint, hint.

After Nutmeg went for a swim at the base of the falls I still felt like I had some walkin' in my legs so we walk down to Nunn's Park on the paved trail and then took the hidden trail that climbs the north side of Provo canyon up to the Great Western Trail. It was my first time on that section. After noticing the 12th mile tick by on my GPS I decided to call Anisa for a pickup at Canyon Glenn and we hiked down the cut tot he parking lot.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx gpx-split

I had a few hours this evening so I headed up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from my house and swung by work to visit Kent and Kirk who I knew were going to be working late. Thane was also there as it turned out. I freaked Kent out when I threw pebbles at his window. The climb from near the Canyon Corner gas station is steep but the decent along the BST to the police driving range and then down to the 'Canyon Park Technology Center' is fairly mild. It did make for a vigorous evening walk. Nutmeg really enjoyed the chance to get off the streets and sidewalks onto the earthy trails but we did get spayed a few times by late evening sprinklers on the leg from work back to my house. The total distance was a little under 6 miles and we got home at the tail end of dusk.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Photos From Today's Hike

A view of Provo, Orem and Utah Lake from Canyon Creek canyon



Looking East at Yulin and Up Provo Canyon

Bridal Veil Falls to Provo via BST and Canyon Creek

Yulin and I planned the hike during the week to be a Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST) hike from Bridal Veil Falls to Rock Canyon. Unfortunately we lost the BST in the high end horse property section of the Provo bench. Just after rescuing a squirrel that was trapped in a wood feed box we ended up on a trail that was clearly marked with signs pronouncing the name "Trail". Since it touched private property as it headed up the hill I assume we would have to come across the BST eventually. No such luck. As you can see from the profile, it was a steep climb to the top of creatively named "Canyon Creek" canyon. I was shocked that I had never noticed Canyon Creek canyon between Rock Canyon and Provo Canyon. It is very beautiful but most of the decent was climbing down the rocks in the dry (and wet) stream bed. Up high the stream was babbling in a charming and non-threatening way. I was able to tip-toe on the rocks in the stream without any water soaking into my socks. All of a sudden the water disappeared and we were walking in a dry stream bed. Where did the water go? It appeared to just go underground, maybe there is a pipe but it didn't look like it. We could tell when we were getting close to civilization because we started seeing litter on the trail. In all it was a little under 10 miles all the way to Yulin's.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Bonneville Shoreline Trail From Y South

I parked at "The Y" trail head where I exited the Bonneville Shoreline Trail the day before. There are a lot of short ups and downs but there are a few long-cuts that skirt around dips. The views are nice though the power lines often ruin photos and the trail can be hard to follow at times. There are lots of power line servicing roads and ATV/dirt bike trails. Though I was trying to stay on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail I ended up on a suburban road in Springville. I ended up heading west and got a cold ice tea at Maverick. I headed north on State Street and when the sidewalks ran out I hitched a ride home with my good pal Kent Russell. The walk was just about 8.5 miles.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx