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