Slate Canyon

Outing 5 of the IUHC: Jeffry, Walter, Scott and mike showed up for the Slate Canyon hike. The grade was a little steeper than I expected but much of the trail was shaded by trees which made for a very pleasant morning. Walter, Jeffry and I left the parking lot at about 7:10 not knowing that Scott parked down on the paved road and was walking up. Luckily we stopped a mile up the trail to take photos and Jeffry placed a small sized geocache. Scott came walking up to join the group. The four of us continued on with Walter and Scott falling back busy talking neighborhood gossip.

The trail was a well maintained jeep trail/forest service road. It appears to be used to service a buried water pipeline feed by springs in the canyon. We encountered a bit of wildlife on this trip. We noticed a nice size lizard on the trail and then Jeffry spotted a decent sized snake on the trail that I walk right by. We got some photos of both, see the flickr link at the bottom. On the way down we encountered a large number of colorful butterflies (maybe colorful moths) gather and fanning their wings near a very small trickle of water crossing the road. I had remarked earlier that I had not gotten any good photos of butterflies on my hikes this year. We spent quite a bit of time taking photos since the butterflies were allowing us to get close.

There was a fork in the road that we passed by a few miles up and Jeffry figured out we should have gone the other way a few minutes later. We backtracked the small distance and got on what we thought was the correct road. It turned out that the road ended before we made it to Knight Spring. We tried hard to find the trail including a valiant effort by Scott bushwhacking up the side of the canyon. We decided that previous "wrong turn" might lead us to the correct trail. We met another hiker looking for the same trail as we headed back to the Y in the road. It ends up we didn't find the originally planned trail or any trail to Knight Spring. We made lemonade with the one lemon we found and decided to change the goal to hike to the pass at the northeastern corner of the canyon. Walter's had enough and decided to head down.

Jeffry, Scott and I started up the one hiker wide trail to the pass. There was lots of lush vegetation encroaching on the trail that we plodded though. Luckily it was dry so we didn't get wet. There were a lot of bugs and the bed of the trail had a peculiar rut that looked to me like a motorcycle tire. It made the walk like a long sobriety test. We reach the pass at about 10:30am. We sat down and rested and each of us ate our snacks or lunch.

The decent was uneventful except for the butterfly/moth photo session. We reached the trailhead parking lot at about half past noon. I gave Scott a ride to his car. My GPS track says the whole hike was about 9.4 miles, a little longer than planned but enjoyable non the less.

Photos GPS Tracks: kml gpx

--- High brush hiking

--- Warning

---Mike on a break

--- Rocks in Slate Canyon

--- Scott and his pet

--- Walter by the 'layers'

--- 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

Bonneville Shoreline Trail - 900 E Provo Loop

This is a nice 4.7 mile loop except for the noise and exhaust on 9th East. There is now a nice trailhead parking lot located at the base of the "Y" trail. It doesn't show up on Google Earth yet.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Bonneville Shoreline & Provo Canyon Parkway Loop

After the Big Baldy hike Saturday, I was thinking I should take it easy today. I was trying to think of a flat hike but for some reason decided to hike from the Indian Road Trail Head (near the mouth of Provo canyon) to Bridal Veil Falls and back. It was nice and sunny when I left but quickly turned cool and overcast. I ended up coming back on the Provo Canyon Parkway bike trail. In all is was about 10.4 miles, Nutmeg collapsed into a pile of sleeping dog on the kitchen floor as soon as we got home.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Big Baldy Summit

Walter, Jeffry, Nutmeg and I braved the questionable forecast to make an assault on Big Baldy, the Lindon, UT one. We left the parking lot shortly after 7:10am. Though some bailed out of the expedition because of a fear of mud, the trail up had very little. We reached the saddle about 9:20am. There was quite a bit of snow there and tall banks of it sporadicly covered the trail leading up to the summit. We made the 8756 ft summit at 10:04am. There wasn't much of a view at the top due to clouds and it was quite cold so we took a few photos and headed back down about 10:10am. Jeffry visited a geocache near the peak and placed a new cache further down the mountain. We kept a fairly good pace on the way down and made it to the parking lot at 12:28pm. There was a little bit more mud but it never presented much of a problem and never caked on our shoes. The trail is ok but long sections have a serious erosion problem and you are hiking in a trench up to several feet deep. My big feet kept hitting the sides on the way down so I walked on the grass banks when possible. I much prefer the Squaw Peak trail. The hike ended up measuring 7.4 miles in all and we ended up gaining 3325 ft in elevation.

GPS Tracks: kml gpx

Photos: Mike's

Weeknight Walk

I did this little 2.8 miler last night after work. Dinner was waiting so I didn't go too far, just enough to keep Nutmeg happy.

Tracks kml gpx

Bridal Veil Falls to Home via Bonneville Shoreline Trail

This is the same 8 mile route as May 4th. I did take note of a few things. First of all, I now have a profile of the route. The first 3/4 of a mile is steep up hill and then the bulk of the rest is very flat. The decent is fairly reasonable following a fairly well groomed gravel road. This walk was on a Sunday, I started at about 9:30am. I didn't see a single person until I got to the Orem cometary.


Tracks kml gpx

Squaw Peak from Rock Canyon

This is my first peak bagged since I started walking for health at the beginning of 2008. I wasn't feeling that well when I started out. I had made it home at about 1:30am from a business trip and got a very late start, about noon. It was hot and it had not occurred to me to wear shorts until I was up the hill about a mile. I was thinking about just going up two miles and turning around but I ended up going all the way. I was leapfrogging a young couple the whole way I and that gave me some motivation to keep going. Every time the couple or I would stop for a breather we passed each other.


Tracks kml gpx

Bridal Veil to Home via Work

I parked at the Bridal Veil Falls view area parking lot. I crossed the canyon and took the high road that eventually becomes the Bonnevile Shorline Trail and Great Western Trial. I stayed on the road all the way to the Orem police shooting range and then walked down the hill to the Intuit building. After grabbing some stuff in my office I walked home along the canal berm. 8.0 miles total. I don't have a profile because I let my friend Walter

Bridal Veil to Home via Work KML for Google Earth

Bridal Veil to Home via Work GPX for Map Source

Little Baldy Assault

I went for the Little Baldy Assault but there was still too much snow. I ended up crawling up the rock slide and pulling myself up with tree branches. I wore shorts and my legs we torn up by the scrub oak since I was constantly forced off any trails that I found by deep snow. Less than 8 miles and I barely did better than 1 MPH. I got close to the top but the snow prevented me from the true peak (marked in yellow).

KML File: Little Baldy Assault

Little Baldy Practice

This walk turned out to be a practice for a Little Baldy assault some time soon. I had plenty of energy left to make to the turn around, but I had an airplane flight and had turn back within smelling distance of the top. I did take a bunch of photos, so I post some of those soon. The red X marks the top of Little Baldy. The walk started from the Bonneville Shoreline Trail trail head near the Orem Police Shooting Range and water tanks. Mileage was 5.4 miles for the round trip. Of course, Nutmeg, my trusty hound accompanied me.

Nutmeg, my trusty hiking buddy

Here's nutmeg in one of those rare occasions that she isn't scared of the camera. THis picture was taken on the Rock Canyon hike of 4/5/08 near the highest point we reached.

Trail: Rock Canyon Spur

I wanted to see how far up Rock Canyon we could get before the snow stopped us (Nutmeg and I). We made it up almost 2 miles, right to the triple Y in the trail where the first right and first left forks branch off. It was about 1000 feet of climb. We didn't see anyone on the way up but but met another hiker with two dog who walked up as we paused at the top to take pictures. There were some people playing in the snow on the way down and a few kids trying to kill themselves near the bottom.

Trail: Orem Water Tanks to Nunns Park via Bridal Veil Overlook

This was a very nice 6.7 mile hike my dog and I did on April 5th. We started from the Bonneville Shoreline Trail trail head near the Orem water tanks and police shooting range. We followed the Bonneville Shoreline Trail until it turned down to the canyon bottom, instead we kept going up the canyon on the road until it descends to the highway right across from the Bridal Veil Falls Overlook parking lot. We crossed the highway and followed the paved path to the base of the falls and then down the bike path to Nunn's Park. We rendezvoused with my wife Anisa for the ride back to the start to pick up my Jeep. Great walk, not too much vertical, we were ready for more, I should have planned the rendezvous for Canyon Glen or Mt. Timp Park.

kmz file: Orem Water Tanks to Nunns Park via Bridal Veil Overlook