North Canyon

Finally a weekend with decent enough weather to go on a hike. We started rather late in the afternoon so we did some quick research to find something rather close to us. There are actually quite a few trails around Bountiful so for the first hike of the year we decided to do a short one.

North Canyon is only 3 miles round trip awesome we will do that. So the instructions given to us were as follows: In Bountiful, take Bountiful Blvd. to Canyon Creek Dr. (3300 S.). Turn east and follow the road until the pavement ends. The trail head begins about one mile down the dirt road. The trail is about 1.5 miles long and has an elevation gain of 920 feet . Sounds easy enough. Wrong.

I should have google mapped it, but I though those were fairly easy instructions. I also figured we head generally to 33rd south and just go uphill. yea…. I should have known better. Bountiful roads snake around more than any other area in Utah. My plan did eventually work but we were starting to wonder towards the end, when we finally hit Bountiful Blvd. YAY! We then quickly found Canyon Creek rd and where we needed to be.

Now the first thing you should know unless you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle you got another mile each way added to the hike. There is no way my car could have traversed that dirt road and I am glad we didn’t try.

On the plus side, even the dirt road is a rather pretty hike itself. There appear to be some private property next to the road as there were sections of barbed wire and lots of signs. We even found a house for sale about 1/3rd of the way up. Kind of wish I took a picture of it because it was a cute house that say on a patch of land the creek splits and goes around both sides. Short of it would suck to live there in Winter I think it would be an awesome place to live.

I really like these random rose colored bushes we saw through the trail.

We finally reach the trail head were the creek has carved itself a rather narrow and deep bed.

Just before the trail started to gain serious elevation we heard a snap in the tree’s. We look over to see an animal ambling through. If you look close enough at the above image you can just make out a small piece of dark fur. At the time we thought it was a deer, but looking back, it had to be a moose. or maybe a horse, although I don’t know what a random horse would be doing here. Just the color and size is wrong for a deer I think.

Our first glimpse of the view to come.

Every time the tree’s opened up and offered us a view of the valley below I stopped and took a picture and every time it was even more breathtaking than before.

Random swampy area and a bridge some nice people put here. :)

We enter an area with Pine tree’s.

One of my favorite parts about this hike was that we kept stepping into different forests. First was the straggly oak looking tree’s, then Pines, then Aspens, and so forth it’s kind of cool.

GINORMOUS shrooms. look at those monsters!

The view again.

This shot captures my earlier statement about the different tree areas. The trail snakes back and forth through that strip of pines.

I can see my house from here! Not really, but I can make out it’s general vicinity and determine its hidden just under the hill.

We reach the top of the canyon and can see down the neighboring canyons on either side.

Bountiful.

Salt Lake

The trail actually splits here and appears to go down either canyon. We decide we have gone far enough and start heading home.

I liked this random patch of tree’s.

Us with the amazing view. Using my creative Tree-Pod idea I snap judgment created. Unfortunately it had to be cropped as well nature doesn’t really offer a level.

After a short break and a resounding agreement we have definitely gotten our daily exorcise in we decided to head down.

I guess we were quiet enough at the peak to give a few deer a chance to think they were alone. I snapped this one shot then ultimately decided I needed my telephoto. Before I could even pull it out they were gone. So here is some digital zooming.

I really wish I had just snapped more pictures rather than immediately going for the zoom as I only caught the one image and then they were gone when I looked up next. meh, what can you do.It was rather funny however that we had obviously spotted each other at the same time. I stopped (and stopped Landis) just as they stopped and stared at me. I turned my back and they were gone. Sketchy little creatures.

There were a few sections on this trail that were lined by these pretty yellow flowers, almost like someone planted them like that.

Even death is beautiful.

I don’t know why I do this to myself but I always seem to take a picture of a small animal, or any random animal too far off when I don’t have a telephoto lens available. Then when I am going through the images I am always like why did I take a picture of that? Amazingly, this time I remembered. There is a woodpecker in there somewhere.

All in all this was a great hike. Particularly considering it was Memorial Day weekend, we saw only a few people, a car and a motorcycle on the dirt road portion, but as soon as we actually hit the trail, no one. Not another single soul. This definitely bumps it up at least one squirrel rating.

Very pretty, very quiet, wildlife, no end “prize” as people like to say, save for the view. And what I would classify as easy to moderate climb.

Going to have to go with 9 squirrels out of 10.