The Legacy Parkway

Current mood:Meh
Category: Travel and Places

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We had a pretty jam packed weekend, after a few weeks of rain, snow, sun, rain, snow, sun bullshit. Today happened to finally fall on a sunny day but it was still a bit chilly, and we were tired. I wanted to something nature filled but poor Landis who just had a root canal was not up for vigorous hiking. I started looking for things to do, and ultimately decided to try the Legacy Parkway. From what I could tell from the internet it appeared it was a scenic drive with several quick pull outs of activities we could do.

What a load of horse shit. Don’t get me wrong, as compared to all the major freeways in this area, this one is quite scenic. (Much better going south than north) there are some sections that are quite pretty. But by what I read on the internet I thought there would be more… stops. Like what you see on most scenic byways. Oh that is my next point. I read that they are trying to classify the Legacy Parkway as a scenic byway. I don’t know about you, but when I think scenic byway, I don’t expect to see houses, industrial plants, or sewage treatment plants along the way. Also, towards the north end, it is merely a stones throw from i15? Wtf?

What I read on the internet the biggest claim to fame they boast is this serpentine walkway that goes over the freeway. Naturally I thought this might be cool so it was on my list of things to see. SO we’re driving down I see it, I say okay, look for the pull out….. nothing. No fucking pull out. Over a mile later there is an exit. Thinking okay, maybe we can drive back, no… no roads. So we hit the trail head area and there is a bike/hike trail to hike back to this thing. Yea, not interested in a long next to freeway trail today. But we did see this little pond covered in seagulls.

 
So we decided to walk down to it and check it out.

 
Not the band, but the actual nature occurrence. Here is where we startled them off.

 
Various shots of birds

We continued north up the road when I see Bountiful Lake/Pond. I call it Bountiful Lake/Pond because depending on the source it is either a pond or a lake. I think technically since it has various inlets of water and an outlet it can rightly be called a lake, but I’m not certain. So again I am looking for a pull out. Nothing for a good three miles. We take the next exit to see if it will take us back, and we get slightly lost. Okay, fuck it. We continue to the end of the parkway where it connects with i15 in Farmington. We hopped right back on to check it out from the other direction. Like I said, it is a lot prettier from this direction.

 
Random shot doing 55

Continuing south again I spot Bountiful Lake/Pond and then I see an access road following parallel to the parkway. Awesome, there must be an access point. A few miles further we come to the same place we stopped at before, and realize we could’ve followed this road to the Lake/Pond. For being a man made body of water it was quite impressive, although I can’t believe it is a popular fishing spot, with as the signs informed you can take 4 fish home. Who would want to? Its major source of water is the Jordan River… ew! Anyway, we decided to walk the trail around the lake and here is what we found.

 
The Lake

 
Some hungry geese

 
Ducks

 
Stream, stagnant pond, I donno but cool.

 
From the other end

 
Cattails, as far as the eye can see.

After this point the trail kind of ended at a gated fence to a dirt road. Not wanting to go back the long way we crossed the easily crossed gate, that I figured was here to prevent cars going onto the trail, and walked down the dirt road back to the car. Then we started hearing loud bangs. I thought oh shit, we may have entered private property and they are shooting warning shots. But, I’m not sure so we keep walking, hear some more, but we see cars pulled over on the side of the road. More shots. We get to the cars and there is another gate, and the trail resumes beyond that so we scramble back to the trail, while continuing to hear the shots.

Apparently someone had this bright idea of putting the police shooting range RIGHT NEXT to a family friendly pond, popular for fishing. Wooo go planning.
I apologize for the lack of photos to go with this week’s adventure, there just weren’t many great photo opportunities. Overall I give this adventure 3 squirrels out of 10. I granted one extra squirrel to account for the fact that perhaps I just didn’t research my trip well enough before heading out.