Deuel Creek

 

How does one even pronounce Deuel? It would appear this was a family name that Centerville was originally named for, until (I love when I find random useless information when trying to find other information) a survey determined that this town was located precisely between Farmington and Bountiful. So Centerville stuck. Nice.

Anyway, we frittered most of our Saturday away and around 3:00 pm I decided we needed to do a hike. So I did a little research and found a relatively short hike that was nearby so the Deuel Creek loop sounded great!

Ahem. So In an attempt to not be negative about the hike let me offer this bit of advice. Ignore the north trail. Always hike the south trail. These were the instructions to the trail head I was given:

Trailhead: Directions: Take I-15 to Centerville exit. Head east to 400 East and turn right (south). Make your way to 100 south and turn left to head east. Paved road ends at Island View drive (850 East). Park along 100 south or Island View. Trail begins at dirt road on 100 south.

I would like to expand upon this. 100 south appears to have been paved a bit further up, but I don’t know if I would park on it. Hike up the newly paved part, then the road will come to a T with a dirt road. The north trail is left, the south, trail is right. Now, the north trail is easier to find and quicker to get to, however as you may find below, I recommend following the dirt road to the right. It will snake back and forth up the mountain another oh, quarter mile or so. There is another fork in the dirt road with a sign for the ATV and Gun range, hang a left. and then the trail head is there right after the ATV area, and gun range. (why do they put trail heads near gun ranges?) Anyway, both trail heads are prominently marked with a large sign so it shouldn’t be too hard to miss. Come to think of it, if you have a car that can handle a steep dirt road, there appears to be a parking area right at the trail head. If not, park where it originally mentions.

Now on to the hike. I am just going to go ahead and say it was my fault this was so miserable for us. I mixed up 2 hikes that I researched. The one we did not do said after a short hard hike up into the canyon you quickly drop down into the forested canyon and it is shaded. Well, the North Deuel Creek trail was not. It was a steep hard climb on the open mountain side with no tree’s for a solid mile. (might be fine during fall or spring but this 90+ day not so much.) Landis and I had a really hard time with this trail. We had to stop frequently (only once in a good shade part) to catch our breaths and slow our hearts. We seriously almost gave up a good 3 times it was so grueling and hot.

It did offer some nice views.

We were just about ready to give up and turn back for good when we saw this:

And this was just as we saw the trail going down into the canyon. It didn’t look heavily trafficked so we weren't too sure but decided that it must eventually lead to the other trail and into the shaded area. So we went for it.

After a rapid, steep descent we made it to the creek. Landis said it best so I will quote him here:

“Today I realized the healing power of water. I almost gave up until I saw the waterfall. Once we reached the stream, I splashed the water on my face and felt so rejuvenated.”

He was right. All it took was getting to the stream getting a little wet to speed the cooling down process and the entire rest of the hike from here was amazing.

Not too much higher up were the falls we had seen from above. Not the most impressive, but still really cool. I plan on coming back early next spring to see this thing during high flow.

So ok, I know I am a big ol nerd, but I found this rather fascinating as I have never in my life witnessed such an event. I watch as an entire colony of ants relocated up to the mountain side. That was cool!

From here we wanted to go a bit higher to what appeared to be a reservoir that the map indicated not much further up. However after crossing the bridge We discovered a swarm of angry hornets blocking the trail.

You can’t see em, but the entire end of the bridge had tons of em. We opted to remove even the slightest opportunity of pissing of a swarm of hornets and turned back around.

I took the time to play with the different settings on my camera. The flow of the creek was slow enough that I (normally an extremely cautious maim-wary individual) felt comfortable crossing right at the top of the falls and getting in close. I actually like this shot of me as well.

This is right above the falls. Featured in the Photo Of The Week Section.

After playing around some and thoroughly enjoying the absolutely intruder less area we started back down.

Here is what the “bridges” across the creek look like. Basically a couple of logs held together with a metal mesh. Meh they did the trick.

    Woo! A lizard!

As I mentioned before the South trail is a lot better. You actually hike through some forest and hike along the creek for a while.

   It then opens up to a view of the valley below. Another random thing I found interesting was the obviously abandoned clay pipe water line that you can see peeking up next to the trail with a bunch of caved in parts.

And then down the dirt road back to the car. Ultimately It was a great hike. I am glad we endured the tough part, and we learned how to enjoy it more next time. I think it would even be enjoyable doing the full loop, but starting with the south trail.

Now if I were to rate this as is without giving it the right opportunity it would probably be 5 squirrels out of 10.

Considering it is a loop trail, and you can totally remove the awful part, and that is was deserted, it gets a good bump up to 9 squirrels out of 10. I awarded 4 extra squirrels 2 for the fact that we did not encounter a single soul during the hike on a Saturday. And 1 for a waterfall you could play in (at least during low flow). Finally one more for reasonable reasons that it may be more enjoyable during a different season, or even earlier in the day.

However upon second thought I am removing 1 squirrel because the I think either route you take you are stuck hiking steep terrain in the full sun for about the same amount of time. (unless you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle) the South loop is just a dirt road so it may be a little easier to climb. There were 2 reasons it was less challenging. 1 it was downhill. 2 a storm had rolled in and covered the sun.

Final score: 8 Squirrels out of 10.