Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail–Upper Section - Winter

 

There is a trail that goes from the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon 3.5 miles up and ends with a great surprise. I learned of it in December and honestly didn’t think I would have a shot at it until May at the earliest. However, we are still experiencing an unseasonably warm and dry winter so the conditions were not bad at all.

We decided to drive up the canyon today and see what adventures we could find.

See, early February and the snow is way up there! (Drive By Photography Album)

Entering the canyon. (DBP Album)

Wet granite. Snow melting down the granite slabs. (DBP Album)

Nearing Snowbird we start seeing some snow. This is crazy! (DBP Album)

Snowbird was just as crowded, if not worse than when they do Oktoberfest. Not normally up here in the winter, so I don’t know if that is normal for ski season but it did seem awfully packed! So we headed down to find a trail to explore.

Peaks above.

Like our last hike, the only snow was on the trail.

Pointy peak above.

Okay there is some other snow, but really looking around for the most part it just seems to be on the trail.

May of 2008 the snow was too high to do Donut Falls and here we are in February and there is hardly anything here. Craziness! Now that I think about it that trip in 2008 is what made us decide to stay lower elevation until Mayish, normally.

The best part about hiking in a pine forest in winter is the smell. It is absolutely spectacular!

View of the creek.

Random wheel.

Pair of pipes.

Granite slabs near the trail.

Nice wintery shot of the creek.

And what do we have here? An old building.

Well this is neat! We found some old ruins next to the creek here.

I have learned that this is the remains of an old Power Plant built in the early 1900’s. 1903 to be exact and was shut down sometime in the 1940’s.

Tunnel that appears to go from the old building and out into the creek. Probably drainage pipes as it was a water powered.

And another one.

We really wanted to get closer, and well, maybe I felt a little over confident with my waterproof boots.. almost took a swim today! LOL. I mean, it is warm enough, and the creek was low enough that we weren’t in any real danger. However, I did underestimate the current and kind of went down. Got a little wet, but not too bad. Enough that I decided it wasn’t worth it. Again, I know I would’ve been fine, but getting soaking wet would certainly not be fun up here.

It is probably a good thing it is on the other side of the creek to help prevent vandalism. But I really wanted to get a closer look of it.

 

View up the creel with some more retaining wall.

We decided to go back to the trail and look around some more.

Mossy rock

Squirrel!

Back to the lower view.

The trail goes a little further up and offers some other pretty neat views.

Some neat shots from up above.

And from the main viewpoint, which appears to be the remnants of a no-longer in existence bridge.

This was really neat! I love seeing old structures, and old abandoned structures slowly losing the battle against nature. There is just something really fascinating about it! As fascinating as it is, it was time to start heading back

.

Another retaining wall.

Back to the icy trail.

Neat mossy cube rock.

Peaks above.

And a last parting shot of the snowy trail. Like a rolled out carpet here.

Well I really enjoyed this short jaunt. It ended up being about a half mile from where we picked up the trail, and even with the snow and ice it wasn’t too difficult. And I just loved the old ruins at the end, so neat to see. Going with a perfect 10 for this one.

For difficulty, I am going with a DR3. Even with the snow and ice it wasn’t too tough.

Little Cottonwood Canyon is watershed so dogs are not allowed in the canyon.