The Quail Trail

The Quail Trail is a neat little connector trail located in Sandy. It follows Little Cottonwood Canyon Creek down a gulley and leads to a wide open bluff with great view of the mountains above. So, I might as well start out with; don’t travel out of your way for this one. If you live nearby, it’s a good easy trail, but nothing to write home about.

I noticed this trial driving past it on Wasatch on our way to Bell Canyon and thought I’d check it out. Not finding any information on it online I looked to google maps. I was able to determine it would be about a mile and ends at Quail Hollow Park. Since my other nearby hike I had planned turned out to be a bust, I thought we would check this one out.

Quick Details:

Length: 1 m. one way 2 m round trip.
Difficulty: DR3. It felt flat for the most part.
Elevation Gain: 183 ft. Which if you start from the trailhead I did, will be on the return trip.
Restroom: No, not even at the park. There is one at the nearby Granite Trailhead.
Dogs? Dogs are allowed at the park, but the eastern section of this trail is watershed.
Other Info: When hiking in winter, be sure to have appropriate gear.

Directions:

To the trailhead on Wasatch BLVD take Wasatch BLVD in Sandy to about 9500 S. Directly across the street from La Caille. Just North of Little Cottonwood Canyon road. You will see a small dirt parking lot next to the creek.

The Quail Hollow Park: Take little cottonwood canyon rd to Quail Hollow Dr (approximately 2300 e) head north. Follow the road as it curves east, then back north to Newcastle Dr. you should see Albion Middle School at this point. Turn east, follow to the end of the road. 2860 Newcastle Dr.

Nearing Little Cottonwood Canyon (DBP).

Watershed sign.

On to the trail.

I was a little surprised to see the trail is well travelled.

Little Cottonwood Creek.

Through the trees.

Little water treatment plant.

The creek again.

A little bit of autumn colors hanging on.

Looking back towards Little Cottonwood Canyon.

We came upon a short steeper/slick section so Landis decided to put on the micro spikes. Definitely helped him a lot today. One of his biggest gripes about winter hiking was slipping and falling on his butt all the time. My boots have better winter traction, but I am still going to get me a pair of these as well.

Little bridge over what appears to be a small aqueduct or culvert.

Said aqueduct and the short steeper section.

Looking down towards the creek again. The trail, while being fairly flat with a small grade down is slowly rising above the stream below, or rather the stream is slowly going lower and lower below us.

Oh yay! We found a random trail side Christmas Tree! I don’t know why, but these always make me smile. I donno, it’s kind of whimsical. Anyway, so long as whoever creates them returns to collect the decorations it’s cute and harmless. We have seen similar in Mueller Park, and I have heard of ones in Ogden and Provo. Apparently it is fairly common.

I was starting to get kind of mad at the amount of evidence of dogs, and well, the couple people we saw with dogs. However, as you will soon see, the other trailhead offers waste bags and says they must be leashed. And I never saw a sign announcing the watershed area on the way back, so it is really unclear how far up the trail they are allowed.

The trail next to the aqueduct.

What appears to be a much larger water treatment plant. Which also shows how far below the creek is now.

If I had to take a guess, I would say the dogs must be below, or west of this. But, as I mentioned it is not clearly signed so who knows.

At about .6 m you come out of the gully and onto a wide open bluff.

The ridge between the Cottonwood canyons.

I guess this is Quail Hollow Park. It’s less of a park and more of an open wild area. I like that. There should be more of these.

Just short of a mile later we reached the other trailhead. Looks like street parking only.

To the right, I didn’t realize until I came home and looked at the maps, is Albion Middle School, I went there as a kid! it’s kind of weird I didn’t recognize it, but, it has been quite a few years!

Trailhead sign. See, waste bags and one of the rules is dogs must be leashed at all times. So, they are allowed on this end, I just don’t know for sure how far along the trail.

And now the return trip!

Nice view of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Big Cottonwood Canyon to the north.

Side note, I always, always confused the two canyons forgetting which was which. Until a few years ago when I came up with a helpful mnemonic: The Big(ger) Cottonwood Canyon curves to the south over the Little Cottonwood Canyon.

The park offers great views of the mountains above.

Some guy was flying a remote controlled airplane above us. Looked like a really nice one too.

Oh look, we got a little bit of sunshine on this gloomy day, right before it went behind the mountains.

Back into the gulley! The highest point of the trail within is on a steep slope and made me a little nervous, but as long as you have good traction and maybe a hiking pole it shouldn’t be a problem.

The creek and mountains above.

Back to the Christmas Tree.

Last light hitting the peak up there.

Little Cottonwood Canyon.

La Caille has turned on their lights.

This was a good winter hike. I’m not sure how much I would enjoy it at other times, but it was a nice little trail. I think my favorite part is the great views of the mountains. They always seem even more majestic after the first good dusting of snow. I also enjoyed getting to hike next to Little Cottonwood Creek a bit more. You can do more of that on the Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail. Anyway, not a whole lot of effort needed. We ran into more people than I expected, but not a lot. I think most people use this for dog walking than hiking and they probably wondered what the heck we were doing with all our hiking gear! To summarize, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. Might have to do it again in the spring just to make sure. Going with 6 out of 10.

As for difficulty, honestly I was a little surprised at how much elevation gain there was because I sure didn’t notice it! Going with a DR3.

Dogs are allowed at the western end of it. They might be allowed along the whole thing, but I personally wouldn’t risk the ticket.