Shepard Creek City Section Partial - Winter

The Shepard Creek City Section is a surprisingly lovely trail system that follows a creek. I was expecting something closer to Lower Farmington Creek but this was just lovely. It is in a shallow gulley and the woods tend to obscure the fact that there are houses nearby for most of the way so it truly felt like a nice wild trail. Unfortunately, about a half mile up there was a creek crossing that didn’t look safe right now, so we decided to turn around. However, we enjoyed it enough that we decided it certainly deserves another visit.

Quick Details:

Length: The Farmington Trails page puts this at 2.3 miles. We did about a mile.
Difficulty: DR4. The segment we did was super easy, bumped it up due to the creek crossing with no bridge.
Elevation Gain: 350 feet.
Restroom: No.
Dogs? Yes, leashed.

To Get Here:

From Main street in Farmington head to 1400 North. Head east. About 200 feet up 1400 N you will see a dirt road on the north side of the road. You will also see the very hard to miss Farmington Trail Sign. Park on the street.

The Trail:

Trailhead sign next to the dirt road. I’m not sure why it points to the right, you want to go strait back. Perhaps normally you walk on the right side of the road?

You will follow this dirt road for about 600 feet.

Then climb this small hill. Which turned out to be an old dam.

Drained reservoir. So I wasn’t sure which way to go so we went right. However, the main trail is left. No worries though as we were able to connect again.

The creek.

From the other side. It was pretty easy to cross down here.

Neat stick structure.

Lots of ice.

Eventually we ran out of trail, but luckily we had seen the trail up above. It wasn’t too bad to scramble up to it.

Now we’re up on the edge of the gully. But it is still lovely.

You can still see the creek from the trail.

Lots of ice!

I was really surprised at how wild this trail was!

The mountains above.

Farmington has even added a couple signs to help keep you on the path. Other cities, take note. Farmington is officially winning with their trail signage. While I am at it, their trails page is days beyond any other nearby city.

Crazy thick woods through here.

There is quite a bit of climbing up, only to climb back down again. But it’s not too bad.

The creek again.

Looking up through the mess of branches.

Lots of deer tracks. Seems like a good place to see deer.

Creek crossing. Someone has added a rope so you have something to hang on to. But, between the ice being both thin, and slick, we just couldn’t finagle it. We had one close call before we decided it just wasn’t worth it. Yes, this creek is small, and not terribly deep, I doubt we would have been in danger, but the thought of being wet in these temperatures did not sound pleasing. Shame. It wouldn’t be too difficult to add a bridge, even just a log one.

Looking downstream.

The creek again.

Back into the tangle of woods.

Bends in the creek.

Looking up again.

Nearing the bottom.

We decided to follow the main trail down the north side of the gully this time. Trail signs confirm this is the intended route.

More deer tracks.

Woodpecker home.

Back down to the old dam.

Looking up towards the mountains, and the canyon where Shepard Creek comes out of.

The old dams spillway. Looks very similar to the one coming out of Farmington Pond.

I wonder why this reservoir has been drained.We did see some machinery so they might be working on it. But it seems like it’s been empty for a while.

We found a weather station.

From the bottom.

More deer tracks. Man I bet this is a great place to see deer.

Last leg.

Speaking of seeing deer!

Well, we didn’t finish the trail but I did enjoy it more than I expected. Definitely going to return in the spring when we can safely cross the creek. Didn’t run into many people and to see a bit of wildlife. I wont rate it because we didn’t finish it, but I did enjoy it.

As for difficulty, it was a very gradual, rolling climb and I would give it a DR3 except for that crossing. It could really use a bridge. For that I will bump it up to a DR4.

Dogs are allowed, leashed. Please clean up after your furry friend.