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Dimple Dell Regional Park is a large park in Sandy that features miles and miles of trails. The west end of the park features a forest, wildflowers, mountain views and sometimes even a creek. We have done it before but decided to check it out again today.
We had a cold snap this weekend that brought snow up in the mountains! So, I didn’t want to go up to high. Then of course I couldn’t think of anything to do that was lower down so we ended up at my go to, Dimple Dell.
Quick Details:
Length: About a 4 mile loop.
Trail Type: Loop, out and back, or connector options.
Difficulty: DR3 it’s fairly flat and easy going.
Elevation Gain: About 200 feet.
Restroom: Not at the west end, but there is one on the east end, you just have to climb up to it.
Dogs? Yes, Leashed. Lookout for foxtails, and please clean up after your furry friends.
Other Info:
To Get Here:
Take 90th south or 106th south to State Street. Turn east on Sego Lily Dr. Head east to 300 East. Go right and follow it to the end of the road. which will be next to Sandy Dog Park. Take the trail to the south down into the gully.
You can also access this via Trax. Get off at the Sandy Civic Center Station and head east for about ~500 feet.
The Sandy Dog Park, which shares a parking lot with the trailhead.
The Trail:
Updated trailhead kiosk with the new map and park rules. This used to be called the Porter Rockwell Trailhead. I guess now it is the 300 East Trailhead.
Heading down into the gully. It is short, but just a reminder you will need to climb back up this at the end.
The mesa that I am sure a) is not natural, which leads me to b) I can’t believe it isn’t full of condos.
Gully bottom.
Old (restored) trail marker, and the new one too.
We started on the Dimple Dell Loop Trail going forward.
Forest.
Ooph, it is super dry in here.
Dry Creek is … well dry.
Continuing along.
The gully is pretty wide here.
Cute white and pink flowers of a primrose.
Another one of the new signs. We are done with the Dimple Dell Loop, and are going to scooch over to the main Dimple Dell Trail now.
Crossing to the other side. This is your standard cookie cutter bridge we see around our creeks, but it is particularly long! I don’t understand why it is so long for such a small, normally dry creek.
Speaking of… The creek below.
Now we are on the main Dimple Dell Trail.
Random bell above.
Another bridge.
Dry Creek below.
Forest.
Approaching 700 East.
Dry Creek Trail. It did not used to be named below 13th East. We will explore that more on the way back.
7th East.
Heading underneath.
Underneath.
Another Dry Creek Trail connector. Again, we will see that on the way down.
Continuing along the main Dimple Dell Trail.
Interesting wasp of some sort.
Her wings shimmer a beautiful red color, which is what caught my attention. It might be a cicada killer wasp, but I am not 100% sure about that. It doesn’t seem big enough.
The White City Trail bridge.
Underneath, looking north.
South.
From the other side.
Panoramic.
Lovely view of Mount Jordan.
Continuing along.
Fun cliff formation.
Fence tumbling down into the gully. I just don’t understand who looked at the soil here, and thought hey, lets build some houses on the edge of the gully! But then I remember greed…. yeah greed did this and some poor home owners are suffering for it.
Pipe crossing.
The Gully. It widens out a bit here.
Showy goldeneye.
Continuing up.
What the… now there is water in the creek.
Then the trail starts to climb.
Dry Creek again.
Main trail to the right, access road to the left. So, keep right.
Continuing along.
I found a cute little rubber ducky!
Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Mount Jordan.
Across the gully.
Back to climbing.
Mountains.
I think this might be the first time we have done this section of the Dimple Dell Trail. I generally opt to stay near the bottom of the gully through here.
Revegetation test area.
Continuing along.
I guess the main Dimple Dell Trail continues down this paved access road for a bit.
A few years ago some dumb politician wanted to pave all of the main trails in the park. Luckily everybody screamed a resounding no we do not want that, and thankfully it did not happen.
Larkspur Drive the other way.
Side trail. It does appear to lead to 13th East. We have not done that trail… I am not sure if we ever will. There isn’t good parking at that trailhead. But, I am a weird crackhead that likes to complete things so… eh maybe one day.
Heading down.
Tree tunnel.
Another bridge.
Downstream.
Random pipe pieces.
Upstream.
Continuing along the north side of the creek now.
The creek.
Forest.
What is going on here? It looks like a side creek is joining the main creek.
It took a little exploring but I found that the opposite is what is happening. The main Dry Creek is flowing into a side creek. I suspect Dry Creek was rerouted, and is now flowing into what was it’s original channel, but, I am not 100% sure.
The creek again.
View upstream.
Further upstream.
Burdock.
13th East above.
The trail climbs up a bit before heading under 13th East. We’ve done it before, and had no plans to continue above 13th East so, no need to do an extra climb.
I am going to do a little exploring to figure out the creek situation here.
Storm water drain. This is what appears to feed to main channel before Dry Creek joins it below.
Dry Creek emerging from under 13th East.
Downstream.
The culvert for Dry Creek again. This time seeing all the way to the other side.
Closer.
Little waterfall.
below.
The culvert again.
Downstream.
Lean-to.
Inside.
Little bridge over the alternate creek. Someone had fun with the logs.
Dry Creek.
Upstream.
Larkspur.
Back to the main Dimple Dell Trail. Time to head back down.
Where the 2 streams join again.
Continuing down.
Forest.
Fallen tree caught by other trees.
The main Dimple Dell trail continues to the left to the south side of the creek.
This sign doesn’t mention it, but I was sure there was a trail continuing along the north side of the creek just to the right. It’s been a long time since we have used it, but it’s there.
The cement continues up to Serpentine Way. It makes me wonder if this was maybe an old old way to drive across the gully? But, I have no idea really just a thought I had. It is the only place I can think of that has a cement path all the way across it (that isn’t a raised bridge). Then again.. now that I am looking at the map there are schools on either side so it could just be a safer non-traffic path for kids to use. That is pretty much what the White City Trail was created for too.
If the latter is the case, the old saying: I had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways! Kind of works here. If you had to cross a gully like this, it would be uphill (but also downhill too) both ways.
The trail we are about to use was unnamed before. But, according to this marker they decided to “continue” the Dry Creek Trail down here and as I discovered, the next loop as well. Fun.
The Dry Creek Trail coming off the pavement.
Into the forest.
Spider webs.
The creek.
More forest.
A pretty epic lean-to.
Inside.
Another storm water pipe.
Above.
Pretty purple flower. Since it isn’t fully open yet I am not going to try to identify it.
Thinner section through some foxtails. I would probably skip this section if I had my dogs with me this time of year at least.
Then a short spot through some thick trees.
The creek below.
There are a bunch of little side trails and such, most of them appear to loop back to connect to the main trail. I had pretty good luck with just choosing the wider looking trail.
The creek below.
Forest.
Starting to hit the soft sandy soil.
Anthill.
A bunch of them.
One of several structures crumbling down into the gully. I don’t know what asshole developer looked at the soil here and though, lets build houses near the edge of it. What could go wrong? As far as I know, nobody’s actual house is under threat so far though. Just fences, decks, sheds, etc.
Continuing along. Oh I guess there are more fox tails than I remembered, but at least it is not as thin here.
It looks like this house is trying to mitigate the erosion some.
Some yellow flower.
The creek.
Again.
Short spot with a little bit of erosion happening. It’s not bad.
The creek with a higher bank.
Continuing along.
There is a neat little cave with a window here.
But, it looks funny right now…
Someone hung a tarp here.
Oh. I seem to have stumbled upon an unhoused persons shelter. I am a little torn on this. On the one hand I generally feel if they leave me alone, I will leave them alone. But I really do not appreciate not only taking over a neat natural formation, but trashing it as well. Not cool man.
What you can see of the little window.
From the outside again. I will give them that the tarp color they used blends in pretty well. Though, that was likely a coincidence.
Continuing along.
Cactus bloom.
Closer.
Bud.
Another blossom.
Another.
Another.
Water district building.
Under 24 hour surveillance so you know, don’t fuck with it.
The building.
The creek. I feel like it was easier to pass through here than it was last time.
Itty bitty waterfall.
The west end of the water district building.
Access road.
Stink bug.
Another thin section.
The creek.
Tamarisk.
Continuing along. I feel like these trails have been enhanced since we were here last. Aside from the new signage, it just feel like it is easier to follow them as well.
Pretty yellow flowers.
Bottom of the gully.
More yellow flowers.
The gully again.
There is still water in Dry Creek.
Sandy.
The creek again. There were some cute little birds flickering in and out of it, but I didn’t get a decent shot of that.
Sage brush.
The creek.
Not the best shot of a quail.
Another anthill.
Another storm water drain. I think.
Continuing along.
Cliffs.
Flowers.
Red ants.
Continuing along.
And… the creek is dry. We didn’t quite see where it dried up, even though I was hoping to. I don’t know if it is redirected via some pipe we missed, or if it just… gets sucked up by the soil.
Another cliff.
Dry Creek bed.
Continuing down.
Approaching the bridge along the White City Trail again.
This house appears to be building a large deck or something. I… hope they know what they are doing.
The White City Trail bridge again.
Big tree.
The bridge again.
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Panoramic.
Another storm water drain.
Under the White City Trail Bridge.
Continuing along.
I am not sure if this is natural or influenced by man.
Another small trail split. It looks like both trails reconnect in just a minute.
This is the only trail split I chose poorly on. I chose right, you want left. But it was a super short detour.
A pretty detour though.
Approaching 7th East.
Forest.
Back to the correct trail, it crosses Dry Creek here.
Downstream.
Upstream.
Hooray, we popped out where there is a sign directing to the Dry Creek Trail. Which informed me we had found the right trail. Now on the main Dimple Dell Trail again.
Dry Creek.
Down to the lowest section of The Dry Creek Trail on the west side of 7th East.. I think I am going to have to make some edits to my Dimple Dell Overview post.
Thinner trail to the right.
Crossing Dry Creek, looking upstream towards 7th East.
Downstream.
Money plant. My friend gave me a transplant 2 years ago, and it did really well! This year I think I have some seedlings coming in, so we will see what happens next year with them. My friend (who has much greener thumbs than I do, seriously, you should see her garden) tells me they do not bloom the first year. So We will see I guess.
Back to the trail.
Little dam below.
Into the thick forest.
Forest.
Private access.
Continuing along. Again, I feel like this trail has been improved, maybe even rerouted. Some of it seems new. But, it has been a few years.
Pretty forest.
Continuing along.
Bridge.
Tree getting a super, super early jump on autumn. 0.o The first day of summer was just a few days ago!
More tamarisk.
The other bridge.
Again.
Now we are back on the main Dimple Dell Trail again. Phew! That was a bit of an adventure!
Dimple Dell Trail.
Forest.
Thistle.
Closer.
The creek bed.
Continuing down.
Forest.
Back to there the 2 trails meet.
Just the final little hill out of the gully left.
Back to the parking lot.
Trail map.
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Panoramic.
Well that was fun! I love that they have improved the trails and added signs. I also love that they have decided to consider them part of the Dry Creek Trail. I also really enjoy that we can make and loop and do both sides of the creek, just on various trails. It was not busy at all today, only ran into a few people. 9 squirrels.
As for difficulty, its pretty easy peasy, DR3.
Dogs are allowed, leashed. But be aware that there are a TON of foxtails in here, particularly along the thinner Dry Creek Trails. So maybe stick to the wide bark-lined trails for now. Or just avoid the danger all-together which is what I really suggest.
