Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail

The Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail is a great family friendly trail that starts at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon and follows the creek up the canyon. We went about 3.5 miles up, the trail does appear to continue, but I am not sure for how much further. This is a great trail for those beginners that are maybe looking for a longer trail to experience. This trail has been on my radar for a while, but I just haven’t made time for it until now.

Quick Details:

Length: 3.5 miles (7 round trip) or longer.
Difficulty: DR3. There is definitely an incline, but for the most part you won’t notice it, it almost feels flat. Nice wide, hard packed trail
Elevation Gain: About 1270 ft..
Restroom: There is a pit toilet at the trailhead.
Dogs? No. Little Cottonwood Canyon is watershed.
Extra Info: While this is definitely a great family friendly trail, it is right next to Little Cottonwood Creek, and there are quite a few sections with drop-offs right into the river. Keep a very close eye on your little ones, particularly during run off season.

To get here: Head towards Little Cottonwood Canyon in Sandy. At the mouth of the canyon, just south of the stop sign (note: if coming from the north, you don’t have a stop sign, but it is where the 2 roads meet to go up the canyon). There is a small parking lot. This is across the canyon from the Park And Ride parking lot. You will see the Temple Quarry Trail to the south, and the Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail heading east, up canyon.

Now onto the adventure!

Heading towards the destination. This is Below Big Cottonwood Canton (DBP) I just love how green the mountains still are!

And entering Little Cottonwood Canyon.

The parking lot. As I mentioned, the Temple Quarry Trail is there on the right, LCC Trail strait ahead.

Old power station.

The cliff walls above.

And a view up canyon.

Old equipment. Neither of us could come up with even a theory as to what it might have been used for, but it is kind of neat.

I’m not sure, but I believe this is a Twin Crest Onion.

Not far along the trail we come to this…. Luckily that little sign to the right of the street sign, says trail <- so take the left fork. ignore the next fork which is a private driveway and stay on the road.

We got a little lost after that for a minute, but eventually found another Trail sign so found our way again. Basically stay on that upper road until you come to the power plant, then take the lower road.

Here you will take the right fork.

Trail sign at the other end. I think it would be helpful to have at least one more in front of the driveway pointing the way, but we found where we needed to be, so it must not be too confusing.

Beautiful cliffs above.

The power plant. The trail up to here is kind of meh, and has no shade. After here it gets a lot better.

Back on the trail! And, did they recycle an old canister to be a gate post?

Water pipe and thick woods beyond.

Little Cottonwood Creek is seriously raging right now! It’s awesome, but a little terrifying at the same time. I don’t want to get anywhere near it!

The first creek crossing. Thank goodness the bridge looks nice and sturdy, and has hand rails!

Looking up creek. It feels wrong to call it a creek right now.

Down creek. Lots and lots of water!

Very lush and green throughout the canyon.

It would seem the quarrying extended all the way up here as well! And, it would seem they gave this boulder a really, really good try, but never cracked it.

Drill holes. If you haven’t been, the Temple Quarry Trail will help you understand what is going on here.

The creek again.

The first of many giant boulders along the trail.

Looks like they tried to drill this one too, but gave up.

Good. If you vandalize nature, you are truly a scumbag.

 

Another big boulder.

Beautiful wooded trail!

Old picnic pavilion that has been taken over by vandals.

 

From the inside. Looks like there were once restrooms.

Alright, this is just too much! The old pavilion, while still upsetting, whatevs, this, seriously? Jerks.

Panoramic of the back side.

Whoa! I just realized I used to hang out here all the time when I was a teenager! I don’t think I could ever find how to get here the way we used to, but there is a pipe crossing the creek here we used to cross (honestly I have no idea how I did that!)  I will say, none of my friends or I ever vandalized the area. We usually just hung out, maybe drank (I never claimed to have been a perfect kid). Wow, that was a weird trip down memory lane! We used to call it the pipe, due to having to cross a pipe to get here.

The woods!

Little Cottonwood Creek again.

Chunk of boulder that fell off.

The trail is so lush, at least this time of year, that you don’t get a whole lot of opportunities to see the cliffs above.

It would seem they were successful in splitting this one, but did not collect it.

The creek and the road. You know, I know the trail does not stray far from the road for the most part, but you will hardly notice it, at least during runoff. The creek makes enough noise to drown out most of the road noise. I think I heard maybe 3 or 4 particularly loud cars/motorcycles along the whole way, and this was the only real area I can recall where it is visible.

So green and lush through here. Makes me think of Oregon.

Lots of thimbleberry bushes! I imagine the berries disappear quickly along this trail though.

Nice little side creek.

Bigger side creek. Funny/stupid side story: I saw a picture of this bridge on one of the guides I used to plan this hike, and thought it was over Little Cottonwood Creek. As I was hiking up, and seeing just how much the creek was roaring right now I was just worried about crossing this bridge, as it surely wouldn’t do! Luckily, it is just a small side stream it is over. I think this is Coalpit Creek.

From aspens and other small deciduous trees…

To giant, old growth conifers in just a few steps.

Moss and ferns.

The creek crashing against a giant boulder.

It’s so overgrown and green! How did they cut the trail through?

Another section of conifers.

A rather large one.

Big boulder has a a tunnel through it.

More of the coniferous forest.

Second bridge (over the main creek). This is at about the 2.5 mile mark.

Up creek.

Old pipeline.

Leonard's Penstemon.

Another little side stream.

The main creek again.

Oh, it opened up enough to see the cliffs above.

We heard a couple cracks of thunder (which always sound amazing in canyons) and I looked up to this. Neat cloud formation. It didn’t seem terribly dark, so we continued, and didn’t hear anything again so we decided the storm wasn’t going to come in. It was a gamble, but it never did come in. No rain, no lightning. Probably not the wisest gamble, but it worked out. If it had continued we definitely would have turned around.

More thick woods.

I believe that curly peak is the Pfeifferhorn. There are great views of that from Red Pine Lake.

More thick woods.

This last section is probably the steepest and rockiest section, and it still isn’t that bad.

These red poles signify you are almost there.

Old rock wall.

And we have made it to the old ruins! From what I could find it is what remains of an old power plant built in 1903, and shut down in the 1940s. Kind of neat that this much of it is still standing! Probably doesn’t hurt that there really isn’t a way to get to it anymore. Even during low flow, that creek isn’t anything to mess with.

A little closer.

A couple shots of the creek

.

Lupine.

The trail continues above and offers a better view of the old building.

Playing with long exposures.

We decided to head on back now.

Tree growing out of a rock wall.

Fungus growing on an old dead tree.

Lovely trail.

Better shot of the Pfeifferhorn.

More trees.

Woodland star.

This must be where the pipeline starts.

Some more cliffs above.

The upper bridge.

View upstream.

View down.

Another view of the creek.

Mossy rock.

Pretty woods.

Side creek.

Landis next to some larger old trees. Definitely not The Redwoods but still pretty old and big.

The creek through the woods again.

Back to the middle side bridge.

And another side creek, with some thimbleberries.

Really pretty down here along the canyon bottom.

View of the canyon walls again.

With the trail.

I like how this one came out.

The pipe. It is definitely cold, and sweaty. I thought I might feel the water rushing through it, but no.

More pretty woods.

Back to the old pavilion.

And the pipe we used to cross.

Another mossy rock.

Neat granite peak.

More granite cliffs.

Wild waters.

Back to the first bridge.

View downstream.

More fun granite cliffs.

Back down to the power plant. Starting to see the mouth of the canyon.

Panoramic of the cliffs near the mouth of the canyon.

More granite cliff faces. Either side of the canyon.

Weird markings on this one.

Small waterfall coming down this one.

Back down to the parking lot.

While waiting for Landis, I ran down into the Temple Quarry Trail to grab a quick shot of the mouth of the canyon.

There’s so much water in the creek some of it is making it down here. It’s usually dry after being diverted upstream.

One last shot of the cliffs above.

This is a great trail! Great for families, and great for beginners wanting to get an easier longer hike in. Honestly, other than the Bonneville Shoreline Trails I can’t think of a trail this long that is this easy. I was hoping to view the sites of this canyon at a slower pace than the road, but, at least this time of year, the vegetation is just too think and there aren’t a ton of places to see beyond the trees. However that is a small price to pay for really pretty lush forest views throughout the trail. I was warned about a lot of bikes, so I expected that to be bad, but we didn’t encounter too many. I’m not sure if this would be the best option on a particularly hot day though as the first mile or so there is not much shelter. Going with a solid 9 squirrels out of 10. definitely come check this trail out some day!

As for difficulty, like I said, for the most part it feels like a flat trail. Going with a DR3.

Dogs are not allowed in Little Cottonwood Canyon as it is watershed.