Farmington Bay

 

The weather has slowly been warming up, and I have been itching to go out and hike, however a peek over at the mountains shows they are still covered in snow, so I started to look for things to do here in the valley.

I remembered seeing a story in the newspaper that Farmington Bay is a great place to see bald eagles this time of year. That sounds just awesome! So, off we went! To get to the Bird Center take exit 322 off of i15, keep right at the fork, turn right onto the frontage road, then turn right 925 S/W Glovers ln. go about 2 miles and it will be on the left.

This, I’m assuming, water tower caught my eye. (DBP)

The first thing we noticed was there was a small parking lot here, with a gate over the road that goes to the bird center. According to the sign, their hours vary on the weekends and you should check online. Oops. But it did say it is still open to hikers so we went in.

Cool manmade nesting poles.

The bird center was closed so after looking around for some trail guide of some sort, and not finding anything we decided to just explore the area.

Bones.

Better shot of the ball!

Some geese.

I kind of like this shot.

I’m not sure what this is, looks like a crane of some sort. Might be a great blue heron.

Still some ice on the water.

Cattails!

Ducks! Seeing them fly remind me of that old game Duck Hunt. Goes to show how even limited to 8 bit graphics, the attention to detail they put into games.

I liked the blue and gold.

We weren’t having much luck but I saw a bunch of people grouped together out in the distance. Landis thought he saw a sign for a wildlife management area before the bird center so we thought we would go check that out.

Sure enough a little ways east there is a right turn onto a dirt road that is a wildlife area. We got to the area I saw all the cars and discovered another gate that was closed. Guess its on foot now.

This is what the dirt roads look like. Pretty well maintained so even a little car can do it.

Tons of birds!

Nice shot of the mountains.

Not sure what this one is either but I like the kind of derpy pose it is in.

Just a common seagull, but I rather like this shot.

Pelican.

It just keeps going.

another canal.

Ew. Those are some big fish though, I wonder if fishing is allowed here? Probably not.

As we entered the area there was a sign saying the gates will all close at 5 PM. we were running out of time so we decided to head back. Wow, didn’t realize we went that far!

Hey look Lagoon.

Some sort of observatory at the top of the mountain. I have actually been off-roading right next to these things quite a few years ago. It was uh, really high and steep.

And we can see the area we went hiking last fall, Davis Creek.

Well, it wasn’t in the woods, or up a hill, but we can still call this a hike. We didn’t see any bald eagles as we had hoped but there were tons of birds and it was a nice little adventure. Going to go ahead and give this 7 stars.

Bridal Veil Falls – Winter Time.

 

It has been a pretty rough winter and I haven't gotten out in far longer than I would have liked. So we took advantage of the sunny 3 day weekend and took a short road trip out to Provo. I have been wanting to get a few more frozen waterfall pictures and since this one is so easy to get to I thought it would be perfect.

The mountains above Provo. (DBP Album)

The mouth of Provo Canyon. I love the striping the rocks and snow make.

The trail from the Bridal Veil Park area was still snowed out and we didn’t have the proper gear to hike it. Yes its fairly flat, but there is a pull out right in front of the waterfall, so why risk slipping and falling? Besides we have done it before.

And here we are at the upper lookout, which was also still closed, but there was room to safely pull over to view the falls.

The waterfall itself is freely flowing, but there is a cool ice fall just to the right of it.

This is a really high waterfall, at 607 feet I think it is the highest always flowing waterfall in Utah, although I have been unable to prove or disprove that. If you look really closely at the base of the falls you can see some people at the bottom.

They all wandered off shortly after taking that last shot so I thought I would take advantage of the now people-less scene.

Some foreground.

 

A closer look. It is freely flowing, but the edges are solid ice.

I love this waterfall. I wish we had hiked up to it to see what it looks like from the bottom. Oh well. Still very beautiful and made the trip worth it.

A look across the other side of the canyon toward Mt. Timpanogos. Although, I don’t think you can actually see that here.

A view up the canyon. Again, loving the layers of rock and snow.

A couple pretty shots further up the canyon. (Both DBP)

There was a scenic turn out here so we pulled over. It’s pretty and all, but I don’t know what we should be seeing.

My eye was drawn towards these bright yellow trees. (DBP)

A frozen solid Deer Creek Reservoir. There were a lot of ice fishers out on it today, but I didn’t get a picture.

Somewhere in Heber (DBP). There is quite a bit LESS snow up here in the mountains than there is in the valley. I know this is due to the inversion and the out of the norm weather we have been getting this year, but it is still kind of weird to see.

We apparently missed our turn to continue towards Park City and back home but we were enjoying our little adventure and it didn’t take much to get ourselves back on track.

Besides it allowed us to see this beauty! I am unsure if this was a water main break of some sort, or an intentional act of weather art. Either way it’s pretty cool!

Old barn.

Frozen Jordanelle Reservoir. (DBP) I think this may be the first time I have driven on this side of it. Usually we take the road on the other side going towards the Uintas.

Even though the inversion has loosened its grip on us I knew it was pretty bad again, so I planned on getting a picture of it on the way back down. Unfortunately, I forgot to retrieve my camera from the trunk I stuffed it in while we stopped in Park City. so here is a DBP shot from my cell phone. Still shows the blanket of ick we’ve all been breathing for the last couple weeks. Yum!

All in all today was quite a fun, much needed excursion into the great outdoors. I would have loved to do more hiking, but I’ll take what I can get.