nature

Doc and I both had a clear Tuesday so we went to a different canyon that’s usually just too busy to be nice on the weekends. It was like a storybook illustration of “winter” and we discovered a new-ish feeder trail that was extra magical.

For locals, this is the Donut Falls hike in Big Cottonwood. Usually you have to walk up the access road to the trailhead, but at some point a new path through the forest to the east got put in. There’s also construction going on for a boardwalk through the meadow there and it looks like everything will connect:

It was cold–the car said 25 degrees in the parking lot, and we gained elevation/lost the sun–but my Polartec base layers and my parka did great. (This did solidify my planning for some heavy quilted pants that will use up the last of the Thinsulate and Polartec Alpha, though.)

And! The one spot of the trail that’s a scramble down in the summer had a ROPE for the winter and I got to pretend I was rappelling on the Alps. Thrilling!

Ask me how I feel about the snow in late January and my answer will change, but right now it’s magical to be out in the snowy mountains.

(Millcreek Canyon, the Terraces road and up the Bowman Fork trail a bit.)

We went on another weekday afternoon hike on Tuesday, even though it was wet out and it was tempting to stay in. But we have good gear and getting out got us into some very Zen misty forests–plus we saw a bunch of jays!  (This is Neffs Canyon for a change; Millcreek was closed for weekday road construction.)

The snow from Tuesday had melted off the trees in Millcreek, but it looks like it took most of the leaves with it.

It was warmer, too, but there were still patches of snow and ice. I thought the way the leaves and shed their color into the ice on this rock was cool:

This week’s Freelance Fun Day was a quick afternoon hike with Doc (he has Tuesdays off) and it was glorious. There was snow earlier in the week (the winter gate in upper Millcreek is already closed!) but the trees still had their leaves, so we got an excellent blend of fall and winter:

Freelance is still new enough for me that I feel like I’m getting away with something when I close my laptop at 1:00 and just…go on a hike on a Tuesday. Truly living the dream over here.

We found a new trail in Millcreek that takes you from the Alexander Basin to Elbow Fork trailheads yesterday. We don’t hike Alexander Basin/Gobbler’s Knob much (it’s straight up) so the trail could have been put in any time over the last few years; however, we saw the trailhead at Elbow Fork changed this year so it could be fairly recent?

Regardless, it was delightful–just a gentle rolling singletrack through autumn woods. I don’t even mountain bike but it looked like a perfect mountain bike trail (and all the riders we encountered were so polite!). Truly a magic little path.

We went up a different canyon yesterday (along with the rest of the valley) to get some time in the aspens, and they didn’t disappoint:

This was a short hike but had a lot of vertical gain and wow, I am out of condition–I’m still going to the gym but we’ve done a lot more “sitting by the river” than “climbing a mountain” lately.  Seeing the colors kicked my ass for the rest of the day!

I’ve found myself longing for the apocalypse a lot lately…and realized we hadn’t been up Millcreek to splash around in about as long. It was cloudy and hot in the valley but rainy and deliciously cool at the top of the canyon, plus all the wildflowers were in bloom.

Maybe I need to apply a dose of Nature mid week? It’s a pretty powerful prescription.

In classic Utah fashion, in about two days we went from 55 degrees and rainy to 85 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. But that meant we could revisit the trail we hit a couple weeks ago and turn it into a whole loop (along with just about everyone else in the valley).

But I’m glad everyone was out enjoying the green foothills and the sun–it really feels like it’s FINALLY not going to snow again for the season.