Baer Creek Canyon

 Yesterday we went up to Davis county to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Annie's family.  I had the choice of shopping at random stores all afternoon or hiking on an unknown trail.  I decided to do a little hiking and ended up on the Baer Creek Trail east of Kaysville.  You can read more about it here. 

 The trail is unexpectedly beautiful.  There are trees everywhere, pretty rock formations, soft ground to walk on, and a beautiful creek running right near the trail.  There are a few places that get a little steep, but they don't last long, and they're usually followed by a bit of downhill.  It's a great hike.

 Not long into the hike there's a bridge over the creek.  It's a bunch of 2x10 boards connected together to make a beam about a foot wide.  It seems pretty stable, and it's in a very beautiful area.

 After about .75 mile the canyon gets a lot more narrow and the trail gets steeper.  In a few areas the trail is a bit washed out.  It other areas the trees grow very close to the trail, making it almost feel like you're walking through a tunnel.  I only came across 3 people on the trail the whole day.  I couldn't believe there was such a beautiful trail so close to the city with so few people on it on one of the best hiking weekends of the year.

About 1 1/3 miles from the trailhead the trail crosses the creek again but there's no bridge here.  I guess nobody wanted to drag a bunch of 2x10s and concrete up this far.  A little later in the year it would probably be easier to cross without getting your feet wet, but the water was a little high yesterday.  And since it was almost fiesta time anyway I decided to turn around and keep my feet dry.  In the picture above you can see the trail heading up steeply in between those rocks on the other side of the creek.

The water was nice to look at, but it was also really loud.  I guess when you go hiking you're looking to hear the sounds of nature, but it's nice when you can still hear your music.  

On the way back down I took the opportunity to take a couple little side trails.  One leads to a really nice area down by the creek with a place to build a little fire and dangle your feet in the cold water.  The other leads up to a nice overlook, also with a place to build a little fire.  This last picture is from the overlook.  I can imagine you could see some beautiful sunsets from up there on the right evening.

All in all, it was a great little hike.  With the extra exploring it ended up being just about 3 miles, with about 1000 total feet of elevation gain.  I hear the trail continues on to Lewis Peak, but that it gets unbelievably steep by the end.  I'm not a big fan of steep, so I'll just drive to Lewis Peak if I ever decide to go