Mountain of the Lord

This time of year it's always hard to figure out where to hike. In the late summer and early fall you can pretty much go anywhere you want and it's accessible and beautiful. This time of year you have to worry about snow on the ground, snow falling from the sky, rain, mud, daylight, and temperature. I like to stay low in elevation this time of year to avoid most of those potential problems.

The main purpose of today's hike was to load up my backpack with everything I would need for a night in the mountains to see if I could carry it all. I decided to start out with a pretty flat hike, so today I decided to try out the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

Yes, there's a lot of Bonneville Shoreline Trail all over the place. It's in scattered pieces across, well, anywhere Lake Bonneville used to be. Since I also wanted to stay close to home I did a portion of the trail from Hidden Valley Park in Sandy to the LDS Temple in Draper.

I always imagined this portion of the BST to be flat, wide, and extremely boring. I was completely wrong on all counts, and this became one of my favorite hikes so far (I probably say that about every hike I do).

The trail goes up and down, weaves back and forth, crosses rivers and streams (okay, just streams). And not only was the path of the trail much more interesting than I thought it would be, but the trail is very well maintained. There were bridges over every stream and everywhere a stream could possibly form.

There were a lot of small canyons along the way. At these points the trail would usually drop down a bit to a bridge, then head back up. Sometimes it was pretty steep on one or both sides, and I felt a little bad for the mountain bikers I passed. They probably enjoy steep trails like that though.

A couple miles into the hike I started up the wrong trail. The trail climbed steeply for a bit to get over a ridge and another trail (the Trail of the Eagle) continued up the mountain, while the BST went through a small rocky patch then headed down. I took the Trail of the Eagle for about 1/8 of a mile before I woke up and wondered why I was so high up the mountain. It was a great view and all, but I had places to be. As I backtracked I cursed the trail designers for not marking the intersection better... Until I got back to the intersection and saw a very clear sign I didn't even see before, even though it didn't seem possible to miss it.

In the middle of the hike there were a lot of good places to sit, like this rock.

For some reason I kept getting rocks in my shoes. I almost never get rocks in my shoes, at least not like this. Every time I took off my shoes to empty them I'd get another rock within just a few feet. My shoes also kept coming untied. It was pretty aggravating, but what can you do?

Almost 3 miles in (or something like that--I don't remember) I caught my first glimpse of the temple. It looked a lot bigger and closer than it does in this picture.

One other "new" thing I did on this hike was to walk the trail from one point to another rather than walking in, then walking back. Fortunately Annie was a really good sport and agreed to pick me up at the end and take me back to my car.

First, an apology for the quality of these pictures. My "hiking camera" barely works. The screen went out on it sometime last year so I can't see the pictures until I get home. I usually take 2 or 3 pictures of everything to try to make sure at least one comes out. The picture below definitely did not come out, but I wanted to point something out in it.

It's hard to see, but there's a little lock box to the left of the bridge. I believe it's a wildlife camera. There were picture of animals attached to the bridge that the camera had taken. It was pretty cool to see. I wonder if that means there's a picture of me too?

The temple got closer and closer. It was a little weird that it was still so far away.

There were more bridges. It was really nice to have the bridges. It would have been nicer if there had been a lot of water for the bridges to bridge, but nice anyway.

I think this bridge was in the Corner Canyon area. I'll definitely have to return to Corner Canyon. This was my first time there (that I remember).

Finally, after 2 hours, 5 miles, a total elevation gain of 1,200' (overall elevation gain of 36'), and an extra 20 pounds on my back, I arrived at the Draper temple just a few minutes before Annie did. My early arrival allowed me time to empty the stupid rocks out of my shoes again. It was a great hike; one that I will definitely do again.