Clayton Peak (Mount Majestic)

Last Thursday I went for a quick hike right after work. Well, a "quick hike" that was 7 miles and took 3 1/2 hours. That's quick, right?

This year the hardest part of my hiking habit has been picking the right place to go. Last year I hiked a lot of the trails that I've wanted to hike for years, so I've had to do more research to find hikes that fit my hiking style.

Whenever I'm not sure where to go, I start my search in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Since it has been so hot lately I wanted to head somewhere high up the canyon, so I ended up at Brighton, right at the top of the canyon.

I took the Lake Mary trail to the junction with Dog Lake about 2/3 of a mile up the trail...

Then took the fork to Clayton Peak about 100 feet from the first junction. 

The Clayton Peak trail heads East from Dog Lake and crosses a ton of ski slopes. It was neat to be in the trees for awhile, and then pop out onto a ski slope and have incredible views of the canyon. And every now and then I passed under the chair lifts.

The trail was in great shape the whole 3 miles to the top. In fact, from the descriptions I'd read about the trail, I thought there would be a lot more rock hopping toward the top. The trail went right to the top, but it got pretty steep the last half mile or so.

The above picture is the first good view I got of Clayton Peak. You can see a road a few hundred feet below the top, and a ski lift off to the left side. 

One of the concerns I had on this hike was the afternoons thunderstorms we've been having the last couple weeks. The clouds spit on me a bit most of the way up, but I wouldn't even classify the precipitation as "sprinkles". I was on the lookout for lightning the whole time, too. Annie was a bit nervous about the possibility of lightning (I guess I was too) but I reassured her that I'd turn around at the first sign of lightning.

After about 2.25 miles the trail arrives at Snake Creek Pass, and from there you climb another 750 vertical feet over .75 miles. That's a little misleading, though. You hike half that distance on a pretty flat road, then climb 750' over .30 miles or so. It's steep. It's a climb. If you don't feel up to climbing to the peak, the views are still just about as good from Snake Creek Pass.

On the last climb the trail stays on the West side of the ridge about halfway up, then at a certain point it shifts over to the East. It's really easy to miss the shift, though, because the trail seems to continue up the West side. Look for the cairn pictured above to know when to switch over to the East side of the ridge.

I was getting a little concerned near the peak. There were clouds flying across the sky all over, many of them dropping tons of rain. The wind also picked up and knocked me off my feet a couple times. I still didn't see any lightning, though. At the top there's a nice little mailbox wedged into the rocks with some notebooks in there so you can sign in. Apparently a lot of people like to leave granola bar wrappers in it. I guess the .01 ounces is too much weight to carry downhill. Whatever.

I was rewarded for my effort with some amazing views. I could see all the way to Mount Timpanogos to the South, down into the Heber Valley to the East, and all of Big Cottonwood Canyon to the West. When I got to the peak I saw my first glimpses of the sun. It started peaking out from behind the clouds creating beautiful shadows on all the mountains all around.

I lost count of all the lakes I could see from the peak. I could see Lake Mary, Twin Lakes, Silver Lake, Lackawaxen Lake, Bloods Lake, and Lake Brimhall. There could have been others, too, but it was hard to tell with the shadows.

On the way down the wind stopped, the rain stopped, and the mosquitoes went away. I was feeling so good and moving so fast that I decided to take the short detour to Dog Lake.

Then I took the long detour to Lake Mary, just to make sure it was still there. It was, and it still looks great.

In all, I hiked almost exactly 7 miles and climbed 2400 feet in 3.5 hours. Not a bad little hike for a weeknight.

Dog Lake Counter-Clockwise

Last week I hiked up Butler Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon to Mill A, and eventually on to Dog Lake, descending back down via the Mill D North trail. Today I hiked to Dog Lake from Mill D North and came back down Butler Fork. Aside from being essentially the same hike done in opposite directions, the two hikes were completely different.

Last week I drove up the canyon after work and had to hurry to get back to the car before it got too dark. Today I started early in the morning (about 6:00) and had most of the day to enjoy the scenery. Last week I went alone, and this week I went with my neighbor and his two sons.

It was a beautiful hike again, just like last week. It was interesting to see it all from the other direction.

It was also interesting to see everything in the morning rather than the evening. The lighting was completely different.

After arriving at the lake we decided to try to get up to Little Water Peak. I'd heard that there's no real trail, but I figured there would be at least a game trail we could follow and that it wouldn't be too hard to get up there. After 30 minutes--and only making it about 1/4 of the way to the peak, we gave up and headed back.

On our way back to the lake we found some great views of Millcreek Canyon. 

To get back to the car we decided to go down the Butler Fork trail to see something new. It's boring to head back down the same way. In a change from last week, though, we went straight down Butler Fork Canyon rather than contouring 3 miles around to the Mill A Basin. 

There weren't very many other people on the trail when we started, but it sure got busy by the time we headed back. Fortunately the Butler Fork trail was a lot less traveled than the Mill D trail (probably because it's so steep!).

We had great views all the way down to the road, then hiked up the street a half mile or whatever it was back to the car. I greatly preferred doing that part of the hike in the clockwise direction last week. This time I had to go uphill to get to the car.

In all, I hiked 6 miles on trails plus whatever it was on the road, and climbed about 2200 feet. So far this year I've hiked 35.8 miles in 8 hikes. I'll need to step it up to beat last year's total.

Bells Canyon - The Other Way

Wow. Two hikes in two days. This year is starting off great!

Annie was meeting some people for lunch (and taking Sydney along) so that left Titan and I free to hit the hills. We decided to head up Bell(s) Canyon, just to the lower reservoir. Last year we went up as a family on Memorial Day, along with everyone else in the valley. This year there weren't nearly as many people, but it was still a pretty popular place to be.

Last year we started at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon and hiked up from there. This year we parked at the parking lot on Wasatch Blvd (that I had seen last night trying to find the lot for Rocky Mouth). It was a very different trail. I'm not sure which I preferred.

Wait, yes I am. I preferred the Little Cottonwood trail. This one was very steep in places and there were a few places where it was really hard to keep your footing. I saw multiple people slip and fall.

There was a particularly difficult spot where my water bottle popped out of the pack and bounced thirty feet down the nearly vertical trail. Fortunately there were some nice people behind me that brought it back up to me.

Titan did fantastic in the carrier. He didn't have any freak-outs like last year. We talked most of the way up and down. He thinks that every body of water is a "tubby", and would point out all the tubbies he saw. He was also excited to see the little patches of snow here and there.

I look really worn out in the above picture, which is funny because that was taken after our 20 minute rest at the top just before we headed back down.

I think the trail was about as long as the Little Cottonwood trail; right about .75 miles, give or take a mile. The water level was really low, but it was a great little hike. I think Titan especially enjoyed it. He loves to be outside.

We drank some gatorade (Titan drank from his sippy cup) and ate some Clif bars at the lake. We rested about 20 minutes, I gave directions to a surprising number of people coming up the trail (good thing I know my way around), and we headed back down to the car.

It was another beautiful day for a short hike, even if I had an extra 35 pounds to carry (Titan's a LOT heavier than last year). I'd recommend a trip up to Bells Canyon Reservoir to anyone; I'd just recommend going up the other way.