Ogden Canyon

Last Saturday, April 5, Wayne and I took advantage of a beautiful day, and after managing our chores, we set out in the Prius to visit Ogden and hike along the Ogden river.

The trip to Ogden was uneventful and traffic flowed smoothly on I-15. We found our turn easily. It was the last of 4 exits for Ogden. I had been searching out my window for something to distinguish this city from any of the other northern suburb/cities of Salt Lake City.

But there was no difference that I could see from the freeway. Just houses, businesses and strip malls running parallel to the mountain range on the east, the Wasatch mountains that define the valley. (There is an old main street that has been restored for tourists but we couldn't see it on this trip.)

As we drove east, I could see large homes built above the city, clinging to the side of the mountain, and could imagine the gorgeous view of the city and the Great Salt Lake beyond which those owners had built for themselves. All the cities in the valley north of SLC are hemmed in by the Wasatch mountains to the east and the Great Salt lake to the west.

We were looking for a 3 mile long paved trail along the Ogden river, but when we found it, it was more like a city park than the hike we were hoping for, so we traveled further up the canyon. As we were driving, Wayne commented that we had been here before. Sure enough this was the road we took from our camping site on the Great Salt lake to the Heinrich family reunion in Huntsville Ut in 2002.

We stopped at one of the many National Forest campgrounds along the highway (that was still closed for winter) and hiked around a little taking a few pictures of the creek and the snow.

When we reached Huntsville, we decided to go on as signs were posted that the road closed in 15 miles. We had driven over that pass on our way home 6 years ago and we were curious to see it in winter.

The drive up through the mountains was gorgeous, the road climbing and turning up through the canyon. We passed turn-offs for Wolf Mountain and Snowbasin ski resorts. The road was narrow with snow still piled high on either side and fewer and fewer homes. (Although we did pass a number of new buildings, not yet completed. It seemed as though people were converting vacation cabins into year-round retirement homes)

Just before the road ended abruptly in a pile of snow, we came out onto a large plateau. The deep snow was carved with snowmobile tracks. Two large parking lot areas had been plowed on either side of the highway. Here were parked a few pick-up trucks pulling snowmobile trailers. (We had passed many such vehicles on our ride up the canyon.)

Signs told that the highway was closed for the next 65 miles. Another large parking area was on the east side of the pass. In between were listed more than 15 destinations that snowmobilers could travel to with posted mileage. Or you could stay close and just create your own trails up and down the mountain ridges surrounding this plateau as the many tracks proved. (Wayne's favorite was this machine- some kind of homemade snowmobile!)

We backed the Prius around, staying on the plowed road, and headed west, back down the canyon. We could feel the temperature warm up as we drove, and by the time we passed the Pineview Reservoir at Huntsville, most of the snow along the highway was gone.

We stopped to look at a waterfall of melting snow and found a trail along the river which we followed until it ended at private property.

We retraced our steps, enjoying the noise of the tumbling river and appreciating our walking sticks which gave us one more balancing point as we crossed the uneven terrain.

We stopped to take pictures of the imprompto waterfall at the end of our hike.

By the time we climbed back into our car, we felt comfortably tired and ready to return home, so we skipped the paved trail in town and just headed home to a nice dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and a movie.