bells canyon

It's the weekend: it's sunny and in the high 60s; the lawn needs seeding, the flowerbeds desperately need weeding and you've both come up lame in the knees and hips - what do you do?  You go hiking, of course.  

There's a major hiking/mountain biking trail that runs all along the Wasatch Front - the Bonneville Shoreline Trail - that we'd been wanting to get on, despite not being entirely sure where any access points are, so we got some water and started driving along the eastern bench, looking for trailheads.  We found one just minutes from our house and while it wasn't the Shoreline Trail, it was the trail to Bells Canyon, the canyon just to the south of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  The trailhead is quite swanky, paved with lots of parking spaces, and a nicely landscaped path up through a very nice subdivision. 

Bells Canyon Creek - catch & release only

The trail was quite steep right away but flattened out at the now-drained Bells Canyon reservoir.  There were lots of people clambering on the rocks and sitting in the sun by the shallow remains of the reservoir; we kept going, following the path around the edge, up a jeep trail and then through a gentle, boulder-strewn meadow.  The sun was strong but pleasant and soon we were in some bigger trees, walking alongside the briskly-flowing Bells Canyon Creek.  The crowd soon thinned out and although we met a number of folks on their way down as we went up, this was not a crowded hike by any means.

Where we turned around

It didn't take too long before we found ourselves some snow.  The footing was a little sketchy especially since my hip was screaming at me whenever I had any lateral movement (stupid hip flexors).  But although it was a little slippery - and we kicked ourselves for forgetting our hiking poles - the built-in air conditioning was very nice.  Soon we were far enough into the canyon that dramatic cliffs were looming over us; we looked in vain for mountain goats.

North wall of the canyon

After 1.5 hours the trail started getting pretty steep, we decided that was enough for one day what with the footing and sore joints, figuring we'd check the hiking books back at home to find out what we didn't get to.  What we didn't get to was two waterfalls and a striking isolated lake in a cirque - we have to go back!