ferguson canyon hike

Saturday was fairly sunny and warmer than it's been (low 60s, and extremely pleasant in the sun) and we took advantage of it.  First, H and I decided it was time to attack the back yard such that it is: it isn't big but it's a mess, (less than) half-tended flower beds and scraggly paths.  While I pulled weeds and planted sage, Greek oregano, jalapeno peppers and tomatillos (the tomatoes and beans will be coddled inside for another week), H reset and reraked the path, and cleared the bulk of the mess - all by hand since we don't have a rototiller.  We'll keep plugging away at it but will go forward in sections, as we figure out what should go where.

After all that work, we decided to reward ourselves with a hike up Ferguson Canyon, a "little-known retreat near residential areas where you can find yourself in a secluded wilderness setting just minutes from the city" (from 60 Hikes within 60 Miles by Greg Witt).  We discovered that this canyon is more discovered than ol' Greg Witt may think, but it's still wicked cool to have these hikes basically in our backyard.

Ferguson Canyon is directly south of Big Cottonwood Canyon and while there are no dramatic waterfalls, you do hike up along a gushing (at least at this time of year) creek.  There were lots of golden columbine and other woodlands wildflowers at the start - I love the wildflowers out here.  Soon enough big granite slabs rose up on either side of the creek, festooned with rock climbers on belay.

This is NOT me

Our book told us that the hike was a 3.4 mile roundtrip out-and-back that stayed within the canyon with no fabulous overlooks.  But we kept following the creek up, and then started climbing switchbacks on the dry northern wall of the canyon, soon gaining some decent vertical and finding ourselves a darn good view of the valley all the way out to the Great Salt Lake.  Although the trail kept on going, we turned around there after admiring the scenery.

Pretty decent for having "no view"

Ferguson Canyon is not my favorite hike of all the ones we've done - the footing is rough: really rocky for most of the way down in the canyon and then dry and loose up on the switchbacks - but it was fun to watch the rock climbers and in the summer, this will be a cool place to walk with all the tall, shade-giving trees along the creek.

H above the snow line in Ferguson Canyon