stansbury island trail

With the wet and cold spring (what spring?) and extra-deep snowpack, our northern Utah hiking options are somewhat limited*.  But H found us a pretty good one - and one we hadn't done yet: the Stansbury Island Trail.  All told it was a 10.2 mile loop which we did in 3:16 walking (plus 0:39 minutes' worth of stops); the highest point on the trail was just 4,974', which was just 619' above the trailhead, and our total elevation gain (all the cumulative ups) was 1,140'.  Can you tell we got a new GPS?  Lots of data to play with!

Looking south into the Rush Valley

over the salt evaporation ponds

Stansbury Island is located about 37 miles west of SLC, right off I-80.  It's not technically an island since you can drive out to it, passing innumerable salt evaporation ponds run by Morton, Cargill and other salt companies, and it's part of the Stansbury Mountain range.  The cool thing about this hike is that once you climb up to the high point, you just follow the ancient Bonneville shoreline around the island: 15,000 years ago, the enormous Lake Bonneville that covered most of northern Utah was at about 5,200 feet.  The lake's shoreline left the "bench" along the Wasatch Front.  When the lake suddenly drained 500 years later, the lower shoreline, called the Provo Shoreline, at about 4,840', is what's found on Stansbury Island.  The Stansbury Island Trail traipses along this shoreline, winding in and out of several canyons, and working its way from the western side of the island to the eastern, skirting the southern edge.  The views of the Stansbury Mountains, the Rush Valley, the Oquirrhs and the Wasatch range were fantastic.

Tabbys Canyon

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, seeing just one guy on the trail and a couple of redneck MTBers at the finish (and not counting a bunch of guys shootin' guns into the gravel pits at the south end of the island).  The walk is pretty easy: the only up is right at the start, and the footing on the trail is either hardpack dirt or rock.  The strenuousness comes from the length of the trail and the fact that there is no shade at all.  Usually by June the vegetation is dry and crispy; because of our wet spring, the grasses were still green and the wildflowers were out, but it did get hot.

H on the bench

We found one tree near the trail to have our lunch under, at about 5.4 miles into the hike.  I had wanted to go back the way we came, thinking that descending to lake level and walking back on the jeep roads (which is the return bit of the loop) would be (1) hot, (2) buggy and (3) too close to the shooters for comfort.  H pointed out that we needed to minimize our time in the sun and walking back on the jeep roads would be quicker than following the trail in and out of the canyons.  So down we went, blowing on our whistles to let the gunmen know we were approaching (and we weren't really that close nor anywhere near their line of fire).  But I was right: it was very hot down at lake level and out of the breeze, and those little biting gnats got pretty bad for about a quarter-mile stretch.  (By the end of it, I ended up with several itchy bites and H looked like a poppyseed bagel with all the gnats stuck in the sunscreen and dried sweat on his face.)

Art shot!

Although our guidebook said the jeep roads were intuitive and would lead right back to the trailhead, they seemed to peter out and we slogged for a little over a mile on the main road (which is still dirt, so it's not that main of a road).  We saw a group of four or five jackrabbits - big bunnies - cross the road ahead of us and that was the only mammal sighting of the day.  It felt really good to get our boots off when we got back to the car and even though it was in the high 80s when we quit, the cooler managed to keep the PBRs cold enough to be palatable.

I don't think we'd count this as one of our favorite hikes, what with the road-walking, and I think it would be more fun in the fall when it's cooler and less buggy, and perhaps mid-week might bring fewer shooters.  But I don't think many people ever do that hike, so that makes it kind of special, and it was a good start to the hiking season.

* although a few more 85-90 degree days like Sunday should get the snow melting but good.