big water, little water

What to do, where to hike?  After all the driving we'd done last weekend, to Powder Mountain and the Uintas, we were looking for a hike a little closer to home.  We also wanted something with decent mileage (i.e., at least 8 miles).  We remembered one we'd done in 2016, meandering all over upper Millcreek Canyon, and thought we'd do a modification of that one: up the canyon, across the top and then back down via the historical trail.

Looking over the ridge into Canyons ski resort

It was mostly cloudy and very windy as we drove up to the Little Water trailhead at the very top of Millcreek Canyon.  Because the day was not so nice, we managed to get a parking spot there, even though it was around 9 a.m.; this is a very popular trailhead and oftentimes you have to utilize the overflow lots further down the canyon road.  Not for us this time, even though it was an even-numbered day and the MTBers were in full force.

Fall colors

As we did last time, we took the Old Red Pine Road trail, climbing steadily until we reached the Great Western Trail junction.  We saw just a couple MTBers on our way up and no hikers so we were able to enjoy the smooth, hard-packed trail nearly all to ourselves.  We checked out the view over on the Park City and then continued south on the GWT towards Desolation Lake.  The GWT follows the ridge here and deteriorates into some pretty rocky stretches as times.  We encountered more MTBers here, as well as a few trail runners, and everyone had pretty good trail etiquette.

Steep and dusty descent from the ridge

When we did this before, we had had a lot of trouble finding the historical trail we wanted.  Not so this time - the intervening years have shown this trail quite a lot of use and the turn-off was clearly evident.  It still doesn't get as much usage as the GWT, Little Water and Big Water trails but there were tire tracks in the dust and we did get passed by two MTBers near the end.

This unmarked (and unnamed?) trail is quite steep at the top but once you make your way down off the ridge, it winds its pleasant way through meadows and aspen groves before reconnecting with Big Water/the GWT.  It was a nice walk, made even better by the fact that we were protected from the wind which had been ferocious up on the ridge - the kind of wind that, H remarked, if you were skiing you would have quit early.

H in the meadow

When we left the historical trail, we had another 3+ miles to walk out on Big Water, the GWT and, finally, the Dog Lake trail.  We had to dodge a fair number of MTBers on the GWT and the trail from Dog Lake was steep and dusty.  But it went quickly and we were back at the trailhead soon enough.  The place had filled up, as had the overflow lots, but it was sprinkling a little bit and there weren't too, too many cars circling looking for parking places.  We had quick beers/snacks and then headed home.

Hike stats:  9.37 miles; 3:05 moving time / 3.0 m.p.h., 3:23 overall time / 2.8 m.p.h.; 2,150' of climbing