- Location
- West Bountiful, UT
For our annual spring backpacking trip, Randy, Jared and I decided to return to Salt Creek. We first backpacked it five years ago I think. I have done it once again since then, so this was my third time.
Since we have all done it before and visited all the main attractions at least once already, the theme for this trip was exploring side canyons off the trail and climbing up to ruins we had not visited on previous trips.
Jared and I headed down on Wed. morning in on again off again snow storming most of the way down and met Randy at the Cottonwood turn off the highway in Indian Creek. It was snowing steady as we started up towards the Cathedral butte trail head. We had no hope that it wasn't going to be muddy, we just hoped it wasn't TOO muddy. We definitely needed four wheel drive to get up there.
Once arrived, we pitched a camp near the trail head, in the snow. Hung out in the Jeeps, I cooked a steak, then we all headed off to bed. It was still snowing a bit when we got up and broke camp to don our packs and head down into Salt Creek for three more nights.
The first day, we covered 16 miles with full packs - and would have to return back out the same way, back up to the trail head on top of the mesa. The weather was spotty that first day, and we took shelter in alcoves to wait out a couple of snow squalls. But over all, the weather was great, not too warm, a bit on the cool/cold side - really good hiking weather.
What follows is basically just a picture dump of the next three days exploring in the canyon. Hope you enjoy!
- DAA
Since we have all done it before and visited all the main attractions at least once already, the theme for this trip was exploring side canyons off the trail and climbing up to ruins we had not visited on previous trips.
Jared and I headed down on Wed. morning in on again off again snow storming most of the way down and met Randy at the Cottonwood turn off the highway in Indian Creek. It was snowing steady as we started up towards the Cathedral butte trail head. We had no hope that it wasn't going to be muddy, we just hoped it wasn't TOO muddy. We definitely needed four wheel drive to get up there.
Once arrived, we pitched a camp near the trail head, in the snow. Hung out in the Jeeps, I cooked a steak, then we all headed off to bed. It was still snowing a bit when we got up and broke camp to don our packs and head down into Salt Creek for three more nights.
The first day, we covered 16 miles with full packs - and would have to return back out the same way, back up to the trail head on top of the mesa. The weather was spotty that first day, and we took shelter in alcoves to wait out a couple of snow squalls. But over all, the weather was great, not too warm, a bit on the cool/cold side - really good hiking weather.
What follows is basically just a picture dump of the next three days exploring in the canyon. Hope you enjoy!
- DAA
