wasatch

Woke up bright and early on Sunday morning and drove to the Butler Fork Trailhead in Big Cottonwood Canyon to meet a group of hikers at 5:00 am. The group consisted of six hikers from the Wasatch Mountain Club and was led by a gentleman named Sam Grant. Sam had hiked the route the previous...

Tess and I were needing a quick getaway. We tried to hike this loop last week, but we didn't make it in time. Since we didn't make it the week before, we wanted revenge, and we decided to make an overnighter of it. Friday evening before we left, it started to rain. We were questioning if we...

We wanted somewhere close that we could backpack to and stay over night, so we decided on Lake Blanche. The night before leaving we ended up deciding to just hike up there without staying the night due to everyone's concern on how much snow would be up there still. The hike up wasn't too...

I wandered up Mount Olympus yesterday as I begin to get in shape for my Wildcat Ridge hike on the 25th of May. I arrived at the trailhead at approximately 8:30 am with a slight breeze blowing from the east. I've packed my day pack with 3 liters of water (1 frozen), 1 liter of Gatorade , my...

Towards the end of September I wanted to get one more over nighter in before fall set in. My co-worker and I had talked about going backpacking together all year long and we finally decided it was that weekend or it wasn't going to happen. We wanted to head up to the Uintas since he had never...

By the time the middle of December rolled around I was going stir crazy. I had me a case of big city cabin fever. Between a holiday retail job and school I'd not been able to enjoy any of my bread and butter since October, far too long for me. So when a friend of mine mentioned he was free...

I recently had the pleasure of my first visit to the famous Fifth Water hot springs. We had tried to do the hike a week earlier, but thanks to crappy trail guides I found online, we had to come back. The sources I found on the web indicated that with 4WD you can drive all the way to the...

On Christmas day, my wife, Fender, and I decided to snowshoe from Pine Hollow to Tibble Fork (the same route we plan on camping at next week.) We parked one car at Tibble Fork Res, and took the other car to Pine Hollow to begin our trek. We started at 1:30 PM. In the parking lot, we saw a...

My dog, Fender, and I headed up AF Canyon to do some snowshoeing today. Please excuse the poor photos, I'm no pro, and all I had was my cell phone. My goal was to hike from the Pine Hollow trailhead to the summit (via the singletrack) and to return via the road. We started out at Pine hollow...

With all the snow that has been falling, I decided today was a good day to break out my poor, neglected snowshoes and get out and do a little exploring. I've kind of been absent from snow-based recreation the last couple of years due to injury and a general preference for the desert, so this was...

I went hiking near Johnson's Hole in Provo Canyon with my son, Alan, in January of 2011 and we finally found the petroglphys there. Back in Fall of 2005, my neighbor, Don Roberts, and I hiked through the same area looking for them, but couldn't find any. I'd been through the area again several...

Trying out my first TR with the BBCode converter and a new blog I just started (wasatch-will.blogspot.com)... Being my first post of this new blog in which I intend to document what I hope to be many hiking and backpacking adventures throughout Utah's famed Wasatch Mountains, other parts of...

I did a little over-nighter on the Wellsvilles June 28th-29th. I think I was crazy to be hiking in 95 degree weather. The climb to Stewarts pass was a bear, once on top the temps dropped 15 degrees and the hiking to camp was a breeze. The wildflowers on the top ridge were unreal this year. I...

Storms have been pretty rowdy in the Wasatch for the past few days. Much lightning, thunder and rain with a smattering of hail as well. On July 3, my wife and I went for a quick backpack up at Alta. We stayed right on the Baldy ridge between Snowbird and Alta so we had a view of the valley floor...

Did a partial Timp hike for training purposes. Rode bikes from road closure barricade in AF Canyon to Timpanooke Trailhead, then by 10am we hiked in warm weather up the trail. Hit a few small snow patches 10 ft. from trail head, but half mile up it was completely covered. We all had good boots...

Here is a trip report that won't be finished for a couple years (at least), but I think it will be more enjoyable to share as it unfolds rather than write up volumes on it once it is all finished. I have tossed around the idea for a decade or so of hiking the length of the Great Western...

Ok so these are not my pics. Last summer I took my boys hiking up the ridge, straight up from the gaurd shack at Alta, to look over into Big Cottonwood canyon. Its a short hike. Great way to spend a summer afternoon with the boys; way better than sitting around the house and watching the guys...

Great hike for enjoying fall colors in Utah. We started in the neighborhood across and just up the road from the Silver Fork Lodge in Big Cottonwood. Since there is no parking available at this trail head we just parked along side the road and then started walking up through the neighborhood...

I can't believe I grew up in Utah and didn't get to lake blanche until just a few years ago. This is an amazing hike. the scenery all the way up is typical cottonwood canyon beautiful then you get to the top and Lake Blanche, sundial peak, all the granite and waterfalls and lush greenery...It is...

A sunny late summer afternoon hike to Lake Blanche wasn't enough. It had been years since the last time I stood on the airy dizzying summit of the Sun Dial and it beckoned in the afternoon light invitingly. Stopping to smell (photograph) the wildflowers along the way up to the lake proved a good...