Emigration Canyon Crinoid Stars

A few months ago I picked up this book for A's birthday present.  It's been an awesome book.  You can find it on Amazon.com, but it's cheaper to get it from the Utah Geological Survey Bookstore.  One of the sites in it is this one at the top of Emigration Canyon. 

The book says to park at the top, walk past the gate to the south, then follow the road for a hundred yards or so. At that point, look for rock outcroppings. 

We had better success immediately dropping to the old road, which is below the gated new road.  Then we followed it along as we looked for the fossils.  It took us quite a while to find one, but once we did we found a lot of them.  They aren't very big, only about 1/4 inch across. 

After finding the first one, it seemed like they were everywhere!  We found one rock with several of the fossils embedded in it to bring home.  We left a lot of them there for others to go find. 

Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 30 min.
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly:  Yes
Additional Info:

Stagecoach Inn State Park

The last stop on our loop of the Oquirrh Mountains was Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park.  It was dinner time, so we stopped for a picnic on the grass. 

I found the history of the area fascinating.  Camp Floyd used to be one of the largest cities in Utah.  It was a stop on the Pony Express Trail.  It also was evacuated at the start of the Civil War, with $4 million worth of goods being sold for $100,000.  The name also was changed to Camp Crittenden because Floyd aligned himself with the Confederates instead of the Union. 

It also was a major stop on the trail west.  Mark Twain stopped here, as did many others.  One of the fascinating events deals with a peculiar hole on the wall.  A guest found out that cleaning a loaded gun is not the best way to do things.  Fortunately nobody was killed, but I'm sure a few were a bit shaken. 

There is also the old schoolhouse that is part of the state park. We stopped by, looked around, and wondered if we pulled the rope the bell would ring. 

The final stop was the Camp Floyd Cemetary.  We had it all to ourselves.  We were amazed at how many people were buried there. 

The historical monument across the street from the inn is an interesting read.  It is made of original stones from the camp, as well as some with petroglyphs from the Five Mile Pass area. 

Nearest City: Fairfield, UT

Location: N° W°

Time Needed: 90 minutes

Difficulty:

Kid Friendly:

Additional Info: $2 per adult

Ophir

Ophir is a sweet little town.  It used to be a near ghost town, but has had a recent rediscovery and is coming back to life.  There are numerous ruins, relics, and old mining traces in the canyon.  The overwhelming majority are privately owned. 

Word on the street is the owners aren't too keen on people poking around their property without permission, so if you do go up and intend to look around, ask first! 

We saw several caved in cabins back in the brush. 

Downtown Ophir has a small museum & visitor parking area.  It was fun to look at the old buildings.  It actually reminded us of the "Million Dollar Highway" area of Colorado. 

We noticed some pretty cool hexagonal crystals in a few small rocks in the visitor area.  I couldn't resist taking a close-up. 

Apparently some areas are open to rockhounding, if you recieve permission beforehand.  We found a ragged sign with contact information for the area on the north side of Main Street.  It would be fun to come back and spend more time.  Our visit was spur of the moment, so we didn't know everything to see & do, but we definitely want to come back and spend more time at this outdoor museum.

Nearest City: Ophir, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed:
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Kid Friendly:

Additional Info:

Killyon Canyon

Killyon Canyon is in my opinion one of the hidden gems of the Wasatch Mountains.  It's a pretty hike, close to downtown, yet uncrowded.   I think part of the reason it's so peaceful is that finding the trailhead can be deceptive.  It's at the end of one of the side roads up Emigration Canyon, but the road looks a lot like somebody's driveway.  I found Killyon Canyon 5-6 years ago when I was at the U.  The March before I graduated, I took a certain young lady hiking there on a first date.  Several months later on another hike there I asked her to marry me.  Four years later it's still the best thing I've ever done. 

There's space at the trailhead for 4-5 cars, but the most I've ever seen is 3, including my car.  The trail parallels the stream up the canyon and crosses it a few times.  Most of the time the stream is out of sight in the trees and brush.  Just before the first stream crossing there's a huge conglomorate boulder right next to

the trail.  We always wonder how that boulder got there since there are no other rocks nearby.

Somebody has done a nice job by placing two bridges at the stream crossings. 

Further up the canyon, we found another recent development.  There's been a small landslide into the creek that's taken out part of the trail.  I'm pretty sure the landslide happened within the past week or so because it's been such a wet year.  I looked closely at the slide and the edges, and they aren't worn down at all.  A new trail around the slide area hasn't been trampled down either. 

 We went up to about where the trail splits.  At the intersection you can head left up a small side canyon, or continue on toward East Canyon, Affleck Park, or Lookout Peak. 

We enjoyed a picnic, then wandered back down the canyon.  We enjoyed the flowers and the aspens that were just beginning to turn green.  For me there are lots of happy memories in Killyon Canyon.  I'll be back again.

Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 1 hour+
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info:

Rocky Mouth Waterfall

Last week we made a trip down to the south end of the Salt Lake Valley.  Someone was getting rid of a bunch of hiking books and maps, and being the fanatic I am, I wasn't going to let anyone else get them.  It certainly helped that they were free.  After I got home, I tallied it up and there was about $200 worth of books and maps in the pile, talk about a major haul!  I've had a blast looking over the maps & going through the books planning more fun adventues.  Unfortunately, it's been rainy for the past several days and the snowpack in the mountains is still high.  I just have to tell myself that my time will come. 

While we were down in the area, we wanted to revisit Rocky Mouth Waterfall.  My wife and I had visited it just after we were married 4 years ago. (Actually, I think it would be fun to rappel down the waterfall, but that's for another day).  We were glad to see a new parking area just off of Wasatch Boulevard so we didn't have to park at the church like we did before. We had the small lot (6-8 cars) to ourselves.  We had a small picnic, then started hiking. 

The falls are behind a residential area with huge houses.  We hiked past the houses and up the hill, turned a corner and were out of sight. We picked our way through several trees, then the saw the falls.  The falls were much more active on this visit.    I think the last one was in late fall. 

It was really cool too to see the mosses and vegetation that grow into the rocks near the base of the falls to take advantage of the spray. 

On the hike back, we saw the remains of an old mine nearby.  It has been sealed off.  Who knows how deep it was or what they were after!  I can't help but speculate that it was probably just a prospect hole.  It was nice to see how much effort had been taken to remove the graffiti and litter in the area.  Four years ago when we visited there were several spray painted boulders and trees.  This time, it was mostly gone.

Nearest City: Sandy, UT
Location: about 11200 South, Wasatch Boulevard
Parking area N 40° 32.829 W 111° 48.386
Trailhead N 40° 32.721 W 111° 48.310
Waterfall N 40° 32.596 W 111° 48.231
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: Awesome little hike.  Round trip from the parking area is just under 3/4 mile

Cephalopod Gulch

After our failed attempt a few weeks ago, I decided to talk to a geology professor at the U of U before heading back up to Cephalopod Gulch to look for fossils. 

After confirming that there are still fossils up above the U, he added "There are still excellent exposures, but they are deeply set into large outcrops and essentially uncollectible - nor should these be collected, as they are an excellent resource for our students.  You will be able to find some decent fragments in float, but there's just not much left.  The "new" Huntsman excavations have been completely picked over."

We hiked up Cephalopod Gulch on Wednesday night (after parking at the U was free) and found some fossils, but as Dr Dinter had noted, they were uncollectable.  The fossils were embedded sideways in large limestone outcroppings and any attempts to remove them would take a whole lot of work and basically destroy them.  We looked and took pictures. 

We enjoyed scrambling across the hillside looking for the oblong marks of the fossils.  I looked and looked for a side view of an ammonite, but only found the one in the first picture, and it was in poor shape.  We looked for float pieces that had weathered free, but didn't find any. 

There still are fossils in Cephalopod Gulch, but if you go looking, please leave them there for others to also find and enjoy! 

Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
Location: N 40° 46.587 W 111° 49.871  I will remove the coordinates if I hear of any destruction to the sites or attempts to  remove embedded fossils!
Time Needed: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: Moderate
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

Timpie Springs

After wandering around Stansbury Island, I wanted to drive a little further west to see Timpie Springs.  We took the Rowley exit then followed the signs to the WMA. 

There wasn't much there at all, but there were a lot of birds, and several of them looked like they were nesting out on an island. 

There were a few hiking trails out among the springs & ponds, but we didn't want to risk the bugs, & since the little one was asleep in the back seat, we took a few pictures and continued on our way.

Nearest City: Grantsville, UT

Location: N 40° 44.902 W 112° 39.137
Time Needed:
Difficulty:
Kid Friendly:
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Camping and Pictographs on Stansbury Island

Large number of pictures alert!  The pictures are in the reverse order of what we actually experienced, so I'll break this down into 3 parts that more or less correlate with the pictures. 

We thought this picture was appropriate since it was Mothers Day on Sunday.

I had heard several times that there were petroglyphs on Stansbury Island.  Since I'm always looking for somewhat obscure and out-of-the-way places that are cool to visit, Stansbury Island really appealed to me.  We planned our visit, and since it's an hour drive from the Salt Lake City area, decided that camping would give us more flexibility while out there. 

I searched for any information I could find about camping on Stansbury Island, but all I could find was that it's allowed.  So, armed with the limited information, we set out. 

We didn't find any spectacular campsites on the island, but did find plenty of spots that would work for camping on the south end of the island.  The north end of the island is pretty much private, but there is a public right-of-way that goes to a view area at the north end. 

We drove to the North end first to see what it was like.  It's a beautiful, desolate drive.  The geology of the island is pretty cool.  Once at the north end, we parked to read the sign and to throw some rocks in the lake. 

Shortly after we got out of the car, we were swarmed with gnats and mosquitoes.  We threw a few rocks in the lake, then did our best to beat off the bugs as we ran for the car.   The one thing we didn't pack was bug spray.  I thought it was early enough to beat the bugs, but was wrong.  Painfully wrong.  The gnats were the worst.  They're little and have super itchy bites.  My head still itches 3 days later. 

If you go, be sure to bring bug spray!  We debated about driving back to Tooele to pick some up, but decided not to. 

Instead, we found a campsite away from the lake and set up camp.  The bugs weren't as bad further away from the water. 

After camp was set up, I took a hike up the hill to take some pictures.  After taking several, I wandered back down the hill and turned in for the night. 

The next morning, we got up, boiled water for oatmeal, then set out to find the petroglyphs on the south end of the island.  There's a maze of roads down there, many of them fully drivable with a 2wd/low clearance vehicle.  Some though are definitely better with higher clearance. 

 We drove as close as we felt comfortable, then set out on what would become a 5 mile or so hike. 

The petroglyphs are faint and unspectacular.  But just finding them out here was a treat. 

 We found two separate areas that had them.

The first area had several that looked like snakes, one that looked like a guy, and others that were unintelligible.  They were on a sandstone outcropping. 

 The second area was on a boulder next to a road and had a bighorn sheep, a person, and several lines.

After finding the boulder, we headed back to the car.  We had wanted to hike a peak on the island, but the little one was tired and the bugs were irritating, so we decided to wrap up the visit. 

Nearest City: Grantsville, UT
Locations: Campsite  N 40° 48.665 W 112° 31.280
Outcropping Petroglyphs N 40° 47.324 W 112° 28.819

Boulder Petroglyphs N 40° 48.256 W 112° 28.412

Time Needed: 3 hours to hike to the petroglyphs
Difficulty: Moderate
Kid Friendly: Probably not. Too many bugs, & pretty much no shade. 
Additional Info:  Take Exit 84 and turn North from I-80.  Then pretty much follow the signs to the island.  It's more of a peninsula right now because the lake generally isn't high enough to turn it back into an island.