Porcupine Reservoir Kokanee Salmon Run

Saturday evening we drove up to Bear Lake to enjoy the Labor Day weekend.  On the way we stopped at Porcupine Reservoir to see the kokanee salmon spawning.  As we drove up the canyon, a rainbow played peek-a-boo with us in the rapidly fading light. 

The kokanee salmon make their spawning run every September.  They turn bright red, then head upstream to spawn.  The Utah DWR has implemented restrictions to protect them, closing to fishing the tributaries they spawn in from August 15 to September 30.  

At the top of the reservoir, we ran down the hill to the East Fork of the Little Bear River.  Bingo!  The peak of the spawn is usually mid-September, so we were pretty excited to see the little red salmon already in the creek. 

The light was fading fast, but we got a few mediocre pictures.  Most of the fish were about 12 inches long.   We walked up and down the bank looking for fish until it was too dark to see.  I'm glad we made this stop! 

Nearest City: Avon, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed:
Difficulty:
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: Kokanee Salmon Info

High Creek Trilobites

We had another great getaway this past weekend.  I've been wanting to go find some northern Utah trilobites.  There are two spots I know of that would work- the Wellsville Mountains, and High Creek.  Since the Wellsville Mountains involve a hike of over 1000 vertical feet to get to where the fossils are, I decided to look at High Creek a little more closely.  I talked with Dave Liddell at the USU Geology Department and he told me that it's not a long or difficult hike to get to the shale layers up High Creek Canyon.  Done and done- we're going to High Creek! 

We drove up through Logan and most of Cache Valley on the way to Richmond, then just up from Richmond to High Creek Canyon.  There's a small forest service run campground in the canyon, and plentiful primitive sites along the road.  We found a nice site in a grove of maple trees, set up camp, and cooked dinner. This would be especially beautiful in the fall.  After watching the fire and looking at the stars, it was time for bed. 

Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed out to find fossils!  The shale is high on the ridge between the north and south forks of High Creek.  We took the North Fork trail, crossed the creek and fence, then hiked up the ridge.  After climbing a small sub-peak, we went down into a saddle, where just on the other side were some diggings and trilobite quarries.  

We actually found quite a few trilobites on the waste rock from the pits.  They're not big, and probably fairly common varieties, but they sure are fun to find!  We spent 2-3 hours just looking and finding the little treasures! 

After the hike back, we got back to camp and I went down to High Creek with one of the kids to go fishing and play in the water.  The water was really clear, and after missing two fish, it was time to play.  We spent an hour or so throwing rocks, wading, and having a relaxing afternoon. 

Nearest City: Richmond, UT
Location: N 41°  58.609 W 111° 42.065
Time Needed: at least half a day
Difficulty: Moderate/Strenuous due to route finding and elevation gain
Kid Friendly: generally
Additional Info:

Canoeing the Wetlands Maze at Cutler Marsh

Saturday we took the canoe up to Cutler Marsh.  We planned our trip earlier in the week to coincide with helping on a move that would be up that way.  On Friday we learned that the move was postponed, but we decided to go to Cache Valley anyway.

We put the canoe in at the boatramp at the Cutler Marsh Marina.  It's not much of a marina, in fact it's just a boat ramp with a dock alongside.  The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.  The water is pretty still, but flows with an almost imperceptible current.  It's still early in the year so there were no mosquitos and the swamp grasses and cattails were still small.  Later in the year it would be really pretty with the green grasses.

We canoed around and enjoyed the water and gentle breeze.  The peace was shattered as we approached a small island and a small flock of American Avocets exploded into the air.  They flew around anxious at our approach.  Zooming in with the camera, we picked out several nests with eggs. and one with a recently hatched chick. 

We left the area to avoid disturbing the nesting birds further and watched from a distance as they returned to watch over their nests and young. 

It was a great day to be on the water.  Several other birds were fun to watch as they flitted over the water, diving occasionally at a fish or other tasty creature down below.  In the shallower spots, we watched the wakes left behind by startled carp as they swam for safety. 

The Cutler Marsh is a fun place to float a canoe.  I'd be interested in coming back to canoe down the Little Bear River or Logan River from a higher access point and spend more time going through the maze. 

Nearest City: Logan, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: Varies
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info:  http://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org/wetlandsmaze/

Elk Watching at Hardware Ranch

The last weekend in January we went up to the Hardware Ranch.  The Utah DWR feeds the elk there every winter to keep them from wandering down to Cache Valley and munching on crops and gardens there.  It's about 60 miles from Ogden, or 2 hours from Salt Lake City. 

We enjoyed looking at the elk and were glad to see several bigger bulls among them.  The week before there were only a few spikes with the herd.  I forgot to bring cash, so we didn't go on the wagon ride and had to watch them from the road instead. 

The visitor center had several exhibits, including a full body mount of a bull elk, animal skins from several different native species, and a footprint stamping area for kids. The kids really loved feeling the fur of the different animals and pressing the stamps for different footprints on a paper to bring home. 

I had a good time, but going on that wagon ride sure would have been fun!

Nearest City: Hyrum, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed:
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: Utah Division of Wildlife Hardware Ranch Website  Wagon rides out into the elk herd cost $5/adult and $3/kid.  They don't take credit cards.

Tony Grove

A few weeks ago when we went camping up Logan Canyon, we visited Tony Grove for an afternoon.  It's a nice, but very popular, lake up Logan  Canyon.  We had a picnic, then went for a walk around the lake. 

There were tons of wildflowers scattered across the hillsides.  We enjoyed the walk and stopped several times to throw rocks into the lake. 

Near the parking lot, one of the signs indicated that there are fossils in the area.  We kept a keen lookout for fossils as we hiked around the lake.  Most of the search was uneventful.  We hit a jackpot near the above sign.  If you find this sign, you can find fossils at Tony Grove.

Just north of the sign were several large boulders of pipe coral and horn coral fossils.  We enjoyed looking at and taking pictures of the fossils, but left them for others to enjoy.  Good luck!

Nearest City: Logan, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: Varies
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: There is a $5 parking fee. 

Spring Hollow Fossils

We stopped at Spring Hollow to go rockhounding.  It's a pretty accessible spot low down in Logan Canyon.  There's a campground at the mouth of the hollow, but it's not marked very well.  A book we've got said that it's a very good spot to look for fossils, so we thought we would check it out.  

We parked in the parking lot on the south side of the river.  There were a few fishermen and others about, so I walked over to the signboard to see if it listed the Spring Hollow Trail.  It didn't.  We wandered up the road anyway.  Fortunately, at the turnoff to the group campsites, a sign indicated that the to follow the road up past the group sites and the trail would begin at the end of the road. 

The folks in Group Site B were cooking breakfast as we hiked by.  We waved and kept on going.  The trailhead started at a small bridge that crossed the creek.  Soon after, the trail got steep quite quickly.  The book said that the fossils were about 1/2 mile up, but about 1/4 mile past the bridge we spotted a few in the rocks beside the trail.  We kept hiking.  Soon, we reached a spot where the vegetation cleared back from the trail a little bit, and a lot of the area was covered in rockslides.  We hiked 50 feet off the trail, then started looking.  

It was a bonanza!  There were fossils all over the place!  We found horn coral, pipe coral, shells, crinoid stem segments, etc.  As we scoured the area, we began noticing a trend.  The lighter gray limestone had a lot of fossils, while the darker greyish-brown rock didn't have any fossils.  We looked for a while, frequently calling the other over to check out our latest and greatest fossil find.  Pretty soon, we gathered the fossils, then sat down and decided to weed them out and only bring the best ones home.  We came home with some pretty good looking fossils.  I'm sure if we spent more time we could have found even better ones.

Nearest City: Logan, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 1.5 hours
Difficulty: Moderate
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info:

Camping up Logan Canyon

Logan Canyon has quite a few recreational opportunities.  We took advantage of the camping in one of the side canyons up there.  Typically when I go camping, I like to avoid camping in established campgrounds.  The ones up Logan Canyon were running about $17/night; a bit on the steep side in my opinion.  It doesn't make sense to me to pay that much money for a water tap, stinky pit toilets, neighbors, and walls thinner than those of a cheap hotel.  I'll go for the dispersed camping anyday!

We found an amazing little campsite, just far enough up a side canyon and far enough off the road that we enjoyed a fair amount of solitude.  It was a great little site. I think that's what a scout troop thought too- they drove by several times, slowing down each time to verify that we were still there.  

We went for a little walk and found a small pond full of salamanders.  Most of them still had their gills, but a few were grown enough that the gills had disappeared.  They were a blast to catch.  We spent a while catching salamanders, then letting them go. 

In the mud on the bank we saw footprints from a large bird that also liked to catch the salamanders.  I think it was most likely a sandhill crane that was chowing down on the salamanders.  We heard and snuck up on 3 cranes nearby.  They flew off pretty quickly, but were back again in the morning. 

Nearest City: Logan, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed:
Difficulty:
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

Ricks Spring Cave

This past weekend we had some family business up in Logan, so we decided to make an extended visit by doing some running around up Logan Canyon beforehand.  Ricks Spring was one of the little stops we made along the way. 

The spring is just off of Highway 89, about halfway between Logan and Bear Lake.  We've stopped there a handful of times before.  I think just about everybody that's been up Logan Canyon has stopped at Ricks Spring some time or another.  The spring is fun to look at, but there's also a cave at Ricks Spring! 

The cave is just to the left of the spring, and isn't very deep- maybe 25 feet or so.  It's fun to go into though, just so you can turn around and go back out. 

Actually, there are two caves at Ricks Spring.  The other cave is the spring itself.  Some of the water comes from the Logan River, and other sources have been shown to be higher up toward Tony Grove, but basically, the spring is a cave.  It takes diving gear and highly technical cave-diving experience, but it is possible to make it through the spring into a cavern beyond.  So far over 2000 feet has been explored, with more possible.  It sounds cool, but I think that's one cave I probably never will explore.  For more info on the cave diving at Ricks Spring, check out the Utah Caves Blog and other links posted on there. 

While standing and looking at the spring, I looked up at the walls of the small alcove it's in and noticed some old names on the wall.  They looked like they were of some early visitors applied in wagon grease. 

Nearest City: Logan, UT
Location: N 41° 50.405 W 111° 35.330
Time Needed: 15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Generally
Additional Info: 

Logan Canyon Wind Caves

Christmas Eve brought us up to Logan. Fortunately, the festivities were later in the day so we could get in a good hike. I'd heard of the Wind Caves several times, but had never been there. That was about to change. There was only 1 car at the trailhead when we arrived in late morning. I was surprised. Frankly, the Wind Caves are the only destination I've heard of between Logan and Bear Lake, other than Rick's Spring. Two signs at the trailhead gave contradicting information- one indicated 1.3 miles to the caves, the other 1.8 miles. Once we got on the trail, I was further surprised at how little use the trail had seen since the last snow a week or so before.

The Wind Caves are not actually caves, but instead are a series of arches in the limestone high on the side of Logan Canyon. We gained about 900 feet in the hike to the caves.

At the top, looking at the arches and alcoves was pretty cool. It's a worthwhile destination. After spending about 20 minutes or so looking around, we headed back down the trail. We had a Christmas party to get to.

Nearest City: Logan, UT

GPS Coordinates:

Time Needed: We made it in 1 hour and 45 minutes, round trip.

Difficulty: Moderately easy.

Kid Friendly:

Additional Info: