The Brigham Fork Mine

Saturday we took a hike to another one of those little-known classics in the Salt Lake area- the Brigham Fork Mine.  I'm not sure if it goes by other names, but the only other one I could think of would be the Pinecrest Mine.  The last time I was up here was 4 years ago, but not much has changed.  It's still a great little hike.

The trailhead is up the Pinecrest fork near the top of Emigration Canyon.  It only holds 4-5 cars and can be easy to miss.  From there, the hike is just under 2 miles to the mine.  Most of it is along an old railroad grade, left from back when there was a railroad up Emigration Canyon.  This spur of the railroad was to some rock quarries, from which the sandstone was used to build homes and other structures down in the valley.

Toward the end of the hike, there's a small dry waterfall on the right of the trail.  In the spring there's a small waterfall, but most of the time the falls are dry.  We did this hike in the summer, but fall is my favorite time to do it when the leaves are changing. 

Maybe a quarter mile past the dry waterfall, the trail leaps across a small creek then has a short steep ascent to a large pine tree where the trail essentially disappears.  There's a few small trails that lead off into the bushes, but none of them really go anywhere. 

If you look around a little bit, and maybe crawl over a few rocks, you'll find the mine.

 It goes back in 200 feet or so, with several small attempts at side passages. 

Usually there is some water inside, but in late fall it's typically dry.  We only went back in about 40 feet this time, but the water was cold enough that I didn't want to carry everybody over.


View Brigham Fork Mine Trail in a larger map


Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 2 1/2 hours
Difficulty: Easy/Moderate
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

Backpacking for Golden Trout in the Wind Rivers

Back in early January I had my annual performance review with my boss.  Part of the performance review includes setting both personal and business goals for the upcoming year.  One of my personal goals was to catch a golden trout.  I've dreamed about it for years, but after 5 trips had ended in failure, it was time to get serious.  So over the winter and early spring, I dreamed and researched.  Books, topo maps, the internet, and a few other sources all fueled the fire.  The best book I found for where to go is John Baughman's Most Complete Guide to Wyoming Fishing.  The best book I found for how to catch them is Flyfishing the Rocky Mountain Backcountry by Rich Osthoff.  With those two books and several topo maps, I finally narrowed my choices to two areas. 

 On a whim, I looked up Rich's Flyshop and called the number.  Rich answered and we had a great conversation. He dropped a tip about a lake that had 5 pound brook trout in it nearby one of the areas.  You don't see 5 lb brookies every day, so that settled it.  Destination set. 

I originally planned to be gone a week in late August, but my wife gave me an easy out.  She said I could go for half a week and not bring her or the kids.  I'd love to bring her, but hauling 2 kids under the age of 3 in addition to all our gear just didn't sound feasible.  If she came, the kids were coming.  When she offered the concession, I jumped on it and called a buddy and after consulting the weather forecast, set the date for July 23-25. 

We drove up Sunday night, with plans to camp at the trailhead and bust in there the next morning.  Signs telling us "No Camping" changed our plans, so we shouldered our packs and hiked in a mile or so to find a campsite.  The next morning we woke up and continued our hike.  The trail was pretty good except for a portion along a gnarly 4-wheel drive road.  

We got to a big lake, took a break, then continued on.  I thought the rotting wood portion of the old dam looked pretty cool.  Through this portion of the hike, we saw several small herds of elk, which spooked as soon as they saw us. 

We hiked on and reached the lower end of our destination lake.  Beautiful!  I couldn't help but think about how the water from this lake flowed to the Atlantic ocean and Gulf of Mexico since we were on the east side of the Continental Divide.  We hiked to the inlet, scouted around a little bit, and found a nice little campsite.  We hurridly set up camp, strung up our fishing poles, then hit the water to catch some fish. 

The first 20 or so fish I caught were brook trout, but then I landed one that wasn't as dark.  Golden Trout.  Success!  My first ever!  It wasn't very big or very bright, but it was a golden!  It was the first of several dozen that I would end up catching in the 3 days we were there. 

We spent the rest of the day fishing the stream above the lower lake.  The higher we got, the brookie numbers declined until all we were catching were golden trout. 

What a beautiful area!  Not as beautiful as some areas in the Northern Winds, but beautiful nonetheless.  Most of the fish preferred royal wulffs on the surface, or a copper john nymph as a dropper.  By the second day, we were looking for other flies to temp the fish with, but we couldn't find others that did the job as well. 

We got to the upper lake and caught a few larger fish.  Goldens as well, but not completely pure.  The guys at the Wyoming Fish & Game said these ones were 98% pure, with the remaining 2% being rainbow.  They weren't as colorful as the stream fish, but they were hard fighters, diving to the depths, the rocketing to the surface for some fantastic jumps.  We fished until nearly dark, then high-tailed it back to camp for dinner and our sleeping bags. 

Tuesday morning, we woke up and after an oatmeal breakfast, we hiked out to look for the big brookies.  We got up to the lake and were nearly blown away by the strong wind.  A half-hour of attempted fishing in the face of strong winds resulted in nothing and there was more winds and storm clouds rolling in.  We turned around and hiked back toward camp. 

Once out of the wind we hiked around, soaking in the beauty, and  continued fishing.  A rainstorm rolled in and it rained pretty heavily for half an hour or so, but blue skies came again. 

I really liked this picture.  The Wind Rivers are beautiful! 

I  had to post a few more pictures of the golden trout from the streams.  So colorful!  Some of them still had their parr marks, like the one above.  Others, like the one below, didn't have them anymore.  Their reputation as the prettiest trout seems well reasoned to me. 

Wednesday morning I woke up, had a quick breakfast, then spend a few hours catching golden trout.  Three days of golden trout.  I think that I'm the one hooked!

We broke camp, loaded our packs, then headed down the trail.  We stopped along the way and fished a few lakes and streams.  My friend caught 30 fish in half an hour at one spot.  It was pretty amazing.  I was trying to catch 2 at once, but couldn't land both. 

Farewell Winds!  I shall return!

Nearest City: South Pass, WY
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: More- always more!
Difficulty: Strenuous
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

Quest for Golden Trout in the Uintas

The second weekend in June, we headed up to the Uintas to attempt to catch the rarest trout in Utah.  Golden Trout are also rumored to be the prettiest trout out there.  I've had them on my list for probably 10 years now, but something always comes up- as if there is a conspiracy to prevent me from realizing my dream.  I've been to the Wind River Mountains several times, but each time something has happened to steer me away from the hallowed waters where goldens dwell.  The most comical, glaring, extreme (searching for the right word here) example was a few years ago the road to the Dickinson Park trailhead, which crosses the reservation, was closed because someone had ticked off one of the reservation dwellers.  We couldn't do anything about it other than change our plans.  We had a beautiful trip to the Cirque of the Towers, but were kept out of anywhere near a golden lake.   

We headed up to the Uintas on Friday night, camped over, then met with some friends in the morning who also had a golden hex to defeat.  With the low snow year, and timing for shortly after ice out, we hoped to tilt the odds in our favor.  There are only two lakes in Utah with golden trout.  One is an 18 or so mile backpacking trip, the other lake is accessible via a 4 wheel drive road that gets a little gnarly.  We planned on the drive, but knew that brook trout outnumber the goldens by about 1000:1.   Maybe our timing could help even the odds. 

We found the lake and had a great time fishing around it.  There were a lot of smallish brook trout, but the goldens proved elusive.  We didn't see anything in the small streams that feed it.  The north side of the lake was also slow.  The south and east sides had the best fishing but the fishing was cyclical- sometimes it was really hot, but then the bite would die down.  We kept several of the pretty little brookies and cooked them for lunch.  If we couldn't catch a golden, at least trimming down the brookie population and enjoying a good lunch would be of benefit. 

 The brookies tasted incredible!  I filleted them, then fried them in butter with a sprinkling of garlic salt and some onion powder.  It's the best way to cook high-country trout.  Too bad they were so small. 

Toward the end of the day, I saw a fish that definitely was not a brookie.  Golden!  Things got even better when I coaxed him to inhale my fly.  Fish on!  Two flips and he was off.  I don't know what's worse- not having a golden trout on, or hooking one and watching it flip off.  I was successful in hooking two goldens, but both times they threw the hook.  There's nothing quite like turning gold into lead.  I'm the one that was hooked even more deeply- I will catch a golden trout one of these days!  I think I prefer having hooked a golden trout and watching it flip off to not even having one hit.  At least it's closer to realizing my dream.

If catching golden trout was the sign of a successful day, my day ended in failure.  But I wasn't the only one there.  My friend hit a jackpot and landed a nice 8 or 9 incher.  You can see the golden trout he caught on his flickr page.  Congratulations deadeye008!

Nearest City: Kamas, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: all day
Difficulty: Difficult
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

UMFA and Church History Museum Joint Exhibit: LeConte Stewart

Ever since moving to Kaysville, we have heard numerous times about LeConte Stewart.  I didn't know anything about him, but it just happens that he is Utah's most well known landscape painter.  We've seen a few of his paintings and sketches here and there as we have visited with neighbors and friends.  There's also a small museum in the Kaysville City Library with several of his paintings. 

Recently, we heard about a joint exhibit in Salt Lake City put on by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the (LDS) Church History Museum, so we decided to go and look at some of LeConte Stewart's artwork.  We have collected artwork from each city we've lived in, and this provided a good opportunity to try to find a print or something we liked. 

Here are a few of our favorite pictures.  The UMFA didn't have any prints for sale, and the Church History Museum only had a few, so we'll keep looking for a print for our wall.  It's a great exhibit and well-worth the visit. 

Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
 Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 90 minutes at each museum
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Somewhat
Additional Info:  The website about the exhibit.  UMFA costs $7/adult to get in, but has 2 free days/month.  The Church History Museum is free.  The exhibit runs through January 15, 2012.

The Stone Circle by the U

After visiting the spoked wheel above Centerville, I've been on the lookout for similar wheels and circles in the area.  I found one above Salt Lake City.

We went and hiked to it, just to discover that it seems to have been made more recently than the one above Centerville.  This one is on the site of an old limestone quarry, meaning that it has to have been arranged sometime after the quarry stopped working, which would make the wheel no more than 100 years old. 

As we sat and took a break, we noticed fossils in the limestone. They were brachiopods (clams and mussels), with a few corals mixed in.  We searched and found a few complete shells to bring home with us.

Nearest City: Salt Lake City
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: Moderate (steep hillside to climb, poison ivy to navigate through)
Kid Friendly: Probably not.
Additional Info:

The Lost Limekiln

A lot of people know about the kilns in Limekiln Gulch, but almost nobody knows about the lost limekiln.   I first heard about it from a passing reference from John Regehr, then noticed it in GoogleEarth while looking for something else.

The lost limekiln sure seemed like a good name for it- there were no major trails to it as far as I could tell, and the few minor trails that went to it were very indistinct and overgrown- definitely my kind of place to check out.  So we set out on a Saturday and went to see what it was all about. 

The aerial photos were accurate- there weren't any trails to speak of that led to the limekiln. We got as close as we could across the grassy hillsides before we picked our way through the final thicket of scrub oak to the kiln.  It's smaller than the one in Limekiln Gulch, and in worse shape, but almost more impressive because it hasn't been restored and is slowly crumbling with the passing years. 

As I looked around, I was left wondering who the last visitor here was.  The grass and vegetation is still high and untrampled.  We went inside the ovens and looked over the brickwork, out the chimneys, and at the details and features of the old structure. 

Tracking down and visiting the lost limekiln was definitely worthwhile.   I love finding obscure ruins and points of interest.  This one definitely left a smile on my face.

Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 90 minutes
Difficulty: Moderate- routefinding and steep hillsides
Kid Friendly: Yes for some. No for most.
Additional Info:

The Treasure Box Mine

After taking a break for 2 weeks while our car was getting worked on, it was great to get it back.   Yeah, cars are expensive and basically a money-pit, but it sure is nice to have the freedom that it brings with it! 

About 5 years ago or so, I was looking at a topographic map of the Salt Lake City area and noticed the Treasure Box Mine on it.  Life happened in the meantime, and I wasn't able to make it up to it.  Since I was back in Utah, and had the time (and it was an even day), the Treasure Box Mine was the destination of choice.  We made it to the bottom of City Creek Canyon at 9 AM.  The gate was locked.  We drove around the Memory Grove park once more, and back to the gate.  Again it was locked.  Just as we were about to throw in the towel, the gatekeeper arrived. We paid our $3 and drove up the canyon.  Wo-Hoo! 

It's 5 1/2 miles from the gate to the end of the road at Rotary Park.  It's one of the options for people who want to hike Little Black Mountain, Grandview Peak, or Lookout Peak.  The lower end of the canyon is quite popular with runners, joggers, & the like.  The further we got from the gate, the more solitude we had.    We reached the end of the road, parked and loaded up for the hike.  Before we loaded up though, we noticed a huge patch of thimbleberries that were ripe for the picking.  We spent a few minutes pulling the raspberry-like berries off of the plants and eating them.  They were a little tart, but really delicious. The little one didn't want to leave. 

The hike was a blast.  It started out on what was essentially an old road.  I was expecting to have to wade across the creek, but there are a few bridges that cross, removing the option of getting my feet wet.  Pretty soon, the old road fades away, and a singletrack trail is left.  It didn't seem like the trail gets a lot of use.  Some spots were pretty overhung with vegetation. We soon found our turnoff from the trail and did some light bushwhacking to the mine. 

We climbed the tailings pile to take a break at the top.  Shortly after arriving, a snake decided he didn't want to be there anymore.  It was my lucky day- a rubber boa!   Several years ago I was looking around the DWR Website and noticed that rubber boas are native to Utah.  I had wanted to see one since then, but in all the time I've spent outside, I never had.  This one was about 18 inches long, and determined to find a quieter spot.  I followed it for a few minutes, then let it go on its way in peace.  It was definitely a great day- and I hadn't even looked around at the mine yet. 

There was an old Ford tractor, a pump, and an old boiler at the mine.  It was really cool poking around and seeing the old artifacts.  I'd like to know the story of the old mine- why did they just leave the stuff here?  How deep did the mine go?  What year did they stop working it?  The little bit I do know, was that they mined lead and silver. 

Unfortunately, the mine is collapsed.  There was water flowing out of where the tunnel should be, but there was no entrance to allow exploration. 

I also liked the old cart rail on top of the mine dump.  Most of the mines out there no longer have the cart rails, but this one still had one rail.

You can see the water trail down the side of the mine dump.  It's now overgrown with mosses and plants.  Since it's an old lead mine, I wonder what the water quality is that flows from the mine.  It flows directly into City Creek, and from there into the Salt Lake City water supply.  It looked clean and clear, but who knows!

On the hike back down, we enjoyed the meadows and the butterflies.  We found a small patch of wild strawberries, but they weren't ripe yet, so we left them unpicked. 

The views are great- especially looking upward to the outcroppings on the mountainsides. 

Back at the trailhead, we again focused on raiding the thimbleberries. We all were able to collect and consume several handfuls of red ripe berries.  We picked all of the berries we could that were close to the road.  There were also larger patches that went higher on the mountainside, but we left those ones alone. 

We walked down to look at Weeping Rock and the bridge over City Creek.  The bridge was built in 1922 and is one of my favorite bridges.  It's so picture-esque.    I looked for fish in the creek as well, and saw a trout hiding in one of the calmer pools.  Since it was naptime, we loaded up and headed out.  What a great hike and morning!  I think upper City Creek is one of the great unknown spots of Salt Lake.  It's a great alternate destination from some of the other more well-known and crowded canyons.



Nearest City: Salt Lake City, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: It took us 3 hours out and back
 Difficulty: Easy while on established trails.  Moderate while routefinding beyond that.
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info: This hike rocks.  City Creek Canyon is open to cars on even days.  Odd days are closed to cars, but open to bicycles.  Upper City Creek Canyon is closed to dogs.  There is a $3 charge to drive your car up the canyon.