The Leaves They Are A Changin'

Today we hiked to the "Living Room" in the foothills above Salt Lake City. It has a great view overlooking the city and the Salt Lake Valley, but the changing leaves added a bonus to the day.

Here's a shot as we started up the trail...


The trail was somewhat rocky, but not too bad. Here's a picture of a rocky section of the hillside with some trees growing out from the face.

Mountains in the distance, while the colors change....

You can see some of the trees have already turned orange.

Another shot of the mountains in the distance.

We accidentally went off the main trail (again) and ended up taking a much more difficult path that included crawling / clinging / climbing over semi-steep rock faces like this one. Dave takes a breather...

This is one of the hills we had to climb OVER to get to the Living Room. It was a bit of a challenge.... we took the easy way down!

A view over Dave's shoulder at the Living Room. As you can see, people have taken long flat rocks and created a Flinstones like set-up with tables and chairs. It was actually pretty comfortable and the view was great.

Here's a couple shots of the rock recliners / sofas / tables.

Now you understand why they call it the Living Room!

A hazy shot of the city from the comfort of the Living Room.....

Kate lounges....

A shot of the valley over Kate's shoulder. This shot also gives you a better view of what we had to climb over to get here. These peaks are really two or three separate hills over which we climbed up and down and up and down, finally reaching our destination. It looks far less treacherous from this side though - the other side was much rockier!

Here we are!

And as we headed back down the trail, we took a quick picture of ourselves in front of this beautiful tree! Fall is here!

All in all it was a very fun hike, despite being more difficult than we intended. Thanks again to Mark and Tricia for the hiking book!

Adam's Canyon

Last weekend, we hiked into Adam's Canyon, outside of Ogden, UT. It was a difficult hike, since we are somewhat out of shape, but it was beautiful. We started at the bottom of a steep hillside, climbed up, and then down into the canyon. This is just outside the mouth of the canyon.


Here's a nice shot of the leaves changing colors up on the mountain side beyond the canyon.

Holmes Creek runs through the canyon, starting from the waterfall at the back (which was our ultimate destination). Filled with rocks, it is quite a peaceful sight. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of veering onto the Bonneville Shoreline Trail for a few miles. But we managed to get back on trail eventually.

Here's a nice one, definitely while we were looking back (since the trail was uphill most of the way to the waterfall).

Rocks jutting out from the mountainside, as viewed from the canyon.

And a view from within the canyon...

Finally, we came to the waterfall - a good reward for all of our hard work.

From the trailhead to the waterfall, we walked two miles (not including our sidetrack of at least another 2 miles on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail). The elevation climbed from 4,800 feet to 6,100 feet, meaning we walked mostly uphill rising about 1,300 feet in the process. So naturally, we took a picture in front of the waterfall.... but the kid we asked to help didn't get much of it for us!

Looking out from the waterfall..... we take a rest.

And now, back through the canyon another 1.8 miles to the car....

Thanks to Mark and Tricia Grebel for giving us "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Salt Lake City," which is where we found out about this hike.