May 14 2022, 7.5 miles, 6.5 miles official BST. Trailforks Hike Log
Today we officially started our sojourn in Salt Lake County at the Point of the Mountain, hiking across the southern benches of Draper to Corner Canyon. Draper is one of very few cities along the Wasatch Front that has completed the entire Bonneville Shoreline Trail through its jurisdiction (at least in a “version 2” constructed singletrack form), and they have done a great job here.
This was one of the nicest sections of trail we’ve hiked yet. In the 20 years since it was built (around the same time that the South Mountain area was developed), the vegetation has reclaimed the cut slopes, so it looks very natural. As one of the few segments on a north facing slope, it is mostly wooded, so you feel like you’re in nature, even though for much of the time, you’re basically in someone’s back yard. The only drawback we could find is that it had to make a couple significant climbs to weave its way around subdivisions and cross under Traverse Ridge Road. That said, there are other segments with more hills.
Along the way, we got a good view of the soon-to-be-demolished state penitentiary, the scars from the old Widowmaker motorcycle hill climbs, and the Draper LDS Temple, where we finished. All in all, a great day, and a highly recommended segment of the BST.
April 30 2022, 7.5 miles, all official(ish) BST. Hike Log in Trailforks.
At the end of Season 1 (Episode 7), we started the beginning of the Sensei Trail, but decided to call Utah County done and skip ahead to Draper. I knew that a connecting trail had been completed in 2021 over the ridge, but only found out after filming that Lehi and Draper are considering designating it as a temporary official BST connection, so we decided to give it a try.
Lehi City has been proactive in acquiring the unbuildable highlands of the Traverse Mountains from developers, creating (along with Draper City) a permanently conserved area of at least 7 square miles. Working with the Traverse Mountain Trails Association (TMTA), the city is building an impressive trails network in the foothills here. While the process has been largely driven by the mountain biking community, and the trail design shows that emphasis, these trails are also popular with hikers and trail runners. A combination of the Sensei Trail (completed in 2018), Mo-mentum (2020), Tráverse Travérse (2021), and Ann’s Trail can be used to connect Lehi to Draper, with its extensive trails network including the BST (which we’ll explore in Episode 10).
Since we had already hiked part of Sensei last year, we cheated a bit and started in the middle, at the top of Fox Canyon Road. A new phase of the Hidden Canyon/Canyon Point development is actively being built up the canyon, so this access is officially closed to the public. However, they are in the final phases of the project, butting up against public property, and the approved plan includes a trailhead about where Sensei Trail crosses the old road.
Unlike a lot of the older trails above the Wasatch Front, these trails are being designed and built very carefully, with an emphasis on having very gentle grades despite the rugged terrain. The advantage of this is that we climbed more than 600ft to the summit and hardly ever noticed we were going uphill. The disadvantage is that the trails have to go around every little ravine and ridge, creating an extremely circuitous route. We could have taken less than a mile following an old (very steep) trail straight up the canyon to the summit, and instead it took us 4.5 miles (including a shortcut that saved an additional mile). Perhaps future trails in the network will provide a more efficient route to the top with a balance of grade and distance (please?).
The Draper side of the traverse is a much greater elevation gain (1,000ft to the Oak Hollow Trailhead, the nearest access), and generally steeper, so I’m glad we were going down it. The climb is mitigated somewhat by being on the north slope with lots of shady oak, and a multitude of switchbacks (at least 20) to temper the grade. We encountered a lot more traffic on this side, especially mountain bikes.
So what is the “state of this BST?” For having to climb over this ridge, this was actually an enjoyable hike. Maybe it was just the great weather, but it did not seem at all difficult, and the views of both valleys, as well as Lone Peak, were awesome. I would fully support this being a connecting route for the Bonneville Shoreline Trail for the time being.
Rocky Ridge, Mona, 6 miles, 3.5 miles unofficial trail
It is great to back in the swing of State of the BST again! We look forward to a great season on the trail. Our goal is to complete Salt Lake and Davis Counties this year, saving the northern end for Season 3. This year we are going to try releasing shorter episodes (10 minutes) more regularly (about every 2 weeks). We’ll see how it goes.
For our first outing, we decided to make a detour and go back to where we started, at the south end of Santaquin, and explore the possibility of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail continuing south toward Nephi. There is not a continuous trail extending through Juab County, but there are some short stretches, mostly ATV doubletrack, that could be used. We tried out two short segments today, both of which are part of the state-owned Santaquin Wildlife Management Area.
First we hiked south from Santaquin on a track that crosses into Juab County. The WMA has designated it as an open ORV route (except in winter when the big game are there), but it doesn’t have an official name; I put it into Trailforks as the Santaquin Pass Trail. It is an enjoyable gradual climb and drop, with some great views of Juab Valley and Rocky Ridge, the small town built by the Apostolic United Brethren group.
For our second segment, we followed a faint double track from Mona Pole Canyon (a rough road that connects up to the Nebo Loop Road) that follows the base of Bald Mountain to North Creek. It wasn’t a great BST candidate trail, too much up and down, but North Creek is a beautiful canyon that we never notice as we drive by on I-15 focused on the traffic. The trail up the canyon is not maintained, but the Creek and the cliffs were incredible.
Will the BST ever be built through Juab County? Here are a few factors: 1) unlike most of the rest of the route along the Wasatch Front, this is a rural area without lots of urban neighbors wanting recreation in their backyard. 2) Nephi City is thinking about building a stretch around town, but there isn’t any usable trail there yet. 3) Most of the upper parts of the foothills are either WMA or National Forest land, and it is usually easier to get permanent trails on public land. 4) On the flipside much of the land between there and I-15 is private, which limits access to the foothills. Personally, I don’t expect to see this trail completed in the foreseeable future; we have a lot of more pressing needs.
September 4: 7 miles total, 0 miles official BST, 5.5 miles unofficial route
Spencer and I had a great hike along the base of the Traverse Mountains to wrap up our filming of Episode 7. And Utah County. And Season 1 of the State of the BST. We need to take a break for the fall so Spencer can focus on paying jobs, including teaching a filmmaking class at UVU (yes, this professor dad is very proud of him). Originally, we had planned to skip most of this area because Lehi, Draper, and Highland have plans for the BST here, and there is no way to follow their intended route. However, for the sake of having a nice ending, we decided to cross the general area however we could. Fortunately, there are several old 4×4 roads crossing the south face, so we set out from the Hog Hollow Trailhead in Highland and headed West. It turns out Highland has very little involvement with BST planning, as this trailhead is at the extreme northern edge of the city, 50 feet from the Draper city limits. But we do appreciate the trailhead at least.
Jeep roads seem to have been created with little regard for grade, and we spent a lot of today going up hills and down into ravines. Clearly, this was not a good route for a permanent BST, but it is in the general vicinity for the planned route, and it was a lot shorter than a more level route that would have to zig zag a lot more around the topography. For example, the Fango trail just uphill, which could actually become part of the BST, covers the same breadth of the hill as we did with twice the length.
Much of today’s hike and discussion revolved around the Micron memory chip plant, which was visible below us most of the time. It is amazing to remember when they built this plant in the early 2000s, people thought they were crazy to build a high tech facility up on this barren hillside, so far from all the tech companies in Provo and Orem. They were able to buy 1,000 acres of “practically worthless” land for a steal. And we all thought the “little town” of Lehi was nuts for giving them a huge tax break, with the pie-in-the-sky idea that they might attract other tech businesses to the Point of the Mountain. Boy, were we wrong! Lehi has more than doubled in size in 20 years to become Utah County’s third largest city with the boom of the Silicon Slopes area. This year, Micron sold most of their undeveloped property to developer D.R. Horton; I’ll bet they made more profit with that sale than with chips this year. D.R. Horton has big plans for developing this hillside. Although there is a lot of debate in the community on the details, it looks like they will be preserving a fair amount of open space, especially in the upper reaches where the BST will pass through. Lehi and Draper have a good track record of reserving large blocks of open space on this mountain while allowing pockets of development.
As we walked through the upper part of the Micron property, I was amazed at the beauty and solitude of oak woodlands and meadows, despite the houses and businesses visible above and below us in the distance. We did not encounter a single other person the entire time. I hope the inevitable future development will retain significant areas like this.
Eventually we returned to civilization in the Traverse Mountain neighborhood. Here the Traverse Mountain Trails Association (TMTA) is actively working with Lehi City to build a multi-use trails network, and they already have an exemplary track record. Their first project, the Sensei Trail, is a well-designed, well-built, well-maintained trail that is as enjoyable to hike or run as it is to bike. Much of it could easily become part of the BST, depending on how Lehi, Draper, and Geneva Rock figure out how to get the trail around or over the Point of the Mountain. We followed it for a little while, but another 5 miles would have been too much today, and this episode is already chock-full of footage.
August 21: 4.3 miles total, 0 miles official BST, 3.9 miles unofficial route
This was a very interesting segment, the first in a long time that I have not hiked before (at least, a lot of it). This segment goes in and out of private property and the National Forest, actually the Lone Peak Wilderness. In 2017, Alpine City proactively secured public trail easements across the private segments, which makes them ready to be designated as the BST. However, the wilderness sections are more difficult, because the BST is intended to be open to all non-motorized traffic, but mountain bikes are not allowed in wilderness areas (despite the fact that 75% of the traffic on this trail is on bikes). Yes, fixing that takes an act of Congress; for the last two years, Senator Romney and Congressman Curtis have introduced bills (currently S.1222/H.R.2551) that would adjust the boundary of three wilderness areas along the BST (here, Mt. Olympus in Salt Lake, and Mt. Naomi near Logan) to exclude the BST, a total of 250 acres that would compensated by adding 250 acres up Mill Creek Canyon to Mt. Olympus Wilderness. Seems like a good solution to me, especially since the area we hiked through has lost any wilderness character as houses have been built right up against it. However, it is hard to get much done in Congress these days, both seem to be lost in committee, although the Senate bill has a chance of being rolled up into another omnibus public lands bill, which tend to have a better chance of passing.
Along our hike, we had a fun visit with one my best trail friends (and a former student), Brandon Stocksdale, who has a great job that most people wouldn’t imagine even exists. He’s a community planner with the Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA) of the National Park Service. Yes, the Park Service, and no, he is not associated with a national park. Brandon and his colleagues basically act as consultants for cities, counties, and trail associations to help them plan and conserve open spaces and outdoor recreation opportunities. He is especially good at going into an area and getting all the stakeholders (cities, counties, state, federal, private landowners, citizens) around the table to have productive discussions about how best to manage urban open space. That’s how he helped to create the Utah Valley Trails Alliance (UVTA), of which I am currently the chair (and desperately trying to keep a little of his momentum).
We had a great chat about the great outdoor opportunities we have along the Wasatch Front and the challenges of making them available to everyone, the joys of cat herding (i.e., running stakeholder groups), and the prospects of getting the BST through Alpine, which he has worked on extensively.
We finished our trip by following some mountain biking trails through Lambert Park, one of the first dedicated Mountain Biking trail parks in the state, built about 20 years ago and managed (quite well, if I may say) by Alpine City. How the BST would pass through here I’m not sure, but it was a nice path we took.
August 10 2021: 7 miles total, 6.3 miles official trail, 0.7 miles unofficial route
As the fires rage on the west coast, the Wasatch Front is full of smoke. We delayed this hike a few days trying to wait it out, but decided to go today when the air quality was slightly better than the weekend. Episode 7 is going to cover a lot of territory to finish off Utah County; today’s route traversed the base of Mahogany Mountain.
The first few miles, from Grove Creek Trailhead to the Cedar Hills city limit, is one of the newest segments of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail (at least it’s the newest in Utah County). The Utah Valley Trails Alliance worked with Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest in 2019 to develop an official trail network in the Pleasant Grove area, designating about 20 new miles of trail. That said, all of the “new” trails were actually existing social trails that were legalized, including this 2.5 miles of BST. We like this route, which gets up in the hills a bit for some great views and more solitude then the “Bench Road” below along the Salt Lake Aqueduct pipeline, it does have some sections that are too steep and need some rerouting.
Eventually, however, the alternative routes end, so through southern Cedar Hills, the trail follows the pipeline utility road. This pipeline, which is mostly underground but occasionally exposed where it crosses a draw, has carried a significant part of the Provo River to the Salt Lake Valley since 1951. The road here is nice and level, if somewhat dull. Perhaps when “Phase I” of the BST is completely connected, a new route could be developed here further up in the hills.
The last mile is a paved pathway, part of the extensive paved trail system built by Cedar Hills (thanks to development fees from its large developers in the early 2000s). We took this opportunity to experiment with filming by bicycle. It was a good change of pace!
July 3: 7.5 miles total, 4.4 miles official trail, 1.1 miles unofficial route
The second half of Episode 6 gave us great views of Orem, Lindon, and Pleasant Grove at the base of Mt. Timpanogos. Most of this route is officially designated BST through land owned by Orem City, the Timpanogos State Wildlife Management Area, and Uinta-Wasatch Cache National Forest. Much of it was quite busy for the July 4th weekend, especially around Dry Canyon in Lindon.
The first section, from the Orem Firing Range trailhead to Dry Canyon, is a significant climb from the actual Bonneville shoreline (5100ft) up to almost 5700ft. Fortunately, we started early, so we had lots of shade. Much of this stretch was built by volunteers around 2000, a good example of the great work that regular people can do with enough motivation.
Many old-timers will remember when the Dry Canyon area (above Lindon) was popular for dirt bikes and ATVs, until the Forest Service banned motor vehicles around 2005 and worked to revegetate a lot of the old tracks. Since then, it has become popular with mountain bikers, who cut many new “social” (i.e., illegal) trails, often over the old ATV tracks. In 2019-2020, the Utah Valley Trails Alliance worked with the Forest Service to legalize and officially designate the best and most popular of these. Currently, we are in the finishing stages of recruiting volunteer trail adopters, such as local trail clubs and high school mountain biking teams, to help care for them long term. Thanks volunteers!
Amazingly, we were actually ahead of schedule when we got to Battle Creek, so we took a short detour up to the Battle Creek Falls. Dozens of families were joining us to cool off on this hot summer day. Stick your head in there, Spencer!
The last mile, at the base of the Pleasant Grove “G,” is typically a rather boring stretch along old roads through private property. Fortunately, we had a friend to keep us company. Todd Neumarker, a Pleasant Grove resident, avid mountain biker, and systems engineer (and one of the founders) of Trailforks, joined us to talk about how this very popular trails app got started, and how technology has impacted the outdoors for the worse (crowds) and the better (crowdfunding and volunteer organizations). We also got to geek out quite a bit about trails GIS data, which probably won’t get into the final cut of Episode 6.
Next up, in Episode 7, we are hoping to finish Utah County!
June 12, 6 miles, 3.2 miles official BST, 2.3 miles unofficial route
It looks like I neglected to post this report when we did this hike, but better late than never. Episode 6 started with our exit from the north side of Provo Canyon. In many places, the Bonneville Shoreline Trail has to turn into a canyon to cross it without having to climb down to its mouth and back up the other side, but this is by far the largest detour, adding about 10 miles to a direct route across the canyon route. I’m not complaining though, because this is one of the prettiest sections of the BST where it gets away from the city a bit.
One of the reasons for this is that the only easy crossing of Highway 189 is near Bridal Veil Falls. Furthermore, to avoid private property and cliffs at the mouth of the canyon, the trail is upwards of 300-400 feet above the shoreline of Lake Bonneville. So our first task was to climb from Nunn’s Park (named after Lucien Nunn, who built one of the first hydroelectric power plants in the world here in the 1890s–the largest in the United States for many years) up 400ft to the Alta Ditch, a pipeline that provides culinary water to Orem from springs at the base of Mt. Timpanogos. There are three alternative routes that could become the BST:
The eastern end of the Alta Ditch Road. We hiked this route today; it was a very steep doubletrack climb, not a great trail. It’s advantage is that it is there and public. It also has a nice historic site halfway up, a stone redoubt built in 1857 during the “Utah War,” for the pioneer militia to watch in case the U.S. Army came down Provo Canyon.
The Dragon’s Back, a rocky ridge line. For the past 20+ years, this has been designated as the official route of both the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and the Great Western Trail (GWT). However, we recently found out that it was done without the permission of one of the land owners, who is asking that it not be officially promoted for the time being. That said, access is not actively restricted, and it is still heavily used.
Johnson’s Hole. This is my personal favorite. It goes through a hidden valley, first through a meadow, then climbs in a shady grove of oaks. Well, it did before the 2020 Range Fire destroyed most (but not all) of the oak. Unfortunately, it has the same private property issues as Dragon’s Back.
West of the junction where these three routes come together, the trail is official through the Timpanogos State Wildlife Management Area. This was a great place to find out more about this type of land, through which we have passed a few times already on this journey. So, we met with Mark Farmer of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, who is responsible for managing the WMAs in this region. We had a great chat, discussing the wildlife conservation mandate set forth for this land, and the opportunities and challenges of trying to balance this with the many recreation trails here, including the BST and GWT. Other than the BST, almost 50 miles of illegal “social” trails have been created over the past decades. In 2019, after 3 years of working with the community through the Utah Valley Trails Alliance, a trails master plan was released for the Timpanogos WMA that designated half of the trails as official, while eliminating others that were deemed to be redundant or detrimental to the wildlife. The 2020 Range Fire stalled the implementation, but thanks to the very hard work by a team of enthusiastic volunteers, progress is made towards reopening the trails, with signage and other improvements. Thanks Mark, for helping us understand this area!
May 29: 10 miles, 5.2 miles official BST, 0.7 miles unofficial route
We finished episode 5 with a rather long hike into Provo Canyon. Typically, I can do 25 minute miles hiking in most terrain, but things really slow down when we’re filming. We’ve learned to plan on about 1 mile per hour, and about 15-20% more distance with retakes and work projects. So 6 miles of trail is an all-day ordeal. That said, this is a beautiful stretch, possibly the most remote section of the BST in terms of being out of view of the city (which we rarely saw). Almost all of this section is within Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, except for short stretches at the two ends and in the middle. Almost all of it was built (or at least designated) in 2001, and was an early success story of working with various land owners. Currently, the Forest Service, Provo City, the Utah Valley Trails Alliance, and local citizens are working on a trails master plan in this area, which will result in several trails branching off of the BST for all types of users, as well as connecting the gap to Rock Canyon.
Due to the significant gap in North Provo, we started at East Lawn Memorial Hills cemetery, who has not only allowed for the trail to cross an undeveloped part of the property, but has built a small trailhead area. Thank you! The first part is a significant climb to get above other private property; at the high point of this trail, we were at about 5,700 feet, one of the highest current points on the BST, about 600 feet above the actual shoreline (which isn’t really visible here anyway due to the subsequent channeling of the Provo River).
After this climb, there is a confusing junction where there are several old ATV and mountain biking trails (which are not officially designated–yet). Signs have been put up here before, but were broken or faded or incorrectly placed, so we added new stickers to a couple and put in a couple more new signs. Thanks donors! We tried a new idea for filming it, you’ll have to wait to see…
From this junction, we explored a social trail someone has to the south that could become part of the connecting trail to fill the gap between here and Rock Canyon. Much of it was a very nice trail, through a nice shady woodland, but like a lot of social trails, it was not well designed with many unsustainably steep sections, and it climbs about 100-200ft higher than it really needs to. It fades out at the end where it hits a very steep hill (still in forest service property), where we are planning to build the connecting trail, but it will be a construction challenge. If you try it out, watch for the giant treehouse!
Back on the main trail, we crossed over a ridge into Provo Canyon, where the trail follows the Smith Ditch for several miles, an irrigation ditch (now piped) first built in the late 1800s. This means it is generally well-maintained and very level. Where the ditch/trail crosses Squaw Peak Road (we just crossed into land owned by Provo City), there is a very rough trailhead that usually has more cars than it can safely hold. Our master plan includes building a good trailhead here, which the City supports, but it will be expensive, like anything else.
From the road, the ditch-trail passes through a pretty woodland, about as far from civilization as you can get on the BST. One confusing turn meant one more sign; I am really sick of carrying my post driver around! After a few miles, the trail drops off the Smith Ditch to reach the Provo River Parkway. Even though we were tired, we took a short (but very steep!) detour up to a beautiful 50ft waterfall, which is the source of the water in the ditch we were following. Remarkably it does not have an official name: I have heard it called Smith Falls, Springdell Falls, and Lollipop Falls. A couple years ago, I started calling it the Bridesmaids (because it is one of a three waterfalls to the side of Bridal Veil, although the others are well hidden), and since I created the pages in Alltrails and Trailforks, it seems to be catching on.
Bridal Veil Falls, Utah’s most famous waterfall, was an apt place to finish Episode 4, even though it is not actually on the BST. Many of us remember the “world’s steepest tram” that used to be here, with the clifftop lodge, until it was destroyed by an avalanche in the 1990s. After the owner couldn’t sell it for many years, it was acquired by Utah County, who has subsequently done a great job improving the area as a public park. Recently, a developer wanted to purchase it and rebuild the tram and lodge, but citizens led by Conserve Utah Valley motivated the county to say no. In fact, the 2021 state legislature approved designating the falls as one of Utah’s first “State Monuments,” although they are still trying to figure out what this new kind of designation means for practical management.
May 22: 3.4 miles, 2.6 miles official BST, 0.6 miles unofficial route
Much of episode 5 is crossing very familiar territory to me. I have traversed these Provo segments of the BST many times, and on a map the segments south of the Y Trail and north of it look the same, but they couldn’t be more different. The stretch we hiked with the mayor is mostly level, with one gradual climb out of Slate Canyon. Today’s segment, on the other hand, is more of what we would expect with converted utility/firebreak roads. A straight line on the map means continually going up and down steep hills. Perhaps it’s time to think about Version 2 of this trail.
The Y Trail was just as crowded as you’d expect on a Spring Saturday. This short but steep climb is one of those dozen or so iconic Utah trails, and any self-respecting BYU fan has to climb it at least once; some people hike it every week. In 2014, BYU was able to acquire the property from the US Forest Service (yes, that did take an act of Congress). The University has put in a huge amount of effort since then to improve the area, including parking and trail improvements, permanent LED lighting of the Y for special events, erosion control, fire remediation, and even building a short new section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to bypass the busy parking lot.
To the north, the lecture of the day was on landslides. Some of the hills we went over were active landslides, evidenced by the numerous large boulders composed of the same limestone as the cliffs 2,000 feet above us. These are still technically active, and a subdivision platted here has never been built (perhaps a good cause for preserving open space?). During the very wet year of 1983, part of this rubble slid further (called the Oak Hills Slide), permanently engulfing a street and nearly destroying a home. In 2005, a 7-foot diameter rock fell 2,600ft from the high cliffs here and barely missed a nearby house, although it destroyed their guest house, and still sits in their front yard. Throughout this neighborhood, similar boulders have been incorporated into landscapes. Despite the hazards, the alternative trail route we took through this landslide and boulder field area is very pretty and much more interesting than the main trail up over the hill; if only it could be rerouted to go around the hill completely with minimal climbing, and designated as official.
There is a short section of National Forest property here, so we planned to put in a couple new signs. The first went in fine, but the second proved impossible, as the whole area was solid gravel and my 10 attempts to drive it in different locations basically destroyed the post.
Around a bend we entered the magnificent Rock Canyon, another very popular trailhead, overflowing with cars on a sunny Saturday. Besides the BST, this canyon is popular with rock climbers, and people climbing 2,000 vertical feet to the top of Squaw Peak. In case you are wondering, negotiations have been ongoing for years to rename this mountain to something less offensive to the native Ute nation, and apparently an agreement is coming soon. Provo City and the Forest Service have recently worked out a plan to greatly improve this trailhead park, with expanded parking, nature trails, and a project to use excess creek runoff to recharge the aquifer under Provo.
North of Rock Canyon, the official trail ends at the edge of Provo City property, but the mile of utility road beyond, through private property is still very heavily used by a variety of trail users. It is likely eligible to be dedicated by force under Utah state law (§72-5-104), because it has been open for more than 10 years, although it is unincorporated, so the city does not have the jurisdiction to make any demands. Personally, I would rather designate it in cooperation with the land owners, which would hopefully enable building and or designating a better route. Beyond that, there is still a mile gap through property that is clearly fenced and posted. Provo City has made closing the overall 3.5 mile gap in official BST here a top priority, but there are a number of obstacles in the way, so it may be a while.
