Hiking Utah 2017

Rose Mattson

6 years ago

Hiking makes my heart happy.

I love being outside, with no noise other than the woods. Being from Alaska, there are tons of places that you can go to get away from the noise of the city. When I moved to LA, I couldn’t find anywhere to escape and it drove me crazy going “hiking” with what seemed like hundreds of other people.

Knowing now that I need quiet, wild places to be fully happy, living next to the mountains here in Utah is amazing. I am happy to go sans makeup, baseball-hatted, smelling of sunscreen up and up into the mountains.

These are the hikes that we did this past spring and summer. I would have liked this list to be longer, but studying for the RD exam really took too much of my weekend time. But no time to dwell on things past, these hikes were great!

Wondering what snacks are typically brought?

When hiking, the question always is, how can we carry the least amount of food and get the max amount of calories from carbohydrates?

This is what is packed into the bags (typically):

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (think like 8-10 of them)
Apples and almond butter
Energy balls (oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chips, honey)
Bananas
Corepower
Trail-mix
Baked goods (sometimes I will make banana bread and take that)
Liters of water

Have any other good snack ideas? I would love to hear!!

White Pine Lake Trail – 2,700 ft, 10 mi

This hike was hard! The first few miles were relatively easy, which always makes us nervous because most of the hikes here in Utah are a straight up straight down variety. We were right, the last 2 or so miles were really tough, made worse by lunch-time hunger. I get hangry. Real bad. We eventually make it and I devoured a couple PB&Js while enjoying this view. It was amazing, highly recommend.

Dog Lake – 1,300 ft, 5mi

Dog lake is a nice hike, and we have done it a couple times. You can bring your dogs from the Millcreek Canyon side, so the lake itself usually has some dogs running around, which is fun! The lake itself isn’t as pretty as other lakes here in Utah, in my opinion, but the hike up to the lake follows a pretty creek and its gorg.

Broads Fork Trail – 2,100 ft, 6mi

This hike was deceptive. We only planned on doing a 4 miler that day (homework), but it ended up being closer to 6. This was another of Utah’s famous straight up straight down variety hikes. It was gorgeous and we only saw 3 other people the whole time.

Lofty Lake Loop Trail – 1,000 ft, 4mi

This little hike is up in the Uinta Mountains, one of the most beautiful places I have seen. Mountain air, less people, and beautiful outdoors stuff. We did this hike last year too, but it was still awesome. Shorter and easier than we thought (does that mean getting better at altitude?!).

It was a tad stormy, but we made it down before it got too crazy

Red Pine Lake – 2,200 ft, 7mi

This is the sister lake to White Pine Lake, but shorter. This was probably my all time favorite hike of the summer. It was super challenging, beautiful (obvi), and the lake was just amazing at the top. Greenish blue. This is the trail that leads to Pfeifferhorn mountain, which I would really like to do. Next summer!

Desolation Trail – 1,400 ft, 4.5mi

My friend Kelly recommended this hike as an easy(ish), post-studying, afternoon hike. It was awesome. Totally shaded with big trees that made you feel like you weren’t in Utah, plus it was like 20 degrees colder in the trees, always a good thing when its 95F+ in the valley (and you have a hard time waking up early on the weekends…).

Grandeur Peak – 2,800 ft, 6mi

This hike was a real pain in the ass to be honest (ha). We left too late, so it got super hot, the trail was steep and un-shaded near the top and I was probably hungry. Per usual. But, it was still fun. Managed not to see any snakes, always a bonus, and saw some great views.

Albion Meadows to Cecret Lake – 1,000 ft, 4.5mi

This hike we didn’t mean to do because its usually super crowded. If youre hiking in Utah and use All Trails and don’t want to see people, my recommendation is to only do hikes marked as “hard”, otherwise you will see ten thousand people. This is great trail, don’t get me wrong, but when I go to the mountains, I really don’t want to see other people. BUT, Cecret lake has salamanders. AND you can catch them! So that’s a huge bonus.

Donut Falls – 500 ft, 3mi

This is another “easy” marked hike, aka see tons of people. But again, its a lovely easy walk to some really dope waterfalls. These are even cooler in the winter when they are frozen and you can go into a little ice cave. Went here with my sister and her best friend because I wasn’t sure how much elevation they could handle. The answer? A lot more elevation than we did. Oh well, we got lunch in Park City (food makes everything better amiright?!)

Avenues Foothills

I can go here all the time, which is amazing. Its quiet once you get back into the foothills and there are awesome views of the valley. Good for sunrise, and nighttime sunset hikes!

Zion National Park

We also did a trip to Zion this past spring break, so to share a few of my favorite photos/hikes….

While we were there we did: Emerald Pools Trail, Riverside Walk to the Narrows, Angels Landing, and Observation Point. My favorite by far was Observation point. It was the longest, we started early, saw a dall sheep and walked through some of the most awesome red rocks. Would love to go back and do more!