Deep Canyon Hike

I decided to hike Deep Canyon in Mendon to the Wellsville ridge Saturday morning. It's been a while since I've done anything "athletic", so I was a little concerned that my plans might be too ambitious. At the very least, I hoped I would make it to the top of Deep Canyon. At that point, if my legs still worked, I would try to walk along the ridge and maybe check out the view from the Wellsville Cone.

The 4 a.m. start time was almost a show stopper. I like waking up to the sound of rain unless it is four in the morning and I know I'm going to be walking in it shortly. If it were just me going on this hike, that would have been it. Luckily I was supposed to pick up my neighbor so I dragged myself out of bed and threw some stuff together for the hike.

We made the trailhead just after 5 a.m. We hiked in the rain until about 6 a.m. when it began to clear and it started to get light enough that we could see without headlamps. Here is a shot of the trail heading up Deep Canyon in the morning light:

The hike up Deep Canyon was beautiful. Fresh and cool with lots of birds singing. This was in contrast with the vicious, cold wind we found as we reached the saddle at the top of the canyon. We hunkered down behind a big rock and layered up while we decided if we wanted to go on or go back. We decided to go on until we got tired or one of us got hypothermia.

Behind the "Windbreak"

The trail continues in the clouds

There aren't any more pictures until we stopped for lunch (breakfast?). I decided to avoid frostbite and forego the shot of white, swirling clouds during this part of the hike. We stopped to eat behind a large band of rocks that blocked most of the wind.

A nice spot for lunch

It was obvious that the storm was quickly moving east as it started to clear up on the Box Elder side of the mountains. We waited around hoping the sun would come out to warm us up and the clouds would clear and give us a view of Cache Valley. We never got the view we wanted but the sun did come out on our hike back down the ridge. In the picture below, Cache Valley is on the side still covered in clouds.

No view of Cache Valley but still a beautiful sight

Rose, thanks for sitting this one out since it was not a good hike for the kiddos and a big thanks to Dan for keeping me going. This was a fun hike that I would do again.