Dry Canyon

Shortly after I moved in with my sister, as I was driving around close to my new home, I discovered my new favorite place - Dry Canyon.

It's a short drive up 2000 N. in Orem then through a little neighborhood (on Dry Canyon Drive) to the trailhead parking lot.  There's a nice view of the valley from up there (popular lookout at night I've noticed), but more importantly there are several really cool hiking trails up there.

In the picture you can see the stairs that are on the north side of the canyon.  A couple months ago, we hiked up that trail maybe about 3/4 mile until we hit snow.  We saw a rock slide up there (or rather, the evidence of a past one), lots of trees, and some small wildlife (lizards, birds).  The kids also loved the pipe vents along the trail where they could stop and listen to the water flowing and feel the cool air coming out.

Another trail goes around the mountain to the northwest of the canyon so you can see the valley below.  I think this is the north part of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  And that of course brings me to the trail going off to the south which has a BST marker on it.


We explored that one a little ways recently and it has some nice views, as well as a lot of nice people using the trail for recreation- walkers, joggers, and mountain bikers.  A gentleman told us that this leg of the trail ends up on a road that goes back down into the neighborhood between 1600 and 2000 North (to Skyline Drive, I believe), so that is a convenient loop for people that live down there.  It would be for me as well, just have to add a couple miles to get to that area from my house, which I never have time for, unfortunately, since I don't think my kids would last that far.

We saw an amazing sunset on our way back and of course I didn't have my camera.  But that didn't make it any less awesome.  I wanted to stay there and watch it down to blackness but I had to get back to the car before the dark and cold made it too hard on my kids.  I did get a nice sunset picture later from the road up to Dry Canyon, and of course this doesn't do it justice.  Photos are great but they are nothing compared to seeing it for yourself.

SO, I've been wanting to find out about the Geology of Dry Canyon, and from a preliminary search, looks like info on this subject is very hard to find.  I did find out that you can take a hike - Big Baldy Peak Loop - from Dry Canyon around behind it and connect to Battle Creek Canyon to the north then back around, so that's pretty cool.  Perhaps when I have more time I can attempt to dig more deeply and find out Geological information for this area.  And I also wouldn't mind trying that hike some day when I'm able to handle a 9 mile hike with a rating of difficult.  (Click here for info on the hike.)