Tales From My Trekking Poles: Parrish Canyon Trail (Easy, 5 miles roundtrip)

This was the "Hike of the Week" a couple of weeks ago in the Salt Lake Tribune.
This is a fun, relatively easy hike that you can do with dogs or mountain bike, with lots of wildflowers, and the destination of a beautiful meadow or a very nice fire ring with plenty of firewood and a place to sit and enjoy the view!

The weather has been so rainy that I had not hiked for a couple of weeks. Rain was forecast again, but I woke up early, peeked outside, and it was not yet raining, so I decided to go for it.

Directions: Drive North on I -15 from Salt Lake City, and in less than 20 minutes, take the Parrish Lane Exit and head East. At the top of Parrish Lane, turn left on a narrow paved road that takes you to the trailhead (gps coordinates N 40* 55.337' W 111* 51.970').

The Hike: There is a large wooden trail sign on the North end of the parking area. This is the beginning of the trail. At .15 mile keep going straight across the firebreak road. Follow switchbacks up the mountain. At times you will see and hear waterfalls from Parrish Creek on your North. Be sure to take frequent rests and admire the great view of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island. At about 1.7 miles you will come to a fork in the trail. Either one will work, but I stayed to the right, which provides the best view of a rock outcropping that looks like the profile of a dog's face. Just past the dog face, the trail steepens and fades, but soon rejoins the main trail that you would have been on if you had taken the left fork. At just over 2 miles, you come to a beautiful meadow rimmed with Mountain Mahogany trees, and a beautiful view of a canyon of pine trees. But don't turn around yet, keep going for another .4 miles and you will be rewarded with a great resting area complete with a very nice fire ring, places to sit, and plenty of dry firewood to roast marshmallows and make S'mores! (The gps coordinates are: N 40* 55.339' W 111* 50.598')

I was sorely tempted to start a campfire, but the promised rain was arriving, so I headed back to the car, but made a mental note to make this an evening hike sometime, and roast marshmallows before returning by the light of the moon or headlamp! I had not loaded Geocaches into my gps but had scribbled the coordinates of one that I thought would be near the trailhead, so I found that one before heading back home.

Geocaches I found:
WizMedic's Quickie Cache UT: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCMTQW_wizmedics-quickie-cache-ut?guid=8c305fb0-2cc2-4987-a2de-91d02f16eeee