Big Springs Hike

This hike has been on the list for some time.  Big Springs is up Provo Canyon and used to be a large area of natural flowing springs out of the mountain.

Since cities usually know best, in 2015 Provo City capped off the springs to re-route the water to use for the city.  Now all that's left are some boardwalks and dry spring beds.  But the hike is really nice, meandering through aspens, meadows and woods.

We had Jane and Meghan with us too!

There were about 7-10 springs all capped off like this.  

Here is the map of where we hiked.   Total distance was 4.2 miles with an elevation gain of 932 feet in just over 2 hours.

Willow Heights Hike

We haven't gone on a hike in a while - it was time, although we should have waited a few more weeks for this one because then the trees would have all been colorful, but it was still a beautiful hike!

We did the Willow Heights hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon.  The trees are just barely starting to change, but we wanted to get out there and enjoy it so we went ahead with the hike anyhow.

This trail is not really marked and it's not very crowded because not too many people know about it.

This is the only marker for the trail - really easy to miss as you are driving up the canyon.

Here is the map of the trail on a sign:

 but that is the super super steep way - we knew that and we also knew a less steeper way to go, so this is the way we went:

Overall, the hike gained 627 feet in elevation - all at the beginning, and we hiked a total of 2.6 miles in 90 minutes.


You can see we went in a few circles around the "lake" - it's actually a small pond - a beaver pond which is heavily frequented by moose, although we didn't see any - we saw fresh evidence they were there and not that long before we were.


The hike was beautiful - mostly in the shade the entire way mostly surrounded by aspen and willow trees.

After climbing through the trees, this large meadow appears out of nowhere.  In the spring, this entire meadow is covered in wildflowers

The aspen and willow trees form a barrier on the sides the meadow

At the top of the meadow, the pond is visible.  There were several families of ducks enjoying the water

Jacob improved his rock skipping skills

One one side the lake, there is a grove of super tall aspen trees, and they only have leaves at the tops

We took a short-cut through what normally would be a marshy area, but was dry this time of year.  There was a slight animal trail through low brush.  This lead to some of our circular hike around the lake - we had to make our own trail for a bit. 

As we left to go back, you can see Solitude ski resort in the background

Here is what the trees look like in the fall - beautiful!

This was a good hike!  Relatively short and easy and not crowded at all!  We really enjoyed it!  Maybe next time you should come with us on our hike!