Gloria Falls Hike

We have never  hiked up Little Cottonwood Canyon (we usually go to Big Cottonwood Canyon) as there are more hikes that way, so it was time to try Little.  The trailhead is often used to several other hikes, including Red Pine and White Pine trails and lakes, but we were better than that.

Our destination was a short "off trail" waterfall called Gloria Falls, that hardly anyone ever sees.

We took Cherie, Dean and David with us, as they just moved to Utah and we were happy to have them along with us.  We also had Hannah's friend, Ashlyn, visiting from Roseville, CA for the week.

We left pretty early because hiking up the canyon on a Saturday morning is very very very popular.  The parking lot at the trailhead was pretty big, but it was completely full when we got there, and the side of the road was pretty full also - there were probably about 150 cars there.   WOW.

We headed out and the trail was extremely busy.  What all of those hikers didn't know though, was about 1 mile into the hike, we turned off onto a small side trail for about 300 yards and we were at our destination.  A beautiful cascading waterfall for about 50-75 feet.  With literally all the hundreds of other hikers, not a single one went to the falls - just us.   Shhhhhhhh   Don't tell anyone about it!

The hike is pretty short - only about 2.3 miles round trip, with about a 500 foot elevation gain - but it's uphill the entire way.......and downhill on the way back.  Of course, it was beautiful no matter what.   

It was a good one!

We had to park on the side of the road a ways away from the trailhead

Our destination was the Junction of White Pine and Red Pine trails

The trail was big and well defined - no getting lost here!

The view of the canyon - Elevation where we started was about 7700 feet

We made it to the falls??  Nope...keep going

Dean, Cherie, David and Shelley (blinking) resting on the way up

Hannah and Ashlyn found an easy Geocache on the way

We made it to the falls???  Nope...keep going

We made it to the falls?  Yep!

Hannah, doing what Jacob would have done, crossed over to the other side

Plotting the path to not get her shoes wet

VIDEOS:

The water cascaded down a long ways...even higher up than this pic shows and then below as well.  We were right in the middle

This is the normal trail - that keeps going to Red Pine.  Right before that small bridge however, to the left, was the way to the falls.  Can't you see the trail?

This is the "trail" to the falls - this is why nobody knows it's here - doesn't really look like a trail

Another look at the "trail"

Nice meadow at the bottom of the canyon here

Looking West down towards Salt Lake Valley