American Fork Trail Ride

Saturday was stinkin' hot here.  Okay, who am I kidding?  It's like that all the time around here.  It is bad bad bad when the weatherman says we will be "cooling down" to 95.  We decided to go up into the mountains to try to get away from some of the heat.

We headed out to American Fork canyon, which houses the Timpanogos Cave and is a huge area of national forest/national park lands.  We actually didn't visit the cave, but wound our way up the mountain to the Salamander Flats campground.  The campground was very busy - it being 4th of July week and lots of folks on vacation - but we still found an area to park our trailers.  Here's Diggs modeling the new trailer we just picked up with a view of Mt. Timpanogos in the background.

This is a great little trail that winds through the woods, and then out into open alpine meadows, and back into the woods again.  Here are Pam and Jazz blazing trail through an aspen forest.

And one of the grassy meadows, where we stopped to let the horses drink from a clear-water creek.

Even though the trail was quite busy with hikers and bikers, and motorcycle-type vehicles, I was really amazed (and extremely happy) at how polite everyone was.  The motorcyclists either turned off their bikes completely to let us pass, or, if they were going the same direction we were, let us have time to get off the trail, turn the horses, and then drove past V-E-R-Y slowly.  Diggs was happy with the extra people time, and got a nice head scratch from a young lady who was hiking when we stopped at a crossroads to read the signage.

Lots of scenic vistas along the trail and it was well worth the drive.  There are lots of other trails that criss-cross this area, and D and I want to go back and explore the area some more.  It's only about 50 to 60 minutes of drive-time from our house, including the slow-going on the steep and windy uphill to Salamander Flats.  We are hoping to be able to go back spot a few bighorn sheep, or perhaps some mountain goats, which frequent the watering holes in these mountains.

All for now.......

Comments

[Mary Lou]

Sounds wonderful. Don't you just love it when people understand that horses might spook at things and pass politely?

[margene]

It looks like a wonderful place to be in this heat!!

[rebecca]

your Diggs looks like a doll. how old is he? and what an awesome trail ride. wow. someday i hope to have a horse of my own. a trailer, too. lucky you!

[Meadow]

American Fork Canyon is beautiful, I need to get up there more often. Maybe this weekend when it hits 103! ouch!!

[Carole]

Pretty. But the real question is - how much cooler is it up there?

[minnie]

sounds like fun! and i see my sock kit shipped. i can't wait!

[Nicole]

So you did get the new trailer. Good for you!

Looks like a beautiful ride--nice and green. I'm glad you had a good experience with people sharing the trail. It makes all the difference, doesn't it?

[Sheepish Annie]

My favorite snowball fight ever was on the 4th of July in the Utah mountains...because it was so stinkin' hot when we weren't on the mountain!!! Lovely photos...the sky is as blue as anything I've ever seen.

[AmyP]

Sunshine! No rain! Lovely photos - they remind me of a time when we didn't have rain all day, every day.
It nice when people are respectful of horses and riders (it was instilled in me from a very young age).

[Marcia Cooke]

American Fork? Didn't I just read something about a bear incident there? Looks like a nice ride, though, and a bit cooler than down in the valley. You probably don't want to hear that we've barely been out of the 70's the past few days, with nights going down to the 40's. Didn't think so. Happy Fourth!

[susan]

Hey, at least you didn't get mauled by a black bear. How awful was that incident.

[Diane]

Oh, that's a dream of mine some day. Always great to see your photos of your trail rides!

[PJ]

Ah, I love your trail posts! Hopefully it was cooler for you! Nice looking socks, too in the last post!