I’m getting a little restless lately. I’ve wanted to do some serious hiking, but just haven’t found the time. Someday soon I hope to go on an eight mile hike (round trip) from the Price River overlook south of Mounds to a place called Balanced Rock that appears on the topo map for that area. There’s a jeep trail that leaves the main road just northeast of Desert Lake, and though it appears to go all the way to Balanced Rock, I think I’d rather hike. Besides, I’d prefer not to drive my truck all the way out there only to find that it’s not capable of handling the trail, whereas I already drove to the overlook last month and I know I can make it there again.
There’s a footpath leading from the overlook to Balanced Rock, and it’s well-used enough that you can see it in the aerial photos of the area. When I was first there, I thought it was a cattle trail, but now I’m not so sure. There doesn’t appear to be any other trails in the area (which there should be if there were a lot of cattle), but I also can’t imagine that enough people have hiked there to have made such a nice trail.
I can only hope that the flow of the Price River has gone down since August, because I definitely don’t want to wade across it in October. Hopefully I can get away with simply taking my hiking boots off and rolling my pants up. The hiking pole my sister gave me for my birthday should help a lot with that part. I read that using two poles is much better than only one, so I’ll probably buy another just for this trip.