Flood and Mill Canyons Loop

In my usual early summer effort to get my legs into hiking shape, Saturday I did a close-to-home loop hike starting in Huntington Canyon, ascending Flood Canyon and then descending Mill Canyon. I’ve had this route planned since last year when I learned about a sawmill that used to be near the mouth of Flood Canyon, but I never got around to doing the trip last season. I didn’t even decide to hike it until Friday evening. I got my gear ready and went to bed a little bit early, then woke up early on Saturday and drove into Huntington Canyon. I brought my 11-year-old Brittany Spaniel Torrey with me but left Boulder at home, since lately I’ve felt guilty about not taking the dogs hiking with me but they’ve been too much of a handful together. I left the Jeep at the Mill Canyon trailhead, then followed the Pipeline Trail that parallels Highway 31 until I reached the Flood Canyon trailhead. There’s no bridge across Huntington Creek at Flood Canyon. In fact, the Flood Canyon trail isn’t on the USGS topo map or listed among the official Forest Service trails. I searched the area and found a fallen tree across the creek that sufficed to get me across while keeping dry. Torrey struggled a bit while crossing the creek and I almost thought I’d have to go in after her, but she pulled herself out after some effort.

Leaving the Jeep at the Mill Canyon trailhead
Leaving the Jeep at the Mill Canyon trailhead


Pipeline Trail
Pipeline Trail


Torrey on the Pipeline Trail
Torrey on the Pipeline Trail


Flood Canyon trailhead
Flood Canyon trailhead


Fallen tree I used to cross Huntington Creek
Fallen tree I used to cross Huntington Creek


Torrey struggling to cross the creek
Torrey struggling to cross the creek


Near the mouth of Flood Canyon I began searching for the sawmill. First I found an old stove half-buried in the dirt. Finding nothing else right at the mouth of the canyon, I started up the trail. I encountered a dead raven directly on the trail, and a minute or two later there was a dead fawn on the trail. Things were off to a creepy start. I climbed a hill on the north side of the trail to get a better view of a clearing to the south and saw a large piece of rusty metal that looked like it could have been a steam boiler. I hiked in that direction, having to go out of my way to find a place to cross the entrenched watercourse, which had been deeply eroded by flash floods after the 2012 Seeley Fire. Then I heard something crashing in the trees to the south. After looking up into the trees for a short while I spotted a bull moose, and he was uncomfortably close to me. For a couple of minutes he just grazed and didn’t pay me much attention, but then he moved down into the same clearing I was standing in. And then he walked over and began grazing right on the trail! I didn’t really have anywhere to go because he was standing on the upper trail and there was a deep watercourse between me and the lower trail. I just stood there and watched him, while he occasionally looked up to check me out. Eventually he just stopped grazing and walked down the trail, then climbed the hill to the north and disappeared over the ridge. I breathed a sigh of relief and got back to checking out the sawmill location.

Old stove in Flood Canyon
Old stove in Flood Canyon


Dead fawn on the trail
Dead fawn on the trail


Lower Flood Canyon
Lower Flood Canyon


Bull moose
Bull moose


Moose on the trail
Moose on the trail


Climbing over the ridge
Climbing over the ridge



I reached the rusty metal piece and found that it was just a large pipe. Near the rusty pipe was a concrete foundation of some sort. Whatever wooden structure had been attached to it had mostly burned in the wildfire six years ago. Inscribed in the concrete was “Cox, Aug. 29, 1940.” Too bad he didn’t leave his first name. There was only a small amount of other junk lying around, mostly metal and glass. I wonder what other wood had burned during the fire. Here’s what little history I learned (through e-mail from Harvey Howard, whose grandfather was a foreman at several mills) about this sawmill and a couple of others in the area. At the beginning of World War II, more timbers were needed to expand and shore up some of the coal mines in the region in order to manufacture more steel for the war effort. Some of the coal mines had thicker coal seams than most and required taller trees, so some sawmills (including this one in Flood Canyon) were started up to produce longer timbers. The mills were built in 1939 and ran until sometime after the war ended (the 1940 inscription in the concrete may have been made after it dried). There used to be a large steam boiler at Flood Canyon, but there were also gasoline engines running some equipment at all the mills during this time.

Steel pipe at the sawmill site
Steel pipe at the sawmill site


Concrete structure
Concrete structure


Concrete structure
Concrete structure


Inscription in the concrete: Cox, August 29, 1940
Inscription in the concrete: Cox, August 29, 1940


Rusty chunk of metal
Rusty chunk of metal


Torrey and I continued up the trail, which was originally a logging road built to haul logs to the sawmill. Where the trail crossed a small stream coming in from a side canyon there were bear tracks in the mud, as well as a few faint tracks on the trail above there. Just as I’d seen in Mill Fork Canyon last year, there were carvings in the aspen from people riding dirt bikes up these trails in the late 80s and early 90s.

Old road in Flood Canyon
Old road in Flood Canyon


Small cascade
Small cascade


Trail over the old road
Trail over the old road


Bear track in the mud
Bear track in the mud


Torrey on the trail
Torrey on the trail


Jeremy Defa, 7/13/91, 1985 XR350R
Jeremy Defa, 7/13/91, 1985 XR350R


Adam Kingston, XR350
Adam Kingston, XR350


Overgrown trail
Overgrown trail


The trail crossed over to the south side of Flood Canyon and shortly thereafter departed the old logging road, becoming narrower and a little steeper. There were more wildflowers and more burned trees on this side of the canyon, which made for a pleasant contrast. Near the top of the ridge a herd of about a dozen elk crashed through the trees a few hundred yard above me. I caught only a few glimpses of them, and Torrey perked up and looked in their direction but remained by my side, with both of us just curiously observing. I got to the top of the Flood Canyon trail and tried climbing a short trail leading to point 10,205′ on Candland Mountain. After only a short distance I’d had to climb over or crawl under several fallen trees, and I reached one section of fallen timber that was just too difficult to bypass, so I gave up on hiking that peak. I’m glad I attempted to reach the peak, however, because there were some very old aspen carvings along the way. One was made by Mont Cox in 1935…perhaps the same Cox who carved his last name in the concrete at the sawmill? The square lettering sure seems to be a match!

Trail crossing Flood Canyon
Trail crossing Flood Canyon


Columbine and paintbrush
Columbine and paintbrush


Burned trees
Burned trees


Torrey listening to a herd of elk crashing through the trees
Torrey listening to a herd of elk crashing through the trees


Big W
Big W


Top of the Flood Canyon Trail
Top of the Flood Canyon Trail


1914 aspen carving
1914 aspen carving


Mont Cox, Sept. ??, 1935
Mont Cox, Sept. ??, 1935


Serafina Olearain, July 16, 1933
Serafina Olearain, July 16, 1933


Deadfall covering the trail
Deadfall covering the trail


N.H., Sept. 3, 1926
N.H., Sept. 3, 1926


I sat on a log at the top of the ridge dividing Flood Canyon and Mill Canyon and ate lunch. While there I heard a chainsaw down on the Mill Canyon side of the ridge, and a short while later two men on horseback came along. Their names were Ken and Dale, and they’d just cleared the deadfall from the trail along Mill Canyon and were going to work their way down Flood Canyon. We chatted for a while, and it turns out they’re members of the San Rafael Back Country Horsemen, who I follow on Facebook. That makes two consecutive weekends in the backcountry meeting people I’m familiar with online. They headed down Flood Canyon while Torrey and I enjoyed descending the freshly-cleared Mill Canyon. I’m glad I was doing the loop counter-clockwise, because Mill Canyon was steep and exposed to the sun.

Saddle on the ridge between Flood and Mill canyons
Saddle on the ridge between Flood and Mill canyons


Burned trees
Burned trees


Thanks, guys!
Thanks, guys!


Burned ridge south of Mill Canyon
Burned ridge south of Mill Canyon


Lupine
Lupine


N.H. 1930
N.H. 1930


Torrey is either out of shape or just showing her age, because she was having problems on this last half of the hike. She would walk ahead of me for a short while, but then she’d stop in the shade and lie down waiting for me to catch up, which is entirely uncharacteristic of her–that’s more like something Boulder would do. Once we got close to the watercourse in Mill Canyon, Torrey could sense that there was water and ran ahead. By the time I caught up to her she was lying in the water and lapping it up. She had dropped down a steep hill about 40 feet below the trail to get to the water, and I had a difficult time encouraging her to climb back up to me. About half a mile later we were at the bottom of the canyon and she took a well-deserved swim in Huntington Creek. We’d hiked about 6.5 miles with 1,900 feet elevation gain. It was a little more mellow than the previous weekend’s hike to Deseret Peak, but it seemed extremely easy compared to that one. Maybe I’m ready for some Colorado 14ers next weekend?

Torrey taking a break in the shade
Torrey taking a break in the shade


Freshly-cleared trail
Freshly-cleared trail


Torrey in the stream in Mill Canyon
Torrey in the stream in Mill Canyon


Lower Mill Canyon
Lower Mill Canyon


1930, Grant Nielson, July 22
1930, Grant Nielson, July 22


Debris basins at the mouth of Mill Canyon
Debris basins at the mouth of Mill Canyon


Bridge over Huntington Creek
Bridge over Huntington Creek


GPS stats
GPS stats


Photo Gallery: Flood and Mill Canyons Loop
GPS Track and Photo Waypoints:
[Google Earth KMZ] [Gmap4 Satellite] [Gmap4 Topo]

5 thoughts on “Flood and Mill Canyons Loop

  1. hey Dennis,
    I’ve been eying Skyline Drive area this spring, so found this post very informative.
    Good call on just one mellow dog who does not chase Moose, then run back to Dad after getting the big bull or worse, cow w calf, all riled up leading right back to you. Clear Moose photo reveals animal hide in good shape and not riddled with ticks or too skinny like one we saw a few years back, then found dead a week later up on Tabby Mt. I read that heat has been giving ticks “a leg up” on Moose, driving them further North and South of Uintas in Utah were are at the Southern extent of their range. Good see this sighting.
    Lot of game for a short outing!
    Our elk sightings are way down this spring.
    Wild u saw horsemen cutting timber on this non motorized trail, many of which are disappearing from deadfall and lack of use. Nothing worse for a horse than downfall in a Spruce Forest with their stout limbs holding them up too high to cross vs. Aspen which seem to more often lay flat.
    Thanks for the always interesting post.
    steve

    1. Yeah, I’m glad I had Torrey with me and not Boulder, since Torrey is the more mellow of the two. I do keep the dogs leashed much of the time, especially in the thicker forests where it’s easier for them to wander off out of eyesight.
      I must be lucky because I’ve never seen a tick in my life. And I’ve only ever seen two other moose (both on or near Gentry Mountain), so this was a fun sighting for me.
      Those horsemen seem to be pretty active in keeping the trails open around here. They post upcoming trail projects on Facebook and I’m hoping to meet up and lend a hand one of these times.

  2. There is a tree in this roll of pictures that my dad inscribed. His name was Serafin Olearain. He was a Basque sheepherder at the time. There is a little confusion with the name Serafina as that’s my youngest daughter name and she’s 34 now. There is no other family member with that name. So I guess my question for you is are you sure it said Serafina and not just Serafin. We just had a Olearain family reunion and I sent this to all of them. Of course they all want to find that tree. I can’t as of my physical condition. If you get this please reply. Oh by the way she was doing s Google search of her name when your site popped up. Thank you so much.

    1. I’m not 100% sure whether it is Serafin or Serafina. I probably have a photo from another angle showing the rest of the name, but unfortunately I’m traveling right now and don’t have access to the photos on my computer. I will check when I get home and reply here, probably on Thursday or Friday. That would be really cool if it is your father’s inscription! I’ll be sure to send you GPS coordinates as well.

    2. So it turns out the name is actually Serafin, not Serafina. Here is a photo showing the right side of the inscription. The tree is at about N 39° 32.904′ W 111° 12.205′.

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