After not hiking for three weeks to let my knee heal up from an injury, I was eager to get out again and I chose this hike because it was fairly easy and close to home. I hiked along Spring Creek from Huntington Reservoir to Skyline Drive. The Sentinel satellite imagery showed that the snow had melted just enough for this hike to be possible. I planned this as sort of a loop, following the stream up the canyon and then joining an old road to follow back down, but both routes were quite close together, never farther than a quarter of a mile apart. I parked at the new Spring Creek trailhead and hopped a couple of rocks to cross a stream, then left the trail and followed the shore along the upper end of Huntington Reservoir.
Spring Creek Trailhead
Unnamed creek crossing
View toward Huntington Reservoir
Huntington Reservoir
Huntington Reservoir
I reached the spot where Spring Creek flows into the reservoir and followed it upstream. The terrain sloped gently upward and there was no bushwhacking, unlike many other canyons in the area, but there were the usual beaver dams and ponds.
Spring Creek just above Huntington Reservoir
Beaver dam and pond
Relatively easy terrain
Bridge over Spring Creek
An old road comes down to the creek from the other old road that I planned on following down the canyon. I hiked up that short connector road and back down to the creek just to check the aspen trees for carvings but didn’t find any that were noteworthy. The side-trip added nearly a mile to the hike.
Trail junction
Old road through the trees
Road junction
Returning to my route along the creek it got steeper and more rugged for a bit and I had to cross some snow drifts. Then it leveled out and opened up again. Parts of the route appeared to have once been traveled by motor vehicles but it wasn’t really a constructed road.
Back to the route along the creek
Trail camera across the creek
Upper Spring Creek
Faint old road
First snow drift I had to cross
Firm snow
Crossing a small snowfield
More snow ahead
Skyline Drive on the horizon
Upper Spring Creek
Wildflower
Wildflowers
View downstream
Almost to the head of the creek
Bloons
False hellebore beginning to grow
Aspen carving
I hadn’t actually planned to hike all the way to Skyline Drive, but I was feeling great when I got to where I’d planned to leave my route alongside the stream and join up with the old road. So instead I continued uphill through some steep and rocky terrain, crossed a few large snow drifts, and ended up on Skyline, which was still closed to vehicles for the season.
Steeper climb toward Skyline
One last big snowfield to cross
Almost to Skyline
Old fence
Closed Skyline Drive
Big and Little Horseshoes about 17 miles distant
Old Mercedes hubcap
From there it was almost a mile to the old road I wanted to descend, and along the way I found a place to sit down for lunch. When I got to the road I initially made good time back down the canyon. This road was the original road going from Huntington Canyon to Skyline Drive but it was replaced by the current alignment of Utah Highway 31 sometime in the 1970s. There were many aspen carvings on this stretch of road, the oldest I saw dating to 1935. For the last mile or so my knee started hurting pretty badly again. 🙁 I was really bummed, and kind of pissed off, thinking this injury was going to sideline me for months. I limped for the last little while, trying not to bear too much weight on the knee. I returned to the truck, drove home, and surprisingly the pain was gone when I arrived. This pattern of pain would repeat toward the end of the next several big hikes I did, but each time I was able to hike farther before it kicked in and it never persisted long after the hike, eventually going away after another month and a half. This hike was 7.5 miles total with only 800 feet of elevation gain, but it was the beginning of me building up to some much bigger hikes.
A glimpse of Huntington Reservoir
The road I would follow back down
Old road
K.B. 1966
Happy birthday!
Kinny
Old road
Another carved woman
Sixth balloon of the hike
Brewer carving from 1949
I’m Hungry
Ephraim 1947
Part of a 1935 carving
Hello you dum tird
Back at the trailhead
Photo Gallery: Spring Creek