21 June 2012 - Canyon hopping

This afternoon, after work I decided to take a drive. I had discovered that you can drive up Parley's Canyon get off I-80 at Jeremy Ranch and drive north to East Canyon and back down to Salt Lake. Since this was totally new territory to me, I could not resist. 

It was a beautiful day for a drive. Sunny and warm, but open window warm, not air conditioning warm. My drive took three hours, yes, I dawdled the entire way. Lots of stops. The majority of the time the road followed the meandering East Canyon Creek.  This area is enough higher than the valley that in some places the leaves were just coming out on the trees. 

I saw lots of favorite mountain flowers:  blue penstemon, scarlet gilia and indian paintbrush. They were stunning against the gray sage brush. 

The creek was so inviting, I really wanted to take off my shoes and socks and go wading. In some places where it was wide and shallow it had big beds of some aquatic plant covered with tiny white blooms. In the picture above, the white speckles on the left side are not water ripples, but a patch of these flowers.

In addition to the wonderful scenery and wildflowers galore, the highlight was (I know, you are way ahead of me here) a new bird. 

This time it was a yellow warbler. I could hear them, but boy howdy, they were hard to spot.

It wouldn't be Utah back country without an abandoned house.

This is built from field stone. Lord knows that there is more rock here than dirt. 

The land is all open range, so who knows, maybe cattle or horses use this for shelter in winter. 

Speaking of cattle, there were also some picturesque ranches  off the road as well. 

 By the time I crossed into East Canyon and was making my way down the mountain the sun had dropped quite low, but it surely showed off all the layers of hills and valleys.

Just another spectacular day here. And the icing on the cake was the sky when I finally reached the bottom of the canyon.