Aspen Fall

When we climbed Lone Cone in August, we drove by a trailhead for the Goat Creek Trail. We figured that was worthwhile to check out because it was so close to home. So we drove back up there. We parked right off the side of the road and started walking up an old dirt road. Immediately we knew the appeal of this trail was the multitude of beaver dams. It seemed every hundred feet there was a new dam. Trees all around us showed the scars of beaver chewing, but of course we never saw an actual beaver. There was so much hard work put into these dams that you had to respect the industrious beaver.

 The trail did not take us very far and soon it ran out. We vowed to keep following the creek even though we did not have a trail. It took us through underbrush and through the aspens until we ran into a fence. Here we were in the evergreens again. We walked around the fence until we found an opening. Here we made our way to a road

on private property, but that did not last for long. We crossed the creek again and found the best patch of aspens we saw the entire day. Really what you are after on a fall hike with Jacqueline is to see the pretty trees. We wandered amongst these, contemplated the thought of hitting a road far above us and making it a loop hike on some dirt roads. We thought better of it and came back the way we came. With only a couple hours out so far, we decided to continue driving and see what we could run into. 

About an hour drive got us to Beaver Park which was a pretty little area with excellent views. We found another trailhead which was the other side of the Lone Cone Trail we had taken a few weeks ago when we climbed Flat Top. We decided to hike it even though Jacqueline was not feeling to wonderful. She struggled the first part of the hike, but started feeling better after we got into it for a bit. The hike took us through many aspens and coniferous forests. We decided we could not go for too long and stopped after some cascades and a creek crossing. We knew from here it was a steep uphill climb and Jacqueline was just not feeling it on this day. We did not see much wildlife on this day, but we did see more than we saw humans. It was unbelievable to us just the quiet of these trails after running into so many people in Zion. Nope, for us on this day it was just the squirrels to keep us company. The walk out was pleasant as we headed downhill with ease. We enjoyed the bright yellows all around us that warned us we were in for some much chillier temperatures in future. A few days later, we realized why Jacqueline had not been feeling super well on the hike. She was pregnant! We were super excited that we were soon going to have a wonderful little one to come exploring with us in the future.