Bell's Canyon Hike

While looking for information on hiking Bells Canyon I came across the following description from a University of Utah website, "Sitting on the Wasatch Front of the Salt Lake Valley, Bell's Canyon straddles the eastern tectonic and geomorphologic boundary of the Basin and Range province. Bell's Canyon is a steep, narrow glacial valley terminated by well-preserved Pleistocene moraines at its mouth. Offsetting the moraines are wonderfully exposed segments of the Wasatch Fault, while sediments of glacial Lake Bonneville crop out westward in the Salt Lake Valley..."

Whatever! It is a great hike, at least the portion my sister, Susan, and I were able to complete before the snow became too deep for us cross without snowshoes.

The trail head begins right off of Wasatch Blvd and cuts through some privately owned land. The trail follows a swift moving stream and is moderately steep at the beginning.

Very quickly you come upon Lower Bells Canyon Reservoir. This is the first real view you have of where the trail will take you. The end of the trail is at Upper Bells Canyon Reservoir, about 4000 feet up from here and around the bend to the right in the picture.



After you circle around the left side of the lower reservoir, the trail generally follows the stream that is in the picture below. For the most part, the trail is in the shade and is easy to follow.



Here is another good view of the stream and the surrounding forest. Although the trail is somewhat steep, the scenery is spectacular and makes the climb much more enjoyable.



When the trail does leave the cover of the forest you are greeted to the north with excellent views of the Bell Towers. This a popular rock climbing area, although we did not see anyone the day we were hiking. The picture below is of the middle Bell Tower, described by Utah Pictures as "[the] home to the classic rock climb, Arm and Hammer III 5.11d, which climbs over a long flake known as The Zion Curtain."



View of the Salt Lake valley. You can see Salt Lake and part of Antelope Island in the distance. Also notice that the valley is in the sun for the most part. As we hiked further up the canyon the clouds became thicker over Lone Peak and Thunder Mountain.



As we made it up towards 7,800 ft the we started seeing significant amounts of snow. Although the snow fields were pretty consolidated and therefore, fairly easy to cross without too much postholing, we were having a hard time finding the trail. Since the area was not too steep we decided to follow some deer tracks and continued bushwhacking upwards.



As we followed the deer and moved upwards we could see Bell's Cleaver, a ridge that separates Thunder Bowl from Upper Bell Canyon. In the picture below, you can see Bell's Cleaver to the right and we were working our way towards the bottom of the ridge that runs down and to the left in the picture.



At this point in the hike we were at 8150 ft and the hike was becoming fairly steep. In addition, we were not positive on the location of the trail and therefore, having to do a fair amount of bushwhacking through thigh high snow. Finally, to top it off it started snowing! Although we were badly tempted to continue up the ridge towards the upper reservoir, we decided it was better to save it for another day.