Osceola Ditch Hike in Great Basin National Park

The Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive in Great Basin National Park recently opened to the Osceola Ditch, so I took the kids up one day to go hike the trail. I had mentioned the Osceola Ditch in my April Nevadagram post, and I wanted to see it again. The ditch was built from in 1889-1890 and covered 18 miles, from Lehman Creek, around the mountain to Mill Creek, Strawberry Creek, Weaver Creek, and over to Osceola. The ditch had a slight downhill grade to keep the water moving in the desired direction. Wooden flumes were built over rocky sections, and a tunnel was blasted through a hill near Strawberry Creek. The ditch managed to get water to Osceola for gold mining operations, but it didn't last long. Mild, dry winters meant less water for the ditch in 1892, and by 1901 the Osceola Ditch was abandoned. 

Today it's a nice trail from the pull off on the Scenic Drive to Strawberry Creek. The hike is 5.2 miles one-way, but we planned to just go as far as we wanted (or as far as I could get the kids to go). I enticed the kids with the promise of a snowball fight.

We found snow immediately, and the kids were delighted.

I got pelted, but had fun returning some snowballs.

Desert Girl also made a snow angel.

After we hiked 1/3 mile from the trailhead, we met up with the ditch. Most of the trail is easy, but Desert Girl wanted to take the hard way.

If there's an obstacle, she's there.

It's easy to imagine water running along the ditch. There are reports of miners fishing the ditch. The ditch probably helped Bonneville cutthroat trout get from Lehman Creek into Mill Creek. Decades later, Mill Creek served as a source population of Bonneville cutthroat trout for reintroductions into several other creeks.

Desert Boy found a fun rock outcropping along the way.

We took a time out for a grass fight.

I also enjoyed the flowers, like this tiny Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia parvifolia).


Nearby was its frequent companion, slender phlox (Microsteris gracilis).


We kept hiking until we found snow blocking the way. Then the kids spent an awesome 20 minutes playing in the snow. It was at least a couple feet deep and they loved jumping into it and then unburying themselves.

On the way back we admired some of the wooden flume, now just pieces of wood.

It's a great trail to hike. It's one of the few that isn't steep, so that really makes it stand out. The history behind it is also fascinating. If you get far enough, a road parallels (or is on top of) the ditch, making the hiking even easier. Large snowdrifts often persist into early June. I'm thinking I will return to this trail later in the summer and see how it works for a trail run.

More Fun in Moab 2019

We enjoy visiting Moab, Utah periodically. One of the big attractions for us is the Moab Trail Marathon/Half-Marathon/Adventure 5K, which is held the first weekend of November. By that time life has usually slowed down a bit and we can escape for a weekend. We had a great time at the 2017 Adventure 5K and also did some fun activities afterwards (with links to previous Moab area adventures).

We left home in the morning and arrived in Moab late afternoon on Friday (many people had left by then, so it wasn't crowded). That was time to go into Arches National Park for a hike. We headed to Landscape Arch.

The kids thought hiking to Landscape Arch (which is only about a mile) was long enough, but I told them they had to experience the true Arches. We needed to continue on the primitive trail.

They grumbled, but we continued, and they found I was right (as usual, lol!). The primitive trail was super fun, with scrambling and steep drop offs. We walked right on top of a big fin. On the way back we explored a little, and had a great time. It was starting to get dark, so we made the most of our daylight!

After dinner, we headed to the motel (hotel points are fantastic for free nights!) and motel pool. Fun!

The next morning we were up early to go to the race. When I had signed us up, I was feeling energetic, and signed myself up for the half-marathon. However, due to travel and sickness, I had only managed a total of eight miles of training in the weeks leading up to the race. I figured I would go ahead and do it, although it might take me 3-4 hours to complete.

I had never been on the half-marathon route before. It had a variety of terrain, from rocky to sandy, from two-track to barely single track (we were sort of just running on ledges at one point), from ups to downs, but throughout the entire course, we had awesome scenery. It was hard because I hadn't trained well, and after the half-way point my body didn't really want to run, but it was so, so much easier than the Tushars Trail Marathon. And I ended up finishing right at 3 hours! I was a bit discouraged when I finished because so many people had passed me, but it turned out I finished 332nd out of 748 finishers. That made me feel a lot better.

My husband and Desert Girl were near the finish line when I came across, but Desert Boy was nowhere to be seen. It turned out he had taken a wrong turn on the 5k and run an extra 3 miles--in jeans. Yikes! He would have been a fast finisher otherwise. We enjoyed the yummy post-race food, then headed back to the hotel for more swimming (a wonderful way to work out some sore muscles!).

We all agreed no hiking for the day, but Desert Girl just had to go to the sand dunes across from the Arches NP entrance. We had never been, so we agreed. I figured I would just stay near the vehicle at the bottom.

 

But eventually she enticed me to go up to the top.

Our next stop was the Bar M Ranch bike trails. The kids couldn't wait to ride at the OK Corral, a free for-all bike part with little dirt hills. But after awhile, they had ridden all the obstacles successfully. It was time for a little challenge. So we went on one of the easiest bike trails. I had a big, fancy mountain bike, but Desert Girl had a street bike with no suspension. She did better than me! It's so great to see them enjoy being outside so much.

I wanted to try the paved bike trail from there back to Arches. It was super, with lots of mountain bike trails connecting to it. How nice to have paved trails so bicyclists don't have to ride on the highway! (We are trying to get one near where we live, but have run into a big stumbling block. Sigh.) I admired the camera post by the Arches National Park sign. People had left a couple rocks there to support cell phones.

Speaking of bike amenities, this fix-it station was in Moab.

We squeezed in church service on Saturday evening. It's always interesting going to churches in different places.

Sunday was our day to drive home, and although we had a long drive, we wanted to make a couple stops. The first was to see some dinosaur tracks at Copper Ridge, north of Moab. We turned off Highway 191 at the Klondike Bluffs sign (between mile markers 148 and 149), and followed the signs for 2 miles to this kiosk. We saw about a hundred people camping, most with bikes, scattered around the area.

The trail is very short to get to the tracks, although it is uphill. Then we were there and could see the giant impressions. It's so cool to imagine dinosaurs walking here.

We also saw smaller, turkey-like tracks.

We had one more place I wanted to stop that was sort of on the way home: Little Wildhorse Canyon near Goblin Valley State Park. We went there several years ago, but the kids didn't remember it.

It's a slot canyon in the San Rafael Swell, and it doesn't take long to hike to the narrow section. It's so much fun.

There are a few minor obstacles to go over. We eventually ran out of time and had to turn back. But we got a lot further than last time, the kids are so much better at hiking, and if it's not a typical hiking trail, they really enjoy it.

We had the canyon almost to ourselves on the way up, even though this is a very popular canyon. On the way back, we saw lots of people.

Nearby is the Temple Uranium Mine, so we took a quick look there. So much more to explore! Then we took a back way back to the Interstate, getting a flat tire on the way. It made for an interesting drive home, as it's really hard to get a flat tire fixed on a Sunday in rural Utah during hunting season! Fortunately we eventually made it home.

I'm sure we'll be back to Moab at some point, there's just so much to do there, and I feel like we've just barely scratched the surface.

Late Fall Jaunt on the Serviceberry Trail, Great Basin National Park

I've run most of the trails in Great Basin National Park this summer to prepare for the Tushars Marathon, but I didn't make it to the Serviceberry Trail up Snake Creek. I decided to remedy that before I headed over for the Moab Trail Half-Marathon. (This has been a year of a lot of running for me!).

I wasn't surprised to find myself alone at the trailhead. The loop trail is approximately 3.2 miles, and you can see many of the eponymous shrubs right at the trailhead. This time of year they aren't too showy, with no green leaves, white blossoms, or dark berries.

I headed west (left) first, following along the creek for awhile, then climbing up towards the saddle. 

I love this big granite rock with the rock balancing on it. 

Fall colors happened so fast that I didn't get a chance to get up Snake Creek to enjoy the aspens this year. Upper Snake Creek has one of the best aspen groves in the park.


As I went over the saddle, I enjoyed the views.

 These aspens didn't have any leaves left on them, and the ones on the ground weren't particularly colorful.

I did find one small aspen on the backside with leaves! It felt like I won a treasure hunt.

This part of the trail is especially nice, with gentle ups and downs.

Sagebrush covers most of the lower hillside, transitioning to pinyon pine and Utah juniper up higher. In wetter drainages, we see aspen and white fir.

And over the trail is an arch of mountain mahogany.

Then it's time for lots of switchbacks down to the trailhead. The serviceberry is really abundant here. This is one of the easier trails in the park, but it does have a fair bit of elevation change. It's open anytime you can get up the road--eventually the road will be snow-covered in the winter. You usually have it to yourself, and it's quite peaceful and beautiful.

Here's a blog post about hiking the Serviceberry Trail with fall colors.

Ascent of Wheeler Peak in July 2019

 I wanted to get some more high elevation acclimatization to prepare for my mountain marathon. And I just wanted to climb Wheeler Peak, the second tallest peak in Nevada and the capstone of Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada.

I've climbed the peak many times before (for example, 2008 in July,  2013 in August for GLORIA, June 1, 2014, with kids in June 2015, February 2016 Part 1 and Part 2, and with kids in June 2017). Generally July is a good time to go to see lots of wildflowers. But in 2019, a year of high snow pack and a cool and wet spring, the road up to the Wheeler Peak summit trailhead only opened the end of June. I wasn't sure what conditions I would encounter.

It wasn't far above Stella Lake that I started getting into some big snow banks. Fortunately the Nevada Conservation Corps (NCC) crew had been up there and flagged the trail up through the treeline, which helped a lot! I was trying to run hill intervals, but it wasn't working so great through the snow. Fortunately the snow eventually stopped.

And then there were flowers! All sorts of flowers, like this bright sky pilot (Polemonium viscosum), which later starts smelling like skunk.

I did a little happy dance when I saw this spiky phlox (Phlox pulvinata). I'm used to seeing it when it's past its prime, so it was so neat to see it in bloom!

I was up to the ridge with the big windbreaks. This ridge is kind of flat. Keeping in mind that you're climbing 3,000 feet in 4.1 miles. I took a quick break, but since I was trying to make this a fast trip up the peak, didn't stop for long.

This sight stopped me in my tracks--moss campion (Silene acaulis), a beautiful patch of it with Wheeler in the background.

To the west was Spring Valley, with the green pivot-irrigated fields really standing out. The horizon was not very clear, I think because of smoke.

I also enjoyed big patches of yellow Ross' aven (Geum rossi).

 

 The trail was blocked by snow in a couple more places as I climbed higher. This part was a few hundred feet below the summit. Obviously no one had tried to stay on the trail, as it was too steep. So I headed up the rocks, trying not to trample the delicate alpine plants.

And then I was there! I walked out onto some snow, postholing up to my thigh. Yikes! Then it was time to get some selfies. Here's the rest of the South Snake Range stretching to the south. The North Fork Baker sure has a lot of snow left in it!

I checked the trail register, and it was stuffed full of molding papers. I sorted through some of them and found two nice notebooks that I left in a ziploc bag.

I took the older registers to the Cultural Resources manager for the park.

 

Then I grabbed a snack and headed out along the summit ridge, glad to have hiking poles to help with the deep snow.

I also had to put on two jackets, a balaclava, and gloves. It might be 95 degrees in the valley, but it was feeling like winter up on top! Here's a view looking west towards the summit.

And looking east to the newly renamed Doso Doyabi (formerly Jeff Davis Peak). Here's info on the name change and the approval on June 19, 2019.

 

On my way back, I saw lots of green bugs (Hemiptera) on the snow. I was able to use iNaturalist to look up what it was, Say's stink bug.

I couldn't help but take a lot of photos while I was up there. Here's looking north, with Stella and Teresa Lakes if you look hard. Bald Mountain is the nearest peak.

As I was heading off the mountain, I went to the west side and looked back at the peak. Wow, what a snow cornice! And I had been standing on it! If you head up there, be careful.

On my way down, I found this bright flower (maybe a Draba?) way above the other flowers. The bright pink Parry's primrose (Primula parryi) still has a ways to go until it's blooming.

Views of heading down. 

 And then looking back up from the mid-way ridge. (It's about mid-way in time for going up, but for distance it's over half way.)

I kept going crazy over the amazing wildflowers. Here they were, hiding out above the snow level!

And a few more flowers, just because. I didn't manage to get a photo of the people in flip flops coming up the mountain. Fifteen people were heading up as I was coming down, many dressed in shorts and t-shirts. Hopefully they had some extra layers in their packs, as the wind was getting stronger. 

If you want to hike Wheeler Peak now, I recommend sturdy boots you don't mind getting wet, hiking poles (especially helpful for coming down the snowy parts), and several layers. Bring more water than you think you'll need, and plenty of snacks. A good hiker without many stops can make it to the top in 3-4 hours, and back down in 2-3 hours. We did it with kids one year, and it was 9 hours round trip with lots of snack breaks. On this day, it was much faster because I jogged some of it, and even with flower and photo stops, it was about 4.5 hours. Overall, about 20% of the trail is covered with snow, although with more warm days ahead, I'd expect the trail to be snow free in a couple weeks.

Thanks for looking!