The Clark Club Dirt: Hike Dry Canyon to Baldy on Timp

After Krista, Michelle & I did our Timp hike, Michelle told the kids that we saw a 7 year old at the top of Timp. Todd has always been interested in hiking Timp but had planned to wait until he got a couple years older. But when he heard about the other 7 year old on Timp, he wanted to hike it this year.

So Michelle decided to take Todd out on a training/test hike. Krista wanted to come along and Scott decided it might be better than being stuck home alone babysitting Adam and decided to come along too. Adam stayed with the Naegle's while Michelle & the kids headed up Baldy with Brian at work. They started at about 1:15 pm.

After coming up Dry Canyon past the fork to Curly Springs a ways up the trail there was another split in the trail. Michelle decided to take the left trail marked by a cairn. Little did she know she had made a fateful decision. Instead of taking the quite steep and difficult hike up dry canyon to the pass behind Baldy, they had started up the really really steep front side of Baldy. No sissy hike for them! After some nasty switch backs - we're talking 45 degrees plus they hit a clearing with a primitive fire pit. Scott was tired and was ready for a rest. With Michelle's approval he decided to go sit on the rocks of the fire pit. He put his right hand on a rock and found out the hard way that the fire hadn't been out very long - he ended up with 2nd degree burns on all of his fingers on his hand. Fortunately they had a wrap along and pressed on.

This was one of those hikes where they thought they were almost to the top for a long long time. But after much perseverance, a bribe to Scott that he could pick anywhere he wanted for dinner, and some nasty rock scrambling they eventually got to the top of Baldy. Well not quite - this was the first summit. They headed for the second summit (I think this is where the dinner bribe came in.) The plan was to head down the easier back of Baldy trail, but from the 2nd summit they couldn't find a way to safely get to the 3rd summit which is where the back side trail connects to.

So they were faced with going back down the super steep trail they had come up - not a good thing when it's that steep, but it was the only choice. At this point morale dropped drastically. Todd maintained an amazing positive attitude the whole time and thoroughly enjoyed himself. But Scott was NOT happy and Michelle was rather concerned. (Going down really steep, gravely, rocky, scoot on your bum loose trail is never fun - add a burned hand and it gets to be downright miserable.) Krista saw that they were in a tough spot and made a very mature and appreciated decision to put on a good face and be a part of the solution and not the problem. So they began the slow and sometimes painful sojourn back down the mountain. Fortunately cell phone coverage is pretty good on the front side of Baldy and they were able to keep in contact with me as needed throughout the hike.

The arduous hike down was broken up with some happy moments. For one they saw horny toads. This is the first time I've know of someone seeing horny toads in Utah. They actually caught a couple and saw an enormous one that they didn't chase because it was too far out the the way. They also found a really cool feather that cheered Scott up considerably.

About 6 pm after a few calls from Michelle I decided I'd better head up and help them get down. I was somewhat concerned about being able to find them especially since Michelle's description of where they are was rather sketchy. After coming up the initial section of Dry Canyon and passing the first possible turn off trail I gave them a call. To my surprise Michelle asked if I was wearing an orange shirt which I said I was - even though they were quite far away that could see my bright orange shirt. Once I took the turnoff at the cairn onto the Baldy face trail, things got really really really steep. The switchback varied from maybe 25 degrees to 50 degrees. There were sections that it was quite difficult to hike up without falling - I was shaking my head in disbelief that they had actually hiked up this stuff.

A little later we could hear each other shouting. I thought we were pretty close together but found out we still had a ways to go. There were rain clouds coming in but fortunately they were to the north. After about 1 hour of fast hiking and drinking a full liter of water even though it was cold out I finally met up with them. As far up as we still were, I was concerned that we might not make it down before dark, but we actually made pretty good time. Not long after we were all together the rain clouds were heading our way. And pretty soon we were getting dumped on and I mean dumped on. (So for the 2nd night in a row here I was outside in a serious thunderstorm.) These raindrops were so big they actually hurt a little. Then a couple minutes later we started seeing thunder and lighting. Fortunately we had just got down low enough that we weren't quite as exposed to the lightning. And for the first time on the hike Todd got upset - he was quite afraid of being hit by lightning. My biggest concern was that the trails were about to get really slippery and muddy - not good for an already steep, slippery trail. Todd relaxed pretty quickly. Fortunately the rain didn't last long and the if anything the slightly damp trails were actually a little less slippery.

Finally we got back to the main trail. Hooray! It was unbelievable how excited we all were to be on a regular trail. About when we got back to the trail fork where you head into the bottom section of Dry Canyon it starting raining and lightening again. But at this point we didn't mind too much - other than being a bit cold. The trail was much less steep and with canyon cliffs on both sides we had very little exposure to lightning. We did end up with some muddy shoes though. So finally at a little after 8:00 pm a 6 hour 45 minute hike for them and a 2 hour hike for me we got to the parking lot with 45 minutes of daylight to spare. We drove home, grabbed Adam, took quick showers, and headed out to Scott's choice of dinner - Golden Corral getting there at a little after 9 pm.

Todd maintained an amazing attitude throughout an incredibly difficult hike. He passed the test with flying colors! So they plan is to do another training hike or two and then make an attempt at Timp.

All of the kids except Adam were asleep within about 3 minutes of when we got home from Golden Corral.

Scott, Krista & Todd at the split in the trail 1/2 mile up Dry Canyon.