Obscure Trail Monkeys: Bonneville Shoreline Trudge

A dragon, a dragon, I swear I saw a dragon!

Saturday evening Sam and I had tentatively planned on running the legacy parkway trail. However, it turns out that trail isn't maintained during the winter, which left us standing in Centerville staring at the trail wondering what to do. Sam had already run 13 miles that morning and the snow was falling pretty steadilly, so in the spirit of "In for a penny, in for a pound," we drove up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trailhead at the end of Parrish Lane and decided to trek it out regardless of the snowpack or snowfall.

After a failed attempt at getting my 4 wheel drive Dodge up the small hill to the dirt parking lot, we started out in the snow. And on a side note, remind me to tell you a story of a single lane road, a sheet of ice, and a little bush that helped rotate a 7 passenger vehicle 180 degrees.

We first ran north so that I could show Sam the Ricks Creek waterfall. It's a 25' waterfall tucked right above the city. I had been there a couple times while running on the shoreline trail, but Sam had never seen it.

The run was difficult at best, and only walkable at worst. The snow was above our ankles most of the time when we weren't able to find some 4-wheeler tracks to run through. Waterfalls in the winter are astonishingly beautiful. This one was a 15 foot diameter column of ice with water thundering out the bottom like a giant straw.

This is how the waterfall looks in the springtime.

Sam at Ricks Creek Waterfall

To the waterfall and back was a little over 3.5 miles, so we decided to then run south on the trail torwards Bountiful. This route was worse because the wind had began to pickup. Once we could see the dim glow of the Bountiful Temple through the snow and fog, we turned back towards the headwind. The last 1.75 miles back to the car were the most tiring. Overall, the run wasn't so great, but the experience sure was.