South Fork of Taylors Creek - Kolob Canyon, Utah

After a long week stuck inside the office with gorgeous sunshine teasing me, I figured we would have enough time to strap on our boots and head down to Kolob for a quick hike before the sunset. The South Fork hike is one I only heard about a couple of weeks ago - it is an unofficial trail in the park but the trail is extremely well-maintained. It was like nothing I was expecting. Having hiked the Middle Fork of Taylor Creek many times, I figured the South Fork, in the next 'finger' canyon over would be much the same scenery - wow, was I wrong! The trail is fairly short compared to some of the death marches we have done, as Wade calls them :| We hiked about 3 miles round trip which was the perfect distance for the time we had on Friday night. The canyon starts off fairly wide but as you descend further in, the walls start to close on you - due to the recent rains having washed parts of the trail away, one is expected to make like a mountain goat in parts to rediscover the trail and climb your way over obstacles that block your path. The start of the trail

The hike leads you up to the top of a hill that was made by an ancient landslide which is really interesting as the terrain and plant life up there changes considerably. The deeper into the canyon we got, the deeper the snow got - another big surprise given how warm it was in the main canyon. As we neared the end of the trail, we were sinking in drifts up to 18 inches deep - the snow had covered trees and wild roses so as we sunk in the snow, we were getting pretty scraped and cut from obstacles that lay hidden under the snow.

Our final destination ... gorgeous.

Finally we the canyon narrowed to the point where we couldn't hike any further and so we stopped by the stream in the most wonderful spot and enjoyed the peace and solitude of our final destination. The walls of the canyon at this point are made of different colored sandstone with little alcoves / caves and you could spend hours looking at their walls and the colors. Last night's hike reminded me so much of why Kolob is one of my favourite places on this earth.