East Mountain Wilderness Park – Kaysville

One of the fantastic benefits of living in Utah is that the wilderness isn’t ever very far away from the city.  This is certainly the case with the East Mountain Wilderness Park in Kaysville.  Only 0.6 miles up the road off of Hwy 89, this is a great trail any time of year.  Biking, trail running, horseback riding, and hiking in the spring, summer, and fall, and snowshoeing in the winter.  The loop trail is only a little over a mile and the elevation gain/loss is approximately 285ft since you begin and end in the same dirt parking lot.  All this adds up to the perfect getaway…even at a moment’s notice.

Spur of the moment planning, a fairly typical occurrence around our house, led us to the East Mountain Wilderness Park in mid-February.  We had just made it through a late night at Primary Children’s Hospital where we found out we had been unnecessarily worried over a couple common viruses Talmage, and later Saywer, had contracted. So, not wanting to expose other to these exciting maladies, we decided to enjoy the Church of the MountainsJ 

 With the warm temperatures, there was dry dirt, but it was not all equally dry.  We ran across several patches of melting snow which led to some fun tip-toeing, and later on, some muddy shoes and pant legs.  But, all this is well and good in Clean Dirt land.

Talmage did get comfortable enough to sleep for a few minutes before Sawyer’s obligatory snack time ensued only minutes from the finish line.  We were able to scope out some excellent camping sites and are hoping to enjoy some summer nights camping in the ‘wilderness’ now that we know all that is required is a free permit from Kaysville City.

Despite the worn, battered, and bruised appearance of the secretly not so slumbering Sawyer, this is a great hike for kids of any age and ability.

There you go; one more close proximity option for getting out and into some more good clean dirt!