Squaw Peak

[Somebody said these are called The Cascades - this is the view east of Squaw Peak.]

I traded a bunch of babysitting with my neighbor so we could offload our kids on her for a day and hike the ever popular Rock Canyon trail to Squaw Peak.

The parking lot is due east of BYU and it always seems to be full, but don't let that put you off. You'll pass the people with kids pretty fast, they get sidetracked by all of the boulders to scramble over. Then you'll pass the serious rock climbers. There's always someone trying to channel Spiderman up there, and with 50+ routes, who can blame them? (I keep telling myself I'll overcome my fear of heights and that'll be me someday.)

Once you hit what I like to call Swirly Mountain (what cosmic force caused that to happen?), it gets really pleasant. The stream starts to run year round here, the shade gets thicker, the birds start singing, and hopefully you've worked out all of your kinks and are just hitting your stride.

[Swirly Mountain]

[Best Idea Ever - Water Fountains on Trails]

Sometime after you start crossing the five bridges, you'll pass the dog walkers and the people out on dates who didn't know what they were getting into. The only people ahead of you now are the dedicated, the prepared, and a few mutants who like to run the trail, sometimes with rocks in their pack. Be nice to them, they'll be carrying you to your car if you sprain your ankle.

After the last bridge, the trail splits. Go right to hike up to Squaw Peak road and a campground, and left to go to the actual Squaw Peak, which is what we did.

Not much happens for the next hour and a half, so you can use this time to impress your fellow hikers with your knowledge of local folklore.

Squaw Peak gets its name from an almost forgotten incident during the early years of the settling of Utah Valley. Conflicts between the pioneers and the natives were common and during the winter of 1850, fighting broke out between the local Piutes and some farmers. One of the Piute band's leaders, Chief Big Elk, was killed and his people fled. His squaw made it to the peak and either jumped out of desperation and grief, or fell to her death.

At least they felt bad and named the peak after her. Too bad they didn't know her name.

By now, you should have passed several smaller meadows and one larger meadow. You'll be feeling the burn. Just think of it as a good scrubbing out of all your unused parts. It'll be worth it, the view from the top is great. Orem is to the northwest, Provo is to the southwest, Utah Lake is due west.

  There is a striped mountain to the south, but the best is to the east. Turn your back on civilization for a second and you will see Utah as it has looked for thousands of years. Mountains stacked behind mountains covered in cliffs and scree fields and scrub oak, with solitary little valleys and meadows floating between them. Someday, you will just keep going, but today there are children to pick up and dishes to do. Then again, maybe you'll just take advantage of all of that civilization and pick up a pizza on the way home.

[This field smelled exactly like a bag of licorice - weird.]