February Walk From Hidden Valley Park to Rocky Mouth Falls

We parked our car in the Hidden Valley Park parking lot. It was a spontaneous decision to try to walk to Rocky Mouth Falls from there. We'd done it before, but never in February. We haven't had snow in a long time, so we thought the trail would be clear. It wasn't snowy, but it was sometimes very muddy in places. The trail is sometimes narrow, but sometimes we managed to keep our shoes clean, and keep ourselves from slipping, by putting one foot on each side of the trail as we made our way along the path.

It's quite a steep walk up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. The rocky road seems to go up longer than you'd expect since there are no switchbacks on the north side of the park. It's easier to go up on the south side, but we were eager to get straight up there.

It almost felt like fall since you can still see some leaves on the trees and the temperatures were in the low fifties.

I was surprised to see hard, frozen, super slippery snow at the base of the falls. We couldn't get too close without falling, so this is a faraway picture. You can barely see the trickle of water coming down on the rock right above the snowy part.

A couple was there using rocks to write on the light grey, painted-over graffiti. They made one of the patches of paint look like a leaf and wrote something underneath it. I hope the rock residue washes away in the rain. It's better than graffiti paint I guess.

There's a trail of steps, as well as neighborhood roads, directly down to Wasatch Blvd from the falls. We decided to go that way rather than back up the switchbacks that lead to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Though the sounds, sights, and smells of cars and their exhaust on the road aren't particularly pleasant, it was mostly a flat, dry sidewalk and a relatively quick and safe walk back to our car at Hidden Valley Park. 

It was good to spend time outside.