Avalanche Creek

A few miles up the road from the Sprague Creek campground is a narrow canyon with a creek and some nice trails. Very wet old growth forest. Not only is the vegetation different from what I'm used to, but we got a good look at a varied thrush, something you'd normally expect to see in a wet Pacific Northwest forest, but wouldn't encounter here in Utah.





Just a few hundred yards up a trail called Trail of the Cedars, Avalanche Creek cuts through a polished little gorge.



If you continue up the trail, it ends at Avalanche Lake. It's a nice hike for the kids, and even in August the temperature is great. It's a relatively flat trail, 2 miles one way, and entirely shaded under those large trees. Down in the main valley the temp was in the upper 80's, but you'd never know it on that trail. The lake sits in a steep bowl shaped valley. We ate lunch on a flat rock next to the lake, saw a number of trout jumping, some (I think) female red headed ducks diving in the shallows, and a sharpshinned hawk. A hummingbird hovered about two feet in fron of Jen and the girls, but zoomed off before we could get a good enough look to tell what species.