Gold Creek (April 23rd 2022)

Sheila writes:-

First of all I’d like to point out that my trip had not one drop of rain. For those of you that hike with me you’ll understand that this is unusual for my hikes. Hopefully the curse is broken.

A great group of us started out around 9:30 am from the Gold Creek parking lot. After about ½ hour hiking up the East Canyon Trail we took a short, albeit fairly steep trail, down to see the rather amazing Lower Falls, and yes, we had to hike back up to get back to the main trail. Garth pointed out a trail that gave us a better view of the falls. Thank you Garth!

Continuing up the East Canyon Trail we hiked past the bridge that joins the East and West Canyon Trails for another 15 minutes to reach a lovely beach where we stayed for about 40 minutes having lunch and taking in the views of the surrounding mountains. Across Gold Creek we saw a group of about 10 horses and their riders. Back across the creek they came then continued back down doing some trail maintenance along on the way.

Once back at the bridge we started on the West Canyon Trail. Quite different from the flat, groomed East Canyon side. It offered a few challenges but nothing that slowed this group down. Passed another couple of bridges with the last one taking us to the Menzies Trail down to the Parkway Trail where we walked along the main car bridge into the park and back to our cars.

A relaxing trip with many beautiful spots to check out waterfalls, mountains and the forest greenery.

I am glad we arrived early to the parking lot as when we arrived back at the cars the lot was full with many vehicles parking illegally 

We found the trail that leads to Evans Peak that I will be leading the end of May.

See the route here from Iain’s Garmin GPSMAP66sr