Friday, July 18, 2008

Indian Creek Trail-Blue Mountains

The Indian Creek Trail is on north side of the Blue or Abajo Mountains west of Monticello in southeast Utah. This is the same Indian Creek that flows past Newspaper Rock on the way to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.

The trail head is marked 021 and is located about two miles past Foy Lake down a narrow steep dirt road. The road to the trail head would make a good hike in itself with good views down the deep Indian Creek Canyon.
 
 The first part of the trail descends steeply down toward the Indian Creek and then the trail descends gently, passing through mostly lush riparian habitat. The Indian Creek was still flowing well in midsummer. The Pinon Pine and Utah Juniper at the trail head changed quickly to narrow-leaf cottonwoods and willows, with some box elder and birch.

In some places there were stands of Ponderosa Pines and a few Douglas Firs. In the moist areas Rocky Mountain Red Cedar replaced the Utah Juniper. Some of the Ponderosas were the old yellow barks that aren't seen very often. The sandstone cliffs that were visible from the trail are only the inner canyon. Views from higher up show this to be a very deep canyon.
 
 This appeared to be a little used trail. There were no footprints from other hikers here in midsummer. The only other users appeared to be cattle. I walked down the trail for 1:30 and came back up in about the same for a total hike of 3:00 hours.

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