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Out This Week: Castle in The Sky
Posted 2009-11-18 10:39:18 by Erin Albertyealberty@inthisweek.com
You should go: Boobies and a castle
Distance » 3 miles
Elevation gain » 1,020 feet
Getting there » Take 2100 South east until it winds up to Lakeline Drive. Head left on Lakeline and park in the cul-de-sac at the end. The trail starts just above the cul-de-sac in a very small park with a bench overlooking the city.
Trail » Just above the park are two water tanks that look like boobies. Follow the trail along the fence, and turn left just across from a no-trespassing sign.
Head up the steep hill toward the radio tower for about 0.3 mile. There is a smaller trail that breaks off to the southeast, marked with a small cairn. Take that trail, cutting across the hill below the radio tower and rising about 100 feet to a large cairn overlooking the Carrigan Canyon mansions. And, of course, the boobies.
The trail after the cairn is faint but continues clearly a few paces to the southeast and leads across the north side of Carrigan Canyon. Here's where you get lost. The trail you want stays relatively level, bobbing between 5700 and 5650 feet for about a third of a mile past the cairn. The most deceptive spur is about a quarter mile past the big cairn --a nice-looking path veers right, below a grove of gambel, but don't take it.
A third of a mile past the big cairn, the trail is very clear and begins to ascend. It is not hard to find the castle from here. Just stay on the trail another 0.8 mile as it rounds the back of the canyon and rises along the south side. The south side was snowy early this week, so wear boots.
(Erin Alberty)
Have a look at the castle's backyard.
(Erin Alberty)
Follow the deer trails to the magical castle.
(Erin Alberty)
Pencil point gets framed.
(Erin Alberty)
It's a spacious yet functional fortress.
November is the wrong time for goals. Wrong time for plans.
This is a month of futility: early bunny hill openings, premature Christmas decorations, half-assed dustings of snow.
There's a lotta daydreaming in November. Lotta looking around. Lotta meandering without a destination. November is for stumbling upon good stuff you forget about until next November.
Last week, I found a castle.
I totally found a castle!
On a cloudy afternoon, I wandered out of my backyard, near the big H-Rock in Foothill, and started following little deer trails around. I got stuck in a lot of shrubs, backtracked out of a dozen dead-ends and finally found a proper footpath in the back of Carrigan Canyon.
You might know Carrigan Canyon as the gated community above Lakeline Drive. Above the fences are some cool hills. I wanted to get to Pencil Point, the perfectly conical peak that's right above I-80. But after getting tangled up in so many shrubs and shouting so many 4-letter psalms to the gods of Where The Hell, I was just happy for a trail.
Then I saw Pencil Point, perfectly framed.
In the window of a castle!
The castle must be Foothill's answer to the Living Room above the University: A flat-rock construction that's fun for hanging out, that's super hard to find, that seems easy to find once you get there, but when you try to go back a second time you end up once again in dispute with the gods of Where The Hell.
This week I talked them into letting me bring my GPS coordinator to give you a route. With so many deceptive spurs, you'll still probably have trouble finding it. Be ready to enjoy getting lost.
That's the only way to find anything good in November.
Erin Alberty has more Utah adventures and musings on her blog, poorpenmanship.com.
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