The generic sign at the Ferguson Canyon trailhead.
Click on an image for a full-sized version.

Images (.JPG format):

• SDIM0793 - Part of the group meeting in the parking lot, before the hike.
  
• SDIM0795 - Mike, conducting important business, just a short distance up from the trailhead.  As you can see, the trail starts at the edge of a residential area.
• SDIM0796 - Across the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon, looking toward the new development above the water treatment plant.  #797 is a zoomed-in view of the large structure under construction.
• SDIM0799 - Mike M., who regularly hikes Ferguson Canyon, pointing out the original location of the large boulder shown in #800:  It had crashed down from the side of the canyon, smashing a few trees to smithereens and coming to rest in the middle of the creek as seen in #801.
• SDIM0802 - Several sections of the trail up the canyon require careful fording of the descending stream - such as this section. #'s 803 and 804 show Ron, carefully hopping between several rocks, while #'s 805 and 806 show Bruce and Mike's careful and deliberate progress.  Bringing up the rear, #807 shows Gordon looking with trepidation at the entire scene, but was aided by Dale and a borrowed walking stick, as seen in #811.
• SDIM0809 - While waiting for the rest of the party to finish crossing, Mike demonstrated his rock-climbing skills...
• SDIM0814 - Several times during this hike, the old adage "It may be steep, but at least it's long" came to mind.  Similar is #812.
• SDIM0817 - Mike M., with the help of Madi, demonstrates his "dog-lifting" techniques.  At around  this point, Madi developed an attraction for a stick that was a bit too big for her to carry conveniently (see #818) and was keen on retrieving or just carrying it.  Eventually, she gave up, as it was too wide to fit along the trail, being snagged by vegetation on either side.
• SDIM0822 - Finally, the trail departed the stream bed and broke out enough to see the surrounding canyon walls.  #823 is a slightly wider view.
• SDIM0825 - After the group split, Ron, Dale and Clint continued up the trail, catching a bit of alpenglow near the top of the canyon.
• SDIM0827 - At about 8:30 PM, we decided to turn around.  On our way down the trail, we were rewarded with views of the sun as it slowly set.
• SDIM0829 - Due to reflection from the Great Salt Lake, there was a "double sunset" visible for a short time.  Also see #'s 832 and 833.  As we rounded the point, a rock outcropping occulted the sun to provide an interesting effect, as in #'s 835 and 836.
• SDIM0837 - The partly-cloudy sky caused some rather dramatic, warm lighting across the valley as it set.
• SDIM0840 - From the point, we could see into Ferguson canyon.
• SDIM0846 - At the end of the trail, we began a descent on a very steep slope.  See also #'s 847, 848 and 849 - a sequence of pictures of Ron making a controlled slide.
• SDIM0851 - As the sun's disk dipped below the horizon, the show continued. 
  
• SDIM0854 - After everyone returned to the vehicles, we posed for the obligatory group picture. L->R:  Gordon, Mike C., Bruce, Ron, Dale, Mike M. (with Madi) and Clint.

• No panoramas this time
  

• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks, 792 kB)  There is a gap in the data (as evidenced by the sudden, straight lint) owing to unreliable GPS lock due to tree cover, north-facing slopes.  At some point, the GPS receiver got confused, thinking that it was 350,000 feet over northern Mexico - until I re-initialized the receiver once we were in the clear.
  
• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail.  There were some discontinuities in the data owing to unreliable GPS lock due to tree cover, north-facing slopes, and poor satellite signals.

Because of bad weather (rain and snow) a "Wednesday Night Hike" group did not convene on June 4:  Because we'd already done two hikes in May, we didn't feel too guilty about it...

On the morning of the hike, the weather was beautiful - if you like cold rain, clouds, and some snow in the mountains.  By the afternoon, it had gotten much worse - if you like cold rain, clouds, and some snow in the mountains:  The temperature had warmed considerably (but was still fairly comfortable) and much of the dusting of snow that had fallen earlier had melted off, and it was partly-cloudy with only very light winds.

In spite of the earlier weather, a surprisingly large group met at the traditional spot.  There, Mike M. suggested that we do Ferguson Canyon - the fairly steep, shallow canyon that was immediately south of the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon.  Despite some reservations that had lingered from the last time that we had done this on a Wednesday Night Hike, it seemed that the passage of a decade or more had sufficiently dulled our memories, so we decided to go for it.  Another incentive for Ferguson Canyon was that Mike had along with him, Madi, his terrier-terrier mix - who would not be allowed up Big Cottonwood Canyon, anyway.

We piled into a few cars and made the very short drive over to the mouth of Ferguson Canyon at the end of a residential street, and promptly un-piled and started on our way.  Because of the recent precipitation, the stream in Ferguson was running fairly high and because of the narrowness of the canyon, frequent crossings were necessary - plus an upstream ford, hopping from rock to log to rock for a distance of 50 feet or so.

Because this canyon is fairly short, it is also quite steep - but it's also long:  It was fortunate that there was a lot of vegetation to grab onto as some portions of the ascent were steep enough that it was a bit of a challenge to climb the slope:  Ron later said he could often see the ground just ahead of him on the trail by looking straight ahead and not down.

Eventually, the trail departed from the stream, breaking out of the tree canopy and allowing a glimpse of the steep canyon walls.  After a few switchbacks, a clear, breathtaking view of the valley was in front of is (others commented that the earlier part of the trail had already taken their breath away...)  At about this point, it was starting to get near the implied "turnaround" time - that is, the estimated time at which our return to the vehicles would coincide with the official canyon/parking closing time of 10pm - and the group broke into two pieces:  The majority started back, knowing the challenges ahead of them - particularly as it started to get dark - while the other part of the group (the "ahead" party consisting of Ron, Dale and Clint) decided to see how far up they could get before they, too, wanted to turn around.

Continuing up the canyon, we entered a meadow-like area - still quite verdant with wildflowers where the trail was much-less traveled.  Having stopped occasionally to take pictures, Ron and Dale were slightly ahead of me:  When I caught up with them, they pointed across the canyon to a snow-covered couloir and Ron simply said "Bear!"  At at moment, the object of their attention was out of site, but after a few seconds, a fairly large, black animal ambled in an unmistakable bear-like manner across the snow field and disappeared into the trees:  This happened just a few seconds faster than I was able to change to the telephoto lens, of course...

After watching for another minute or so to see if the omnivore made another appearance, we continued upwards.  One of our goals was to see how much farther up was the pass that overlooked the Storm Mountain area of Big Cottonwood canyon.  While we really didn't think that it was likely that we'd get to that pass (we didn't) we were curious as to what it looked like, noting the landscape for a possible, future car-spot that would go up Ferguson Canyon and descend into Big Cottonwood.  At about the time that the last of the aplenglow left the nearby peaks, we decided that it was time to turn around.

At roughly the same place that our groups parted, we met Mike M. who had lingered in order to guide us down the "ridge route" - a path that almost entirely avoided the bottom of the canyon.  As we continued along the well-established trail, we witnessed a spectacular sunset - complete with a "double sunset" reflected off the Great Salt Lake and crepuscular rays shooting in all directions from behind the clouds.  Finally, Mike stopped, pointing out the remains of an excavation - presumably that for which the trail had originally been made - and then pointed down an extremely steep slope, indicating it to be our return path.

Grasping and sliding in a mostly-controlled (but not necessarily graceful) manner, we descended the steep, loose slope, generally following the backbone of a ridge between Ferguson and Big Cottonwood canyon.  At times, the route-finding was rather unclear - especially when the forward party (usually Mike and Dale) got out of sight with the following party - usually Ron and I.  At one point, Ron and I got to a rocky outcropping - but Mike and Dale were out of sight, but within earshot.  Asking which way to go, Dale answered "left" so Ron and I skidded down the extremely-steep slope.  At that point, it became clear that "right" was supposed to have been the answer so Ron, who was uphill some distance from me, began to hack his way through the brush, traversing the ridge face while I continued downwards a bit more, trying to figure out how to get from where I was, across some very large rocky outcrops, and over to where (I was told) the "trail" was supposed to be.  Eventually, with the frequent use of "audiolocation" (us shouting at each other to figure out where we were) and Dale's observation as to which bushes were moving as I was forcing my way through them, I rejoined the group, having traveled several hundred feet downwards and across the face of the ridge.

As we descended, we couldn't help but notice that much of the ground was littered with granite ball-bearings - something that made a graceful, controlled decent rather difficult and very tiring:  We often had resort to a controlled skid down short sections of the trail, availing ourselves to passing handholds of rock or tree to control our descent, with some of the party having to stop occasionally and empty the gravel from their shoes.  Mike who was leading the way, was also more familiar with this path, knowing when to pick up Madi and help her over and off large rocks that were too bit for a small dog to easily navigate.

Finally, we started to hear the roar of water and before too much longer, we were hopping across the stream, rejoining the main trail, only a few minutes ahead of the the rest of the party.  We finally arrived back at the cars and, within a couple of minutes, we saw the bobbing flashlights of the rest of the group:  Surprisingly, our number was approximately the same as it was when we'd started!

After pausing a few minutes for the obligatory group photo, the rest of the group was reunited with their cars at the based of Big Cottonwood Canyon and we went our separate ways.

According to Keller, Ferguson Canyon was named after Isaac Ferguson - an early pioneer who'd supposedly reported to Brigham Young that he'd discovered some gold ore while dragging logs from the canyon.  Young, not a fan of mining, told him to keep it quiet - but the location of the vein died with Isaac.  Keller points out that this story is more likely fiction than fact, but he mentions that a "Blue Point" company had reportedly been pulling gold-bearing ore from the canyon in 1912.

After he quit prospecting in 1872, Isaac Ferguson moved his family to Whipple's Mill in Big Cottonwood where he hauled logs from Whipple Fork.  Ultimately, Ferguson Canyon was never really noted for being a source for either ore or timber...

This information is from the book "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller.

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Comments about pictures taken by Clint:

• All images taken using a Sigma Digital SLR camera and were taken using the lens noted in the EXIF data.
• Because all of the images were originally taken stored in raw binary format, they have been down-processed to .JPG for web posting:  If requested, different color/contrast/brightness may be applied and/or higher-quality uncompressed versions may be available for most of these images.
• If you want one (or more) of these images and wish some sort of adjustment (color, brightness, exposure, etc.) please let me know:  All of these image have been processed in some way.
• These images are numbered in chronological order.
• No-one ever said that all of these images (or any of them) were good.  Some of them may have definite focus/exposure "issues."
• EXIF data is present for most of the images, showing time, date, and precise exposure conditions.  Recent versions of Irfanview will show this in the "View->Image Information->EXIF" tab.
  
• Note that cropping/noise reduction required the use of another program which may have removed some/most of this EXIF data.
• Images suffixed with "h" (if any) are half-size.  This was done for images that were somewhat out of focus (due to misfocus or camera/subject movement associated with long shutter times) or those that required some extra noise reduction and had lost some detail anyway.
• If you took some pictures of the hike and send them to me, I'll post them - and give you the blame!
  

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