Images (.JPG format):

• SDIM2434 - The stream that accompanied us along most of the hike.
  
• SDIM2435 - A detour, through a slide area, around the stream.
  
• SDIM2439 - Looking downstream, over the first crossing.
• SDIM2445 - Ron and Dale, assisting Gordon in the crossing of the stream.  See also #'s 2446 and 2447.
  
• SDIM2449 - Our first view down the canyon, after breaking out of the tree canopy just above the second stream crossing.
  
• SDIM2450 - Gordon and Gary, scrambling their way up one of the steeper portions.
  
• SDIM2452 - Gary, getting set up to render latent silver halide images - an increasingly rare activity these days!
  
• SDIM2453 - Bryan carefully making his way along a rocky outcropping to get a better view into the canyon.
  
• SDIM2455 - Mike, lounging lugubriously on an outcropping near the top of our hike.
  
• SDIM2456 - Ron relaxing near the top while Gary takes pictures, with Bruce in the foreground and Dale in the background.
  
• SDIM2457 - Some of the strongly-folded strata visible from this viewpoint.  #2458 is a closer view.
• SDIM2462 - From the final vantage point, a view down-canyon and across the valley.
  
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• SDIM2494 - From down the steep slope near the final vantage point, the obligatory group picture:  L->R:  Clint, Dale, Brett, Gordon, Bruce, Bryan, Gary, Ron and Mike.
  
• SDIM2505 - Gordon-in-motion, making his way across the creek at the "second" crossing on the way down.
  

• Deaf Smith Pano. (7.3MB)  This is a composite of 30 pictures taken from the final vantage point.  The center of the picture is more-or-less southwest.  In this picture, you can see up-canyon, the water fall, and down toward the valley.  A 1/3rd size version is here - only 1.3MB.
  

• None this time

• None this time

• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks)
  
• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail.  Due to ratty GPS signals, only the "uphill" portion is shown.
  

Notes:

It was great weather - if you like rain, thunder and lightning!

Yes, that's what I said last week, but if it was true then, it's true now!  As with last week, it was "threatening" to do something when we met at the parking lot, but we couldn't decipher its intent:  Should we go up-canyon a ways and risk getting dumped on, or should we stay low somewhere?  If there was a high likelihood of thunder and lightning, prudence dictated that one should avoid those destinations and routes that involved high, clear ridges.

While waiting for everyone to arrive, Gordon called Gary, AB1IP, on the radio to see if he was going to make it.  Gary quickly replied, saying that he was just a few blocks west of us and headed in our direction.  After a few more minutes - and no sign of Gary - Gordon called him on the radio again, as we'd expected him to have arrived by now:  He replied that he was right near the 7-11, which was now very close.  After another minute of not seeing him pull up, we called him on the radio again and this time, I noticed someone waving from across the road:  He'd taken the bus and had walked several blocks to the parking lot - something that explained why it was that we'd not seen him drive up in a car.

In the discussions of where we might go, Mike had a suggestion that sounded reasonable:  Deaf Smith Canyon, which is a "minor" canyon north of Little Cottonwood.  Most of us hadn't been there before - which made it an intriguing possibility - and it also fit the bill of keeping fairly low and protected should atmospheric electrical activity become a major concern.  Ron decisively said that that worked for him - which worked for Mike, as he didn't want to get "blamed" for picking a "difficult" hike (as in the Ferguson Canyon hike of last year) - and we piled into three cars and headed toward the trailhead.

Driving up Golden Hills road and making a right turn at a tee intersection, we parked on the street, opposite what appeared to be a long, private driveway.  Up this driveway we walked, past several houses and over the stream that emerged from the canyon, and finally encountered a snow plow blade blocking the road along with several signs admonishing travelers to clean up after their dog.  Soon, the pavement ended and we arrived at a cement diversion where we took a left turn, heading up the north fork of the canyon, staying mostly to the left side of the roaring stream.

In the lower part of the canyon the trail is quite well-defined and it hugs the stream - sometimes uncomfortably so - requiring the hiker to walk through shallow puddles or small rivulets.  Because it was unfamiliar territory to many of us, we kept in touch with the lead party - especially Mike - who had been there on several occasion:  "Stay left" was the advice.

At some point we came to a point in the trail where it seemed to dead-end in the stream.  The problem was that we could see the trail on the opposite side of the stream, but no obvious way to get there without getting wet.  Finally, we figured that the lead party must not have come this way, or they'd either have warned us or would still be there, and we noticed that a short distance back down the trail was a diversion that went sharply uphill.  Following this alternate path, picking our way awkwardly across a rockfall, we circumvented the "water hazard" and were once again, on the trail.

Not too far above this we came across a "significant" stream crossing.  Clearly, someone had previously laid saw-cut logs across the stream to provide a means of crossing, but the stream being wide and fast-moving made it somewhat awkward to get across.  I was able, with my still-waterproof boots, to walk across most of it in the relatively swallow water and then, from a large rock, get to the main part of the log crossing that conveyed me across the most rapid part.  Others used their walking sticks - or used "found" branches to assist in balance during the crossing.

The stream continued across the other side of the stream for a short distance until we came across yet another crossing.  While this wasn't quite as wide, it still required the assistance of handy, low-hanging branches, good balance, a walking stick, or some combination of those to get across.

Not too far past this second crossing, the trail seemed to peter out.  Dale continued "up" canyon, scaling the side of a rocky outcropping.  In the meantime, Mike was spotted going up a steep "trail" in a direction that seemed to lead toward the side of the outcropping.  Since he seemed to know where he was going, everyone else followed him up.

This portion of the trail was more-nearly vertical and devoid of good hand and foot holds than what we'd seen before, but we still managed to scramble up, out of the trees and were greeted with a vista down-canyon.  Soon after this, some of us re-grouped in a clear area at which time Dale appeared on the radio:  He had gotten to a reasonable vantage point and found that he could see up-canyon and that it was an unexpectedly "serpentine" course with rather unusual rock formations, but so he was heading back toward our current location.

Meanwhile, Mike had continued upwards, finding another vantage point where he, too, could see into the upper reaches of the canyon - also admitting that he'd not really been that high in the canyon before.  Since we were already in for a penny, we decided to wander up to his location and, after a some coaxing, managed to convince Gordon that it was worth doing too - that, after he'd just gotten himself "comfortable" farther down.

Soon, the entire group (including Dale) was reunited.  There wasn't a lot of room in the vicinity of the outcrop, so many of us took our various turns in walking out a little ways and looking.  Of particular interest was a strata of rock that looked as though it had been folded back upon itself, indicating a possibly-violent past.  It also appeared that, over time, the stream had chewed its way through this strata as this same, peculiar folded formation seemed to continue beyond the gap on the other side of the canyon.

After we took our obligatory group picture, we started down.  Although it might, at first though, seem counter-intuitive, it is often the case that a controlled descent is more difficult to manage than a controlled ascent.  I suppose that if we could swivel our heads 360 degrees, we could walk backwards, down the slope while still seeing where we were going, but unlike the ascent, we were facing the wrong way to take full advantage of what few hand and foot holds there were to be found.  Because of this, there was the frequent sound of slide-crash-[swear]-"Are you all right?"  heard during that portion of the hike.  Amazingly enough, everyone made it down with most of their limbs intact, soon arriving at the second crossing.

By this time, it had started to sprinkle and what clouds we were able to see implied that this might continue for some time.  Already being up the canyon, we simply carried on, continuing down, with the rain becoming more persistent as we went.  At some point, it switched from "sprinkling" to "raining" so those that had it started to don rain gear, while I simply put my jacket/hood over my head and wore it like a robe - and it seemed to keep me dry... mostly...

By the time we got to the "major" crossing, the rain had persisted for a long enough time to start to make its way through the leaf canopy.  Again, everyone made it across the stream without incident but of more practical concern was the fact that formerly-dry rocks and logs now became surprisingly slippery.  This, coupled with the fact that it was getting dark rather quickly, made the going increasingly treacherous.  For the most part, the group managed to make it down without incident - except for Bryan, who (apparently) took a spill into the creek.  He reportedly didn't mind too much, as we was already wet, anyway!  At about this time, Gary called me on the radio, asking of I'd lost part of my camera tripod:  Quickly checking, nothing seemed to be missing, but he decided to hang on to this piece, as it had already occurred to him that it might be part of his tripod - a fact that he later confirmed.

By the time we got back to the blacktop, it was raining "properly", along with flashes of lightning that briefly lit the landscape.  Getting back to the cars, we stood around under a tree for a moment (for some reason) before retreating to the cover of vehicles.  There, we heard from the rest of the group who was still on the trail.  Finally, they appeared and everyone got into a vehicle and we headed back to the parking lot at the mouth of the canyon where everyone went their own way home.

Formerly known as "Little Willow Canyon", one John Thayn wished to use the canyon, successfully petitioned the courts, and build a road in 1856 - but a few months later returned the grant indicating that the canyon was not suitable for road-building.  Later, in 1875, a Henry Standish received the right for a toll road he'd built in this canyon, setting up a steam sawmill several miles up-canyon (although information doesn't say which fork) before giving up three years later.

Keller also mentions that this canyon is also a frequented route for access to Twin Peaks.  The current "Deaf Smith" name has unknown origins, appearing on maps sometime in the mid-1950's to early 1960's.

The above information was 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.  (Usually, an SD-14.)
  
• 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!
• The video clips, if any, were shot using a Panasonic DMC FZ-8 digital camera, have been re-compressed, and are of lower quality than the originals.
  

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