HIKING STAIRS GULCH

During my one month stay in Salt Lake City for a medical school rotation at the University of Utah, I found that limiting myself to weekend hikes simply didn’t satisfy my need for natural stimuli. So, a radiology resident and I, both interested in photography, set out for a hike one day after we got off of work. We only had a few hours of daylight left in the sky, so we couldn’t take on a huge hike. We ended up venturing out on the Stairs Gulch Trail from Big Cottonwood Canyon in search of some good views. The entire trail positions you beside or in a large stream bed. Luckily, there was almost no water to be found. We hiked where the water normally would have flowed and cascaded off of relatively large boulders, making great time. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that we wouldn’t make it all the way to the top of the mountain before sunset. This meant that we’d miss out on the beautiful sunset photos we had come for. 

Just a few minutes after starting our hike, the sun was already below the surrounding mountaintops, and by the amount of light left in the sky, we could tell that beyond those mountains it was almost below the distant horizon. In a final attempt to catch the sun before it disappeared for the night, we turned perpendicular to the trail up the steep mountainside beside us. The slope was easily above 40 degrees, and the rocks at our feet were loose. And save for a few small weeds, there was almost nothing to grab onto to scramble up the face efficiently. We shifted our weight into the mountainside and powered up the slope as best as we could. If going up was this sketchy, I knew that coming down would border on dangerous. But that was a problem for future Evan. For now we focused on making it a relative flat point still touched by the Sun’s low angle rays. And after about ten minutes we made it. (keep reading below)

The view in front of us was luckily well worth the treachery of the loose slope we had come up. Mountain ridges from our near left and distant right converged to form a sort of valley where the setting Sun began to rest. And as the sun continued its journey to below the horizon, the rays of light over the mountain ridges cast everything in a beautiful golden glow. Check out the pictures below to see for yourself!

The sun set quickly as it always seems to do in valleys and canyons, but before it was pitch black we wanted to at least make it down the steep rocky slope and back to the normal trail. I began my descent and it became evident that I’d be spending the majority of it on my rear. As I took my first few careful steps down my feet began to slide. At first this slide was just a few inches from where I had placed them. But as the hill became steeper and the rocks more loose, these inches became a foot, and then multiple feet. Then with the next step the rocks and dust beneath my boot rushed out as if they had been supported by nothing but air. This sudden unplanned positioning in my foot was too much for my cerebellum to handle (the part of your brain largely responsible for coordination).

I found myself falling backwards, and before I knew it my buttocks were on the rocks and dust and my entire mass was descending down the hill. At this part of the hill, and this part only, there happened to be a small group of bushes to my left. Without thinking I reached out for one and barely caught a flexible small branch about two feet from its root. I expected it to break as I bent it downward, but instead it flexed without issue. As I felt it slip slightly upward in my hand I gripped tighter and felt myself halt. The root system had held and I had stopped. I had fallen backward on my backpack which was now covered in grey-brown dust, but outside of that I was relatively unscathed. With my momentum back under my own control, I was able to get my footing and carefully step down the remainder of the slope. 

As we got back on the normal trail it became too dark to see. Our headlamps lighted our path out of the gulch and back to the road where my hiking partner’s Subaru Outback was waiting on the shoulder. Our little evening adventure had come to an end, but I remember being so happy with the fact that we had been able to have such an adventure right after work and still make it home in time for a late dinner. I wasn’t used to having such easy access to high-level outdoor activities at home in Ohio. This was yet another experience that drew me to the mountain-west.