Canyon Hollow Trail offers fall colors without the travel

Canyon Hollow Trail offers fall colors without the travel

(Carter Williams, KSL.com)


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DRAPER — It’s the most wonderful hiking time of the year, with the leaves turning all sorts of colors and the air becoming cooler and crisper.

It’s no secret that Utah is filled with many beautiful fall hikes. Some paint mountainsides and highways gold with aspen trees, others scarlet with red maple trees at full peak.

In Draper, Corner Canyon has plenty of biking and hiking trails to satisfy your fall color fix without traveling too far. It’s a quick escape from the grid system and gives you all the fulfillment of any other fall hike.

There are several trails in this area that lead up to Jacob’s Ladder, a more advanced hike to the east. Perhaps the Ghost Falls Trail is the most well-known of those. However, the Canyon Hollow Trail is equally beautiful and a slightly less traveled.

A view from the Canyon Hollow Trail in Draper on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. The trail is about 2.4 miles in length and has an elevation of about 700 feet. (Photo: Carter Williams, KSL.com)
A view from the Canyon Hollow Trail in Draper on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. The trail is about 2.4 miles in length and has an elevation of about 700 feet. (Photo: Carter Williams, KSL.com)

The Canyon Hollow Trail begins like others in the area, an offshoot of a trail that begins at Highland Drive near Draper Cycle Park and runs up to the Draper Alpine Trail. The twisting trail includes a modest 703-foot climb and is 2.4 miles in length, according to Hiking Project.

Hikers and bikers should pay attention to signs on the trail, too, because it’s pretty easy to end up on another route in the canyon since a few trails intersect it.

Those who stay on the trail are rewarded with patches of bright red maple leaves — for the next couple of weeks or so, at least. Other leaves have turned orange or brown — possibly a victim to a dry summer — but offer beauty nonetheless.

By the time hikers reach the peak nearly 2 1/2 miles in, there’s a couple of stops with a gorgeous view of the Draper Temple and the southern portion of the Salt Lake Valley. If you’re lucky, you may even see a hawk perched on a branch right off the trail.

A Cooper's hawk perched on a branch about 50 feet from the Canyon Hollow Trail in Draper on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. (Photo: Carter Williams)
A Cooper's hawk perched on a branch about 50 feet from the Canyon Hollow Trail in Draper on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. (Photo: Carter Williams)
A view of the Draper Temple in the distance from the Canyon Hollow Trail in Draper on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. (Photo: Carter Williams)
A view of the Draper Temple in the distance from the Canyon Hollow Trail in Draper on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. (Photo: Carter Williams)

Those who reach the Draper Alpine Trail can turn left and keep going. That trail connects to the Jacob’s Ladder Trail and even loops around to the Ghost Falls Trail. There’s also a couple of picnic tables and a restroom set up in the area, too.

It’s a rather easy, family-friendly trail that will fill most hikers and bikers with what they’re looking for out of a fall hike

Directions: Park at Draper Cycle Park, 1455 E. Highland Drive. Take underground tunnel southeast toward the foothills. Turn east at the map about 1/2 mile in, keep going until you see the sign for Canyon Hollow Trail. Alternate route: Take Corner Canyon Road to Draper Alpine Trail.

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate; Hiking, biking and horse riding allowed. Dogs not allowed.

Length: About 2.4 miles from start to finish.

Time: About 45-minute hike uphill.

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Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general news, outdoors, history and sports for KSL.com.

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