A Scenic Hike to Sheep Valley

On Friday I took my dog Dakota on a nice long bike ride up to Sheep Valley, a quite high elevation valley that is home to a pretty large reservoir, about four miles from where I’m currently camping in the mountains of central Utah. It was a good workout and a scenic adventure.

I thought it would be fun to check out the valley where the creek I’m camping by originates, and Dakota was ready for a good long run, so off we went. After crossing the creek and climbing a short ways, there were great views looking back down.

And looking up where we are heading:

But then it didn’t take long before the 4WD trail went from a nice steady uphill to an extremely steep climb, so I began to walk the bike up. After a long steep hike through the aspen and fir forests, we reached a divide with amazing views of the surrounding Fishlake National Forest.

Then after a short decent it was a much more mellow but steady climb up along the creek before popping out into the giant meadow-valley.

Here I left the bike, and filled up on water in a small stream; then after crossing a snowfield and hiking across the open meadows, we soon arrived at the Sheep Valley Reservoir which sits at about 9,200 feet, at the base of Hilgard Mountain - still covered in a patchwork of quickly melting snowfields.

It was a pleasantly cool day, but up at this elevation in the wide open valley with no trees, it was extremely windy and quite cold. Dakota didn’t seem to mind, and jumped straight in the water for an ice cold swim, deciding it would be fun to chase the ducks, which she of course didn’t stand a chance at catching. Still got plenty wet though!

Being so cold, I only hung around long enough to take a few pictures, soak in the views for a couple of chilly minutes and then headed back where I had left my bike. The valley was still quite moist from the recent snow melt off, and was covered in patches of beautiful yellow wildflowers that were just beginning to blossom.

The bike ride down was a lot of fun, and really fast compared to the long hike up, and we were back to the campsite in no time. I had finally succeeded in wearing out my little border collie for a short while, who immediately plopped down for an afternoon nap. All in all, I think it was a day well spent.