Detour - Alternate Route to BIG TREE

April 26, 2017

While I was in Salt Lake City for Easter,  I went for a hike in Millcreek Canyon with my wife and brother.  Not only do you have to pay 3 dollars just to drive up, but you often have to search for a parking space.  Ridiculous, right?  Well, the population density and potential for abuse in a metropolitan region justifies the pay to play mentality.  My experience was enjoyable, but living in Beaver, you can have the Tushars all to yourself!  The challenge here for some folks is that if you don’t see cars parked at a trailhead, you may not realize there’s a trail there at all.  This is one big reason I write my hiking articles is to expose these underutilized routes and to encourage healthy and fun outdoor habits.  It is fun for me to be the first one on some of these trail each spring and I try to make sure the trail is in acceptable condition before I write about it. These first few springtime hikes really get me excited and prepared for my summer job helping out the Forest Service Trails Crew.  There are some challenges faced with early season adventures including uncrossable creeks\rivers, muddy roads and trails, and the snowy north faces just don’t melt off as fast as we want them to which means postholing and wet socks!  So for now we will enjoy trails under 9000’ and try not to get into trouble, like stuck, like bad!, in mud or snow, like I do every June chasing receding snowpack up up and away.  Remember to make a plan, tell someone your plans, take a buddy, go prepared for changing weather, always take water, snacks, and a headlamp, know your limits, and get the heck outside!

This week’s hike is in the heart of Beaver Canyon and takes you to “the Big Tree” a new way.  You will see sections of pipeline that conduct the Beaver River’s water to generate power at the Telluride Station.  The hike starts at the Telluride barn so drive up Ut. 153 to mile marker 10.7 and pull out on the right just past the pipeline suspended over the highway.  There’s plenty of parking near all the sections of old steel pipeline.  Walk past the barn on F.R.(forest road) 630 for just over half a mile and look for the first level field of sagebrush on the right.  This area is known as White’s Pasture and there’s a trail marker for trail #230 which guides you almost directly south towards the Big Tree.  This trail was lost for decades, but in 2014 I finally sniffed it out and with the help of Brian Hollingshead and Kalbie Jordan,  we’ve got it back in ship-shape.  As you travel through dense mountain mahogany bushes, oak brush, and juniper trees, you’ll drop about 200’ down to the south fork of Beaver River.  You may have noticed offspring of the Big Tree popping up here and there (ponderosa pines) and a few fir trees as you get closer to the sound of flowing water.  There’s two logs which you can use to cross the south fork, then in about 50 yards you’ll see a trail to the left which goes a short distance to the base of a massive ponderosa pine known by all first graders in the county!  In 2015 the Forest Service improved the trail down from Hi-Low estates,  built a footbridge, installed a fence to prevent erosion and installed benches where elementary students learn about nature every autumn.  You may notice orange ribbon in the vicinity of this hike and it is to mark the boundary of a proposed mechanical thinning project.  This project will reduce fuel load, enhance the douglas fir and ponderosa stands and help make cabins in the area easier to defend in the event of a forest fire.  While you sit at the base of this magnificent specimen, it is interesting to note that the tiny stream flow you see in the gully below you is actually where the water flows when the irrigation companies call for releases from Upper Kents, Kents and Tushar Reservoirs.   The footbridge downstream is definitely needed at that time and the sound of rushing water makes being at the Big Tree even funner.  Let’s have a great summer of hiking, exercising, learning the lay of the land, and understanding how to navigate through the woods, so we never run out of ways to get “Into the Tushars”!