Since almost every national park is not dog friendly on the hiking trails, Red Canyon was the perfect spot to get in a hike with Winter! With very similar geologic formations to Bryce Canyon National Park, including the Hoodoos, and the added bonus of being dog friendly it was the perfect spot. There are several different hikes within Red Canyon. I decided to start at the Red Canyon Trailhead and hike the Cassidy Trail, which is actually a loop. The trail map on All Trails served as a great guide, plus my offline map in google maps.
Cassidy Trail
The Cassidy Trail is about 4.5 miles with approximately 620 feet of elevation gain. As per usual, I hiked the loop portion of the trail in the counter-clockwise direction. The first mile of the trail is higher traffic as it leads to multiple trails. On the day I hiked Cassidy Trail we were one of three cars in the trailhead parking lot.
When the trail splits you could say I took the path less traveled with Winter. We were breaking trail after the recent snowstorm and it had me wishing I had brought my snow shoes. Winter was a trooper though and kept up, even with the snow up to her belly. This made the western side of the loop a grueling uphill, snowy hike. To be honest, I almost called the hike. I was glad we pushed through because the views from the northern portion of the loop were gorgeous! There were several spots we walked out to lookouts and took lots of photos.
Once we reached the eastern side of the loop we eventually ran into other peoples tracks. I still have not decided if it was easier breaking trail or following others footprints in the snow.
This hike by far goes down as one of my favorites so far in Utah.
Before you go
As always, plan your hike with plenty of time to finish before sun down. As a precaution I always hike with a headlamp and emergency blanket as well a small fire making tools. In this area I HIGHLY recommend downloading off-line google maps of the area since cellphone service can be spotty in this area. How do you do that?
- Open Google Maps
- Tap the top right corner (if you have a gmail account your picture will be there)
- In the dropdown select “offline maps”
- Select “select your own map”
- Move the map around to the area you want to download
- Download the map! Save it with the name for the area or trip.
That is it! Then just use google maps as normal. Even if you do not have cellphone service you will almost always still have GPS. With the map downloaded to your phone already, you should not experience any issues when using google maps.
Check out more of my Utah adventures on the blog! Plus read all about my time spent in Brycen Canyon National Park, hiking to Hidden Haven Falls, and on a scenic backroads drive during this trip!
Wow this article brings back the memories of this hike! It was cruelling getting to the top, BUT so worth it!! By far one of the best hikes in the books. The solitude and beauty of the mountains was incredibly spiritual and uplifting. Big thanks you to Emily for planning this hike, and big hugs to my grandpaw Winter for endurance and patient for her slow humans…I think she walked the hike twice as much going back and forth between Emily and I.
She had a great time! It was a really great hike!
[…] out more of my Utah adventures on the blog! Plus read all about my time spent in Red Canyon, hiking to Hidden Haven Falls, and on a scenic backroads drive during this […]
[…] The national forest service holds all the information for Uinta National Forest, including maps for dispersed camping and closures. All the NFS maps are downloadable for use offline. This is super helpful given the lack of cell phone reception in the Uintas. Phone service goes out the window after you leave Kamas and doesn’t return until you leave the Uinta National Forest. A great way to have maps and GPS available is to download offline maps through google maps – I discuss how to do this in my Red Canyon post. […]