In keeping with the theme of hikes lately, decided to take Anna on another close to home adventure hike. Picked another canyon I had never been in that is right in our backyard, Ferguson Canyon. Ferguson is immediately south of Big Cottonwood and hidden up in a neighboorhood so definitely off the radar of most. It gets a fair amount of climbing traffic I guess, but not a lot of hikers. We set out and headed up the canyon around noon or so. It was pretty hot in the valley, but the trail quickly enters the canyon and is heavily shaded in trees. At first the trail is a road that passes some water towers, then makes its way into the canyon itself. Lower end is filled with large granite towers and rocks where the climbing takes place. Pretty cool landscape in there. In fairly quick order, you ascend into the first pines since the trail is pretty steep. There is a stream that you cross multiple times, but the lower end was dry. As we got up a quarter mile or so, it reappeared. I stopped with Anna after one of the first fairly steep climbs in a grotto like area filled with ferns and small cascading water. Quite pretty. I got Anna out and let her play around in the rocks and water. She was very interested in the rocks. Water was a bit cold and I put her little feet down in it for a second, but she wasn’t too sure about it. After that rest, decided to head up further. Trail was quite steep and a little loose in spots, so I was having to be fairly deliberate and careful with Anna on my back compared to my normal protocol when traveling solo. I was trying to get to the turnoff for the Ferguson Canyon overlook that I had seen on maps, but wasn’t sure exactly where that was and the trail was hit and miss. Eventually got to another leveled out area and decided that was a good spot to turn around. Got Anna out and let her play a bit in the dirt and showed her some more water, pine cones and other stuff. She was having fun, but there were a million things for her to put in her mouth so I had to be diligently watching her. After a 20 minute break or so, we headed back down and she fell asleep pretty quickly. I again was going slow and deliberate so as to keep sure footing. We made it back to the valley in 30 minutes or so and headed home. A good workout and nice hike close to home although the trail is a bit loose and steep.
