Cotton Bottom Inn: Holladay

Day 1: Wasatch from Back to Front

In 1909, Julius Kuck looked out from his Willow Patch cabin in Big Cottonwood over a canyon filled with hundreds of mining claims, ore buckets being hauled up the steep sides of quartzite cliffs by clanking wooden gears, the townships of Argenta and Brighton boasting saloons and hotels, multiple hydro-electric plants churning away, at least 6 mills and waves of hikers that had recently taken it into their heads that the mountain wasn’t just for natural resources any more, and said, “Hermiting ain’t what it used to be.” If Kuck bemoaned the loss of his solitude in the turn of the century Wasatch, what chance do I have of finding any today?

The parking lot at the Little/Big Water trailhead is full to bursting. The overflow lot is full. The over over flow lot is full. Cars are illegally parked anywhere there is space. More cars make their way up and down the canyon, looking for parking and picnic spots. Hikers and dog walkers and cyclists pour down the single track, tree-lined road, narrowly avoiding falling into the creek when more hikers and dog walkers and cyclists arrive in their loaded down 4-Runners and Honda Civics. Dads hauling coolers and crates dart out from behind bushes, causing cars to swerve. Once summer-sleek trees, bushes and flowers take their seasonal cue to tumble into the road, battling the hikers, dog walkers and cyclists for space.

An SUV pulls up beside me; a carefully matched, overly-coifed, blonde and very white family spills out, adjusting their black and beige, straight off the rack at Nordstrom clothes, passing bowtied-babies back and forth. Soon, the now rumple-free family is poised and posed for their family picture. Hovering in the middle of a browning meadow, backed with golden aspens, the adults speak in goobery voices and make gooney faces at the babies. The babies respond by squalling. Adam’s jaw works as he shoulders his pack. I rush to put on my boots so that we can get the hell out of here.

                                          

Hiking fast, we cross Millcreek and head up the Old Red Pine Road, retreating into country that sees a little less traffic. Soon, all we can hear is water and an occasional gust of wind. For the next few miles, aspens grow thick and golden. Conifers ooze sticky pungent sap. The occasional cyclist buzzes down the old jeep road and we walk.

Our plan is to spend the next two and a half days hiking the Desolation Trail. Over the thirteen years I have lived in Salt Lake, I have hiked small, disconnected sections of the trail, but have never seen it all, start to finish. This has left me with a rather disjointed impression of the Wasatch. An impression that is marked by hikers talking on their cell phones. A Wasatch of discreet segments—little worlds cordoned off by clearly marked trails and signs and by use. This is the section used for rock climbing. This is the section used for downhill cycling. This is the picnic section. The ski section. This is where couples go on first date hikes. I have begun to feel that the world of the Wasatch is overrun. Like there is no wildness left here. I would like to be convinced otherwise. To feel that my world is not so limited.

The first day of hiking then, ends up feeling like a gift. After leaving the still familiar concourse of the Mill Creek/Great Western Trail, we cross an unmaintained historic trail and find ourselves in a valley that feels empty. Stepping out from a dense copse of aspen caught in the middle of transforming from Summer to Fall, green to gold, a meadow of tall wheat colored grasses spreads out before us. It feels as though this basin hasn’t seen action since the pioneers built a mill here in the 1870s. Its gently rising sides are covered in aspens to the east and conifers to the west. The bowl shaped valley is easily over a mile and a half long and half a mile across, rising gradually in elevation to meet the back wall; a ridge that we will follow to re-intersect the Great Western. The trail we are following is visible, but only just; probably kept open by bow hunters. The amount of open space here feels luxurious. We see no foot prints in the dirt.

We descend to Desolation Lake—and the start of the Desolation Trail—in near darkness. In this subdued light, aspen trunks appear as simple lines. After a fat dinner of mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans from the farmers’ market, and backpacker steak (pre-cooked beef meatballs that were packed in frozen and allowed to thaw as we hiked), we snuggle down to spend a night burning off all those calories trying to keep warm. I sleep fabulously, better than I did in my own bed last night. I listen. No one is here but us.

Day 2: Trail Runners, Adam’s Ass and Other Curiosities

Trail runners are a breed I am almost entirely unfamiliar with. Their habits, customs of dress, all make no sense to me. Waking up in total darkness to the sound of pounding feet, I lie for a while listening, watching through the nylon of my tent as little headlamp lights bounce past. Then the singing starts, “Oh…oh,oh,oh…oh…mnamnamna…yah, yaaaahhh…ohohoh” all the way down, 200 vertical feet from ridge top to lake shore. It’s sometime before 6 am. That means these people have been running since at least 5:30. They left the warmth of their beds, put on their silly little shorts, and are running through a pristine, utterly silent landscape in the dark, listening to their ipods. These people are crazy.

Then there is a lull. By the time the 8 am crowd rolls through, Adam and I are sitting up in our tent eating bagels and cream cheese. A throng of at least 13 hikers joins the fray, making me glad that our camp is tucked behind a rocky outcropping. They laugh and tease each other, talking loudly, seeming to forget that here they don’t have to fight to be heard. Several more trail runners pass. Then a crowd of cyclists. After the last group, it grows quiet again and I crawl out of my tent to really look around. As I do, the sun comes up over the ridge to the east and illuminates the aspen stand surrounding us. The sky is so blue it stings. The leaves are suffused with bright yellow light. All around me the trees and the sky and the bushes are full with such an intensity of color; you couldn’t possibly inject anymore into them. Fruits ready to burst with juice. I of course, start to cry. I am a champion crier.

During the mid-morning lull, the one before all of the families with small children and Friday night partiers descend on Dog Lake (our next destination), we pack up. Just as we do, our quiet is cut through by the hack hack of a private helicopter tour out to see the colors. Incensed, Adam responds to this violent disruption of our first peaceful moment since waking in classic Adam fashion: he presents them with his bare backside. He dances around our camp, bare ass bobbing, taunting our areal tourists and singing a slanderous song, apparently for his own gratification since they obviously can’t hear him. The offenders respond by circling our camp one more time.

Before taking off for what will be a 7 mile day following the Desolation trail to Mill A Basin, we wander around Desolation Lake for a while. There is no record of how Desolation Lake, Desolation Peak, and other numerous Desolations scattered around Utah got their names. I don’t know, but I’m going to assume it’s biblical. The abomination of desolation and all that. The land of desolation, etc…. I can imagine that to pioneers coming from the much more lush east coast, and perhaps from the greens of Scotland, England and Ireland, this area did look pretty desolate. I do know that this lake is one of the few in the Wasatch that Mormon settlers, the CCC and the Forest Service haven’t messed with. Most of the rest—Lake Blanche, Lake Mary, the Twin Lakes—have been either created from basically nothing or amplified through damming. The lake is also a sump; a body of water with no outlet. It sits here, high up in this glacial bowl, an aquamarine jewel, set in an utterly bare red shore studded by a few sharp edged, black boulders. Since the area is watershed, swimming is strictly forbidden. If it were 10 degrees warmer, I would have to do it anyway. My standing as an otherwise law abiding citizen is safe another day.

Our trail takes us past Dog Lake—named by settlers in 1870 for the salamanders (or dog fish) swimming in its thick, murky, totally unappealing, depths and not, surprisingly, for the dozen odd dogs that seem to be a permanent fixture here—along the Millcreek/Big Cottonwood ridge until we enter the Mt Olympus Wilderness Area and quiet. Late in the afternoon, hotter than we thought we would be and consequently more thirsty, we approach Mill A Basin located just below Baker Pass. Since most hikers leave the Desolation trail here to climb Gobblers Knob, we hope to camp just a little further along, at the base of Mt Raymond. Turning the corner that brings our potential camp into view, we see a pillar of smoke. Below it, a bright orange tent blazes against a dark green juniper. Damn.

At this point I am a little dehydrated because it has been a while since we pumped water and I’m running low. In my exhaustion, I couldn’t care less where we camp and I’m having a hard time making a decision on a new place. Mill A doesn’t have any significant water, but Adam came across a spring here once while exploring the area a few years ago—a pipe coming right out of the hillside—and is hoping to find it again. After wandering a bit, we come across a historic trail, now abandoned, follow it into a hanging meadow and collapse in a field primarily inhabited by ground squirrels; every few steps our feet sink down into the dirt, caving in one of their innumerable tunnels.

As soon as we clear a big enough space on the ground for our tent, Adam heads off looking for the spring. Thirty minutes later he’s back. He can’t find it. He’s tired. It’s time to take stock. We have enough water to get through the night if we just eat sandwiches for dinner (instead of cooking the dehydrated beans, chicken, avocadoes, etc we had originally planned on), but in the morning we will need water right away. We have a few options. Adam could go looking for the spring again. He could hike up to Baker spring—1.4 miles and some serious elevation gain out of our way—fill up, then come back and meet me here so that we can continue along the Desolation Trail. Or we can both hike to Baker Spring, abandon our plans to hike the Deso Trail, and descend Alexander Basin, leaving us with a few miles of road hiking before we reach the car. We play a half game of cribbage and go to bed.

Day 3: Water

In the morning, we’ve just decided to hike to Baker Spring, ditching our original goal, when Adam sees a curiously inscripted aspen just south of our camp. He wanders off. I barely pay attention until he comes back carrying 3 litre bottles of water with Sam’s Club labels neatly intact. “There’s a cache over there,” he motions. I follow him to the aspen, the treasure map; “Buz 2004” and an arrow pointing south. Just behind a good sized log, a slightly molded and chewed up tarp covers a pit with 4 bottles of water and a metal grate wrapped in cellophane. Adam seems lighter. His relief is obvious. I worry, what about Buz? What if he comes back assuming his water is here? Adam shrugs, “If Buz is even in the state any more, I’d be surprised.” He’s right. It’s been 6 years. Buz probably hopped a train to California ages ago. Leaving with our water bladders at least a little more full, I pause and say a little prayer of thanks to Buz.

The next section of trail is the one that when planning the trip, I was most anxious to see. It’s the section that I knew I would never make it to on a day hike. Even though it’s the furthest west we’ve been, and therefore the closest to the city, it’s the most remote, the least accessed. We leave Mill A for Maxfield Basin, at least not really a basin from where we are so much as a steeply graded, nearly all sluffed off, excuse for a trail, dropping into a basin hundreds of feet below. As I traverse the massively eroded hill side, my pack throwing my balance off, holding my breath at the airyness of the trail, I reach for bushes to stabilize myself only to find too late that they are thorny rose bushes. I only have to panic for a minute. After 50 yards or so, the hillside turns, gentles, the trail widens, though not by much.


The trail for the rest of the day remains patchy, overgrown here and there, frequently passing across shale rock slides. We circumambulate Mount Raymond, following the Desolation to the top of Porter Fork where we leave Big Cottonwood and return to Millcreek. This is where I run out of water. It’s lunch time. We still have over 3 miles to the next water source but most of the remaining trail is north facing and down hill. We don’t worry.

Our descent is littered with the remains of mines, historic trails, cabin debris. As we continue down Porter, Adam points out a claim site where he once found an old cabin, unlocked and entirely intact. It was still thoroughly outfitted, shelves of burlap bags, wool blankets and tin canisters. Adam opened several: canisters and canisters of oatmeal. The mine has since been collapsed by the Forest Service and the cabin is gone, whether by avalanche or man power we don’t know.

It’s still about 2 miles to water when I start to feel the effects of dehydration. I’ve been slurping off Adam’s water but I haven’t wanted to be greedy. It’s much hotter than we anticipated. I get irritable and clumsy. The trail sucks. I have mesh vents in my hiking shoes that are supposed to keep my feet cool but all they’re doing is letting in dirt and sticks which in turn are giving me blisters. It’s 1 more mile to water when we run out.

When planning the trip, Adam suggested that we leave the Desolation trail for the last few miles in favor of descending Thayne Canyon instead. Thayne’s is prettier, taking it would cut 3 miles from what would otherwise be a 10 mile day, and there is supposed to be a spring just below the trail junction where he had watered up before. I decide not to be a purist and take his suggestion. Just after the Thayne/Desolation junction, Adam starts looking around for the spring. It, like the Mill A spring has a pipe coming right out of the ground. When we reach it, it’s high noon and at least 85 degrees. The trough where the spring is supposed to be is shallow and muddy. The pipe lies uselessly on the ground next to the grimy skim of water. There isn’t enough water to submerge our pump into. Adam starts trying to clean out the trough, hoping it will speed the flow and raise the water level. It’s no good. At first he panics and runs up and down the canyon, looking for some other little place where water might surface. There isn’t one. We resignedly shoulder our packs—the only up side to having no water is lighter packs—and quietly head down. It’s been 3 miles since I had a real drink. It’s a couple more to the truck.

The trail down Thayne Canyon cuts through the hill side in a steep sided, rock strewn trough. The walls are covered in red maple and orange and yellow ground cover. The trail is littered with gold aspen leaves. I barely notice. Adam keeps taking off up moist looking spur trails, looking for water. Nothing. My blisters are so bad now, I’m limping badly. When we get within a half mile of the trail head, we encounter our first hikers. I must look as good as I feel because I am getting some stares.

When we get to the truck, Adam remembers that he doesn’t have any water there either, unusual for him, so we have to drive up canyon, through the insane traffic of Sunday afternoon picnicers, a wedding party walking precariously up the road in heels, and what is apparently a family reunion in order to find a quiet place to pump. I’m feeling the strangest sensation; where we have been all day is so different from all of this, it feels like a dream, and all of this is so familiar, it feels like we never went anywhere.

Our original plan was to finish hiking and head to the Cotton Bottom Inn, a bar and grill located at the top of 6200S. Open since at least the 60s, it’s nothing like anything you could possibly imagine finding in this otherwise hoity toity neighborhood. The Porcupine Grill, with its 12$ nachos, doesn’t hold a candle to it for food or ambience. You enter through the kitchen, ducking to avoid low doorways, and come into a wood paneled, loungy, cozy, laid back room of battered mismatched furniture. Bugs bunny is everywhere in one form or another. Most people there are regulars, pool players, and motorcyclists. In the summertime and early fall, the back porch is open, busy and a raging party. They serve fries and grilled ham and cheese and all kinds of stuff but, all anyone goes there for are the garlic burgers. Seriously. These garlic burgers are the definition of garlic burgers, the be all end all, reason to come down the canyon, who cares if you smell bad for a week, fabulisiousist garlic burgers ever. But I am tired. And I don’t want to hang out anywhere but my couch. And my cat is lonely and feeling betrayed, I can feel her intense self-pity, hear her plaintive yowls, from here. So I decide to cheat. In twenty-five minutes I am on my couch, Este pizza on my lap. Trifecta will have to wait for another trip.

A little bit of useful information…

Region: Central/North-Central Utah

Contact Info:
Cotton Bottom Inn
2820 E 6200 S
Holladay, UT 84121
(801) 273-9830

Rating (out of 5) ☼☼☼☼☼:

Burger ☼☼☼☼☼ Fries ☼☼☼ Shake N/A

You May Want to Visit the Cotton Bottom if you are:
Climbing in Little/Big Cottonwood
Camping at the Spruces, Redman, or Albion Basin camp grounds
Skiing or snowboarding in Big/Little Cottonwood
Paragliding off Point of the Mountain or above Ferguson canyon
Bow hunting up Bear Trap canyon
Bird watching in the Wasatch
On a moon light, star gazing, hike away from all the city lights
Escaping inversion
Visiting your ostentatious mountain home…ie your cabin…up the canyon
Searching for faint trails you found in the Rambler (Wasatch Mountain Club)
Hiking the Desolation Trail!