Kevin Bae: Kevin
bae, welcome to the casual hike. My name is Kevin bae.
This is episode number 12, recorded on September 10, 2024
and
what you're going to be hearing are two hikes
in the Salt Lake City area,
up Mill Creek Canyon. One is to dog Lake. The other one is on
the Mount Olympus pipeline trail.
I did dog lake on September 3,
and the pipeline trail on September 5,
because both of those are odd number days and you're allowed
to have your dog off leash up in Mill Creek Canyon.
So we're just gonna get straight into the hikes.
I hope you enjoy it.
Unknown: All right. Welcome back to the casual hike
Kevin Bae: right now we're casually driving up Mill Creek
Canyon.
Unknown: And you might be able to hear
the excitement and godfrey's voice,
Kevin Bae: because I think he remembers being here. We're
heading up to dog Lake,
Unknown: and we try to get up there
six to 630 in the morning,
Kevin Bae: and then,
you know, we're done after a couple of hours. And then I drop
them off at a dog daycare while I do my business in Salt Lake
City.
Unknown: So looking forward to a good hike, hopefully it's not
raining up there.
This is sort of what it sounds like when a 10 year old
dog gets excited to go hiking.
He's a bit much.
All right, we're at the trailhead. It's a
Kevin Bae: little bit dark, so there's not much to see right
now.
I have to use my flashlight. And a couple of minutes here I'm
Unknown: too dark to see
much of anything.
So I forgot to mention the
condition. Conditions, it's like
54 degrees,
because we're up in the
Wasatch Mountains,
up Mill Creek Canyon.
I forgot what the trail name was called,
to go look at it again. I think it's little, little big water
Kevin Bae: trail, and it leads up to dog Lake.
Unknown: There's a loop
where you come back,
I think down big water
trail.
But
Kevin Bae: we usually do this as an out and back.
Unknown: So
also
the altitude.
It's like,
over 7500
Kevin Bae: feet up to start
Unknown: above sea level.
Kevin Bae: So naturally, I'm not used to the thinner air here, so
it takes me a little bit
Unknown: to Get used to it.
Kevin Bae: It was raining here earlier.
Unknown: Think the streams are really flowing. Can't
see anything yet. The sun
Kevin Bae: doesn't come up in Salt Lake City till like 7am
Unknown: so we got about a half an hour.
There's some light. I.
Right now starting to creep in,
but it's still way too dark for video.
Kevin Bae: There's finally enough light to see a little
something.
Unknown: So the cool part about
Kevin Bae: hiking with your dog up in Mill Creek Canyon,
Unknown: I just finished the
pretty steep incline,
and
Kevin Bae: in this altitude,
Unknown: I gotta really pace myself anyway.
Kevin Bae: Cool thing is, on odd numbered days,
Unknown: mountain bikes are not allowed
on the trails, and dogs are allowed
without their leash.
So it's very cool.
Pressure free,
and you can just go and hike. You
Come on, Godfrey, let's go.
Did you find a stream
that was
pretty hefty incline,
but it's an absolutely beautiful morning.
I love coming up here.
We're a little over the halfway mark.
This is
Kevin Bae: tougher hike on me than last year. Maybe because
I'm getting old too.
I think I just forget how difficult it is when you haven't
been hiking for a couple of months, then to go and do this
trail
in the thin air,
Unknown: but we're coping,
Kevin Bae: and just keeping our pace,
Unknown: let's go Godfrey. You
Kevin Bae: I've taken this picture more than once. You
this. I keep saying that the next episode will be shorter
than the than the
one before, but this one, I think for sure,
because this trail is really kicking my ass today. It's been,
I think I haven't been hiking since
sort of the end of June, and
then I come up here and do this.
Unknown: So,
you know, I just been kind of
Kevin Bae: saving my energy for these flat sections to try to
talk about the trail and what's going on.
Because when I'm coming up the steep sections, I'm just sucking
air
and just trying to concentrate watch my footing
Unknown: and keep track of Godfrey.
Kevin Bae: But we're almost there now. It's like point two
miles left to get to the lake. I
Unknown: one thing I notice,
it's really quiet up here
near the top,
there were some
Kevin Bae: some some birds. Down below, I don't
Unknown: know if you could hear it.
Kevin Bae: I'll find out when I listen back to the recording.
But up here, it's like dead silent. I
Unknown: What's up? Godfrey,
what's up?
You? Good dog,
good dog, a bad dog. Let's go. Looks
Kevin Bae: like they've been doing some forest management,
which is good, some control burns,
Unknown: getting rid of some of the underbrush.
That's good to see what.
Kevin Bae: So this was the first time somebody has beat me up.
Here. We just came across another hiker
Unknown: with his golden retriever.
Usually, I'm the only one here,
first time for everything.
But on the plus side,
meeting another hiker with a dog
on this trail,
Godfrey was civilized,
Kevin Bae: which is a rarity. He really doesn't like other dogs,
but he's better off leash, because then he can just go his
own way.
Unknown: But he likes people. And the guy was, like,
Kevin Bae: really friendly to God for you. So he
didn't even pay attention to the other dog, and just paid
attention to the guy. Anyway,
we are about here, just down a little hill into the lake. I
swear he remembers the lake.
Unknown: I think this is his
fifth trip
on this hike.
Kevin Bae: Whenever I bring him, this is where I try to go. We
don't I know we missed one because it was raining and I
just didn't want to hike in the rain. I don't have any rain
gear.
Unknown: There he goes. I
a
dog lake
Kevin Bae: and a dog in the lake.
Unknown: Wow. What a morning you
Kevin Bae: You can tell he likes being Here.
Unknown: I
I
got a stick,
disturbing the peace.
Kevin Bae: So this is why we come. He doesn't get to see
water much
anymore. I mean, we go in the North Georgia woods, the North
Georgia mountains, and we go hiking,
and he goes through the streams.
But there aren't a whole lot, there aren't a whole lot of
lakes in the north Georgia mountains that I've found
that he can actually just run in to swim like he can here if he
feels like it.
Unknown: This is just too beautiful. That's
why I like to come before before other people, because somebody
really doesn't know how to behave
in the wilderness.
Somebody has a little bit of an issue. I
Hey, Godfrey, I don't
want you to go swimming too far out. You're gonna drown. You
haven't been swimming in years.
I
Oh, now
you went and hurt yourself.
Kevin Bae: Too excited to hurt yourself, you'll be all right.
My dog is such a big baby, he's running with the stick. Probably
hurt himself in the jaw,
Unknown: so now he's pouting,
pouting and crying,
Kevin Bae: but in a few minutes, he'll recover and he'll be just
fine.
So it took us a little less than an hour to get up here,
Unknown: 730 right now.
Kevin Bae: Got started a little after 630 I think it's
just kind of what we do. We come up and run around the lake.
And he was crying earlier. He's fine now.
Unknown: He's just a big crybaby.
Kevin Bae: We just walk around. We walk around the lake a little
bit, take a few pictures of the stunning view, of
which I've taken a million pictures of the stunning view,
but it doesn't matter. Then we'll continue on back to the
car and off to God for His daycare for the day. Do.
You got your swimming that's enough. I need
Unknown: you to be able to walk back down the hill,
Kevin Bae: at least after getting past this one little
incline
to get back to the trail.
You can either go left and take the loop or go right and come
back the way that we came, and that's what we're gonna do,
Unknown: but it's all downhill the rest of the way.
After you get past this little incline,
let's go.
Oh, man, I look like a wreck
during these hikes.
Where are you going? Dog,
Kevin Bae: hey, I don't want to take a picture. How come you
can't turn the camera around anymore in the middle of a shot.
That's really dumb.
Unknown: I really do look like a train wreck.
Guess what happens when you get old?
You get old, you look like a train wreck.
Kevin Bae: The advice is, don't get old.
Good luck. We just got a notice from my phone that my storage is
low and I'm gonna run out of space before I can finish this.
I hate these phones with only 128 gigs. This is a pixel seven
a and it maxed out at 128 gigs,
no SD card slots. Nothing.
Makes me angry, so I'll probably wrap things up here. It's just
really a straight walk down back to the car. I might snap a few
more pics, but
that's probably the end of this episode of the podcast, so
I'll do my boiler plate stuff when I get to a computer, and I
can just record on there,
Unknown: go ahead.
Go drink.
Go drink. Oh.
Hi.
Kevin Bae: That was the end of the first hike. So let me take
this time to mention that this is a value for value podcast.
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just wanted to mention that the in between
these hikes, just to take that break. Um, I also started a
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can get a shirt or whatever with the casual hike logo. And I'm
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But let's get to the second hike. This is the Mount Olympus
pipeline trail. It's a very simple
trail, mostly flat,
but it's just a little palette cleanser after the more serious
hike.
And you know what? I have a YouTube channel that I'll link
to in the show notes, where you can see the video from these
hikes if that's something that you'd like to do anyway, on to
the second hike.
Unknown: Okay, we're at the pipeline trail,
Kevin Bae: and we're here at about 620 in the morning, and so
you can't see anything.
Unknown: I think I'm gonna
Kevin Bae: string these hikes together
as one podcast,
Unknown: because
Kevin Bae: these are all going to be short because I don't have
as much I'm starting out way earlier than I normally do when
I'm in Georgia. But this
Unknown: is supposed to be an easy trail,
Kevin Bae: and I figured it would be good for him, because
the dog Lake Trail was pretty strenuous after not hiking for
Unknown: a couple of months.
So
Kevin Bae: this will just be a nice, leisurely,
Unknown: leisurely hike.
Can't see anything,
Kevin Bae: barely even the sky.
There's also some haze from some Idaho wildfires,
Unknown: which makes sky a
Kevin Bae: little bit darker, but the sun should be coming up
over the top of the mountain,
Unknown: I think in about another
Kevin Bae: 20 minutes.
This is another brisk morning. It's a little bit more
chill than a couple days ago.
The temperature reading on my jeep said it was 51 when we got
out.
It was in the mid 50s when we were up at the
Unknown: dog Lake
Kevin Bae: couple days ago. But this is another ad number day,
so Godfrey will be allowed to be off leash.
But I'm not going to take them off leash until we get a little
bit more light, because I don't want them running off into the
woods and I can't find
Unknown: them. But if you have a dog
Kevin Bae: and you're in the Salt Lake City area, Mill Creek
Canyon
allows for off leash days and odd number days,
and it just makes hiking with your dog easy. You so
there probably isn't going to be a whole lot of video or pictures
to look at on this one, because it's a short trail
Unknown: and it's still dark, but it's
Kevin Bae: the trails relatively flat once you get up onto it,
and when you get to the end of this trail,
if you figure, if you feel like it, you can continue on up to
grandeur peak,
which I did that trail,
Unknown: I think in 2017
Kevin Bae: maybe it was probably earlier than that, because I
didn't have Godfrey yet.
And that's, that's a pretty hefty climb up to the top. It's
very cool when you get there.
But this one is just kind of a really short,
I would call this like a nice, leisurely
early morning, evening hike. You know when, when there aren't too
many people here? Because I assume
this easy trail will attract a lot of people who don't like
more strenuous hikes.
There's a little bit more light now I can see but on the camera,
I.
The camera is not really picking any of this up yet.
Unknown: You can actually see the sky. Now
Kevin Bae: I'm gonna let Godfrey off leave soon.
Unknown: A few more minutes so we got a little more light.
Kevin Bae: See the sun. You can see the trail a little bit.
See Godfrey finally off leash.
Unknown: Soon, the sun, the sun will be up
this trail
just kind of follows a ridge line
Kevin Bae: and mimics the road down in the canyon. So
you're just kind of walking back down the road. You can actually
see the road from here and see some cyclists.
So we just encountered a trail runner, a jogger, and he was
very quiet.
Couldn't hear him coming. Came around the corner startled
Godfrey. Godfrey barked at him, scared the guy, but there's no
interaction, because Godfrey likes people. It just startled
him that somebody came from around the corner,
Unknown: running. That trail runner
Kevin Bae: reminded me of when we were hiking in Georgia,
and some people came by on horseback on a trail that
allowed horses. And Godfrey had never encountered a horse,
especially up close that spooked them too.
Unknown: But thank
Kevin Bae: goodness he didn't bark at the horses. I think he
was just more scared of them,
Unknown: and then just kind of
Kevin Bae: retreated near me and let them go by.
So the trail seems mostly wooded, with like areas that
open up so you can see the sky and you can see the mountains
and some really nice views,
but a lot of it's wooded. So even if this is in the middle of
the day, at least this first half or whatever I'm on,
but here now you can see some coming out of this wooded area.
It opens up, and then you get these mountain views,
which is very cool, you kind of come out and everything just
opened wide up,
Unknown: opens right up,
as opposed to wide up.
Kevin Bae: And I wish there was a way I could adjust the
exposure on the video
side of the camera. Maybe there is, and I just don't know it,
Unknown: because then you can see more.
Very cool.
Kevin Bae: Okay, it looks like now we finally got enough light
for some video.
You can see, I don't know if you can make out the road. You see
cars coming up the road. You
can see the headlights. I don't know if it shows up on camera,
but
this is what we're looking at, just basically a ridge line,
Unknown: and then these mountain views,
Kevin Bae: Sun bout to come up over that ridge. You
wondering where I am, let's go. Let's go.
You know, I mentioned before that Godfrey is getting old.
He's nine years old.
He'll be 10 in December
Unknown: and on our hikes
over the last
Kevin Bae: year maybe two, Godfrey get out of there.
Unknown: Godfrey
get out of there.
Over the last year or two,
Kevin Bae: he's been getting really stiff
after hikes,
and my vet recommended
glucosamine and chondroitin,
you know, and he had a name brand
to give him, and I was skeptical. I'm like this. What
does that stuff actually do?
Unknown: But
Kevin Bae: because he wasn't so he was so stiff and he would
kind of cry and not
want to go up and down stairs after a hike.
I'm like, Okay, what does it hurt? I'll give it a try. And
Unknown: I'm shocked to say it actually works,
because we went on that hike yesterday
Kevin Bae: up to dog Lake, which was strenuous,
and we haven't been hiking in a couple of months,
Unknown: and while he was still a little stiff, but
Kevin Bae: nowhere near the same amount of pain he was in before.
Unknown: So if you got an old dog,
Kevin Bae: the brand name I bought was Cosequin.
Unknown: Out of Costco.
I give them
two tablets a day, and
I'm
happily surprised to say that it works.
So I
was in that slight
incline a
Kevin Bae: couple of minutes ago. Now here's a little bit of
a decline with some loose dirt, so you gotta be careful.
Unknown: But what I read is that pretty much the
extent of the elevation here
Kevin Bae: for this trail, it's not supposed to be
terribly strenuous. It's rated easy. There's supposed to be
some water feature at the end
Unknown: to see what that is,
Godfrey is waiting for me.
Kevin Bae: This is the end of this part of the trail.
This is the bridge in the stream.
Unknown: Easy peasy.
Kevin Bae: We did that in about 30 minutes. Less than 30 minutes
to get here.
Unknown: I
Kevin Bae: Good boy.
Unknown: Boy I
it.
Kevin Bae: So that was that we are heading back.
And the reason I ended this like we're not gonna go on a hike
tomorrow,
anywhere we leave in a couple of days, so I just wanted to do a
nice light hike
Unknown: before we leave.
Kevin Bae: I don't like to do anything too strenuous with him,
you know, before we're ready to go back home.
So that way it's a nice, peaceful drive home and he
doesn't have any injuries of any sort. I plus Mr. Senior galute
Over there,
doesn't know his own age, Godfrey, no, get out of there.
Keeps wanting to go down the hill.
Can't let him do that. He'll never get back up.
So all in this hike is about three miles long, but it's all
flat, or mostly flat,
so it's relatively easy, even on a hot day, I could see this
being a pleasant hike
with all the tree cover, and then you got that stream at the
end for your dog to drink, and we're
going to come up to the only
elevations, like a hill. You just got to go up and go down.
It's really small, really short.
Unknown: God for you this way.
Nope. Don't go down there.
There you go. Look at that. This opens up. I
got like a rock slide area.
Kevin Bae: Okay, so this is the section with the only elevation
on it.
Unknown: And really just kind of
climb up this short hill
and down the other side,
Kevin Bae: and gold,
Unknown: it's up
or at the top of the hill,
and now it's just going down. And
and that's it.
The rest will be flat.
Kevin Bae: So we just ran across a hiker, a couple of dogs and a
couple of barks from Godfrey. But he did okay.
Maybe he's maturing.
Unknown: I doubt it.
I doubt it.
Kevin Bae: Funny thing about the hike up the dog Lake is normally
I wear compression sleeves on my knees
because I get, like, fluid buildup, and it's real painful
to come down,
Unknown: and I totally forgot to put them on,
and
I was quite surprised.
Kevin Bae: So now I ran across a trail runner with a dog jogging
behind him, and Godfrey decided he wanted to try to follow. But
if.
He's much better at recall now, just give him a little here, and
Unknown: he actually returns.
But back to my knees. I
Kevin Bae: was pleasantly surprised that my knees weren't
in pain all day. I was even able to come down the
hill. Given the number of people we've run into already. I'm
guessing this is a pretty popular trail to run
Unknown: most more Godfrey, no, here, here,
here.
Dumb dog,
Kevin Bae: gotta keep him on the trail. Come on, let's go,
Unknown: go.
So we're getting there the end.
Kevin Bae: Godfrey has survived encounters with
multiple people and many dogs and no fights. It's good day.
Good morning so far. Well, I shouldn't count my my god freeze
until I'm back in the car.
I am sure glad we started this one early, though, because
we've encountered so many people, it's definitely gonna be
a popular trail,
Unknown: and probably packed with people later on.
Kevin Bae: And this is Thursday. I'm looking better today than I
did a couple days ago. Oh well, it's
Unknown: the fact of being an old man,
back to walking.
Kevin Bae: So these are parts of the trail nobody was able to see
because it was too dark,
but you can see them now on the way back, we're almost done.
Unknown: Keep going. Go. You.
It
Kevin Bae: okay, we truly are. I keep saying we're near the end,
but this is it. We just passed the fork in the trail, which
means that the trailhead is almost here.
This was a really nice, easy morning hike.
Unknown: If
Kevin Bae: I come back to Salt Lake City with Godfrey, this
probably be our two go to hikes, one strenuous, one easy,
Unknown: go visit the Salt Lake.
Kevin Bae: Maybe tomorrow we'll just go to a dog park or
something. So you can take it easy in preparation for the trip
home.
Unknown: I would call this so far
successful trip.
Kevin Bae: All right, we stopped off on the side just to give
Godfrey some water, and now back to the Jeep
and on to godfrey's daycare.
So when we got here, there was nobody here, and now it's full.
Unknown: This is it.
Pipeline trail.
Kevin Bae: That's it for this episode of the casual hike. I'm
not exactly sure when we'll go out hiking again.
Probably, probably at least one more time for I take a little
trip someplace in October,
but until that time, thanks for listening and
go take a hike. You.