On June 27th of 2008, Bill Joy, Don Gneiding and I drove south to Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Salt Lake City area of Utah. This is a popular canyon for hiking and has many trails, both long and short. Some of these trails lead to the great peaks of the Wasatch Range, as seen from Salt Lake City, while others climb to waterfalls and small lakes in the area. On this day we chose to hike the canyon named Mill B North Fork. Here we found a small waterfall called Hidden Falls, located just a short distance from the canyon roadway, but well hidden from view. On up the canyon we hiked along the small creek, then we left the creek and hiked through forests of tall pine until we came out on an overlook down into the main Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was about 600 feet, almost straight down, to the canyon roadway below. Quite the view. We could also see across the canyon into the Mill B South Fork that leads up to three small lakes, Lake Blanche, Florence and Lillian. The hike to these lakes is found on another page of my hikes.

We then hiked on up a ridge between the smaller canyons towards the higher peaks of Mount Olympus Wilderness Area. After awhile we got to a point where we could see that it would take too long to go all the way to the top, so we turned around and headed back down. The total distance we walked was 3.74 miles and we climbed 1,370 feet. When we reached the car we had lunch then drove on up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Mill D South Fork for a short hike to Donut Falls. That hike will be found on another page.

You can reach Mill B North Fork canyon by driving up Utah 190 in Big Cottonwood Canyon 4.4 miles to where the roadway makes a big 'S-turn'. At the bottom of the 'S-turn' on the right is a road leading to the parking lot for Mill B south, and the Mill B North parking is the next one on the right, about the middle of the 'S-turn'. Here you will find a trail and rough stairs climbing to the highway above. You will have to cross the road at the top and head for the creek on the other side. Be very careful crossing here, as it's hard to see around the curves in the roadway. There are some stairs going up which lead to the Mill B North Fork Overlook, but to see hidden falls you need to go left of the stairs and walk along the stream a short distance. There doesn't seem to be much of a trail here, but it is worth the short walk in to see these falls and only a few hundred feet distance. When you return, you can go up those stairs and follow the trail on up to the overlook. The overlook is rather hard to find, being off the trail a ways. At 1.3 miles there are some faint trails on the right that climb up to the edge of the Overlook. The trees and brush here are thick right to the edge. If you have small children with you be careful here. The drop off is sudden and steep.