Bells Canyon

This morning I got up early and headed for Bells Canyon. I was thinking to fish at Upper Bells Reservoir. The hike was rockier than I expected, but beautiful in the early morning. When I passed Lower Bells, I was thinking it must be some other lake because I thought it was closer to Upper Bells. Then I realized that the distance between Upper Bells and what I thought had been Lower Bells in the book, was actually the distance between the waterfall and Upper Bells. Anyway, there were fish hitting the surface of Lower Bells as I passed by.

I continued up the trail and let a guy with a full-sized backpack pass me by. He asked me if I was heading up the the higher lake, and I told him I was planning on it, but having never been up there, I didn't know if I'd make it or not. It turns out, I didn't. Two guys coming down the trail had mistaken some stacked rocks for the direction they needed to go which was south of the stream (river!). They had gone south away from the stream and had never made it to Upper Bells. They advised me to go down to the stream and find a place to cross it because the trail was on the other side.

I continued to follow the trail, and found their stack of rocks that had mislead them, and from there proceeded to try and find the route across the stream. I found a marshy area where the stream broke up a bit and was able to cross some of the smaller rivulets, but there was still a main channel, full of run-off, and I couldn't find a way across it.

Maybe some of you who have been there before will have some advice on this, but the trail often seemed to vanish, and other times reappeared, sometimes as trails leading in 4-5 different directions.

On the positive side, though I didn't make it to Upper Bells (which was about 1.17 miles away on my GPS as the crow flies when I turned around), I saw a lot of great scenic beauty. I began seeing patches of snow at around 7800 feet, but none on the trail, up to about 8000 feet where I turned around.

Now for the pics. Pictures 1 and 6 are where the trail went down into the marshy area and split into smaller streams.

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I've only been up there from the top down while doing the beatout but I seem to remember the trail being pretty easy to follow. Unfortunately I don't remember the marshy spot you are speaking about since we did it in September and that was probably not so marshy.

Cool, I was thinking I might head that way that next weekend...

Did you make it to the upper waterfall? I seem to remember a bridge over the stream near the bottom of the upper waterfall? You cross it to the North side then follow the trail from there. Eventually it crosses the stream again and goes high on the south side before hitting the lake... it's all kinda fuzzy since it has been a while since I've been up there. The upper lake is quite a hump beyond the lower for sure!

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Originally Posted by shaggy125

Did you make it to the upper waterfall? I seem to remember a bridge over the stream near the bottom of the upper waterfall? You cross it to the North side then follow the trail from there. Eventually it crosses the stream again and goes high on the south side before hitting the lake... it's all kinda fuzzy since it has been a while since I've been up there. The upper lake is quite a hump beyond the lower for sure!

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I think I made it past the second waterfall. At least I took a picture of what I thought was the second falls. Is the bridge one that people have made of logs? I must've just not known where to look for it. But down at that level I could pick up the trail pretty easily, even after having crossed big slabs of granite. It was when the trail got up into the trees that it seemed to split up into many trails, or none, but maybe I was already off the real trail by then. I could see where coming down from the top the trail might be easier to pick out because people would tend to go down the same way they came up. I don't really know what happened, but Verantz's book states that the trail crosses the river at about 7400 feet. I had not remembered that and I was closer to 8000 feet at the point I was trying to find a way across. Anyway, here's the upper falls, or what I'm thinking of as the upper falls. The pictures are from uptrail a bit so they may not be all that identifiable. In fact, my pics for sure don't tell the whole story as to how much water was actually cascading down that thing. There was a lot of water.

Not another one! Gosh, I guess I have more common sense than most. There was no way I was going to attempt to cross that water. I feel really bad that someone thought they could do it. http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=11332366

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Ya, those photos look like the upper watefall. If I remember right there is a trail that goes to the top of the falls then shortly after it gets really easy to lose. If you hike back down to the base of the falls there is a bridge just downstream made of logs and the actual trail continues along the other side of the stream. If I remember right, the trial you followed to the top of the waterfall does not continue to the lake. The bridge has probably been wiped out by high water. Again it's been a while but that seems to be what I remember. If I go up there again this summer I can try to verify if I'm right or if I'm totally off and am going to get more people lost.

I dug through my old pics on my hard drive and found these from July 2004. First pic is the lower waterfall, second is the upper, third is the bridge you cross, then you hit a nice meadow (fourth pic) followed by the trail going high along the south/west side of the canyon (fifth pic) and to the upper lake in the last pic.

That's right. Coming back to me now. In order to get above the second falls you scramble up a scree pile/gully on the right but in order to stay on the trail, you do go across the bridge at the bottom of those falls.

Also, the 2nd reservoir is very far up the canyon. In my opinion, you might be better off making an overnight out of it and summit South and possibly North Thunder the same day or next day. From the bottom to the upper reservoir it is about 4100 feet elevation change. To get to the top of South Thunder it is only another 1400 or so and the views are killer. I actually wasn't too impressed with the upper reservoir but it would be a good spot to catch some fish and chill. The canyon below and above the upper reservoir is pretty amazing though. Very scenic area that is infrequently visited.

Granite above 2nd Falls (July 2006):
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Bridge below 2nd Falls which will keep you on the trail (Sept. 2006):
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View from South Thunder with upper reservoir below (Sept. 2006):
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Originally Posted by tmartenst

in order to stay on the trail, you do go across the bridge at the bottom of those falls.

From the bottom to the upper reservoir it is about 4100 feet elevation change.

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Okay, so I just missed the bridge, not knowing where to look for it. The stream was way high, and I think the bridge looks high enough that it wouldn't have been washed away. Besides a guy with a large backpack passed me on the trail and said he was heading up to the upper lake. I never saw him again, so he must've known where he was going and headed on up. There were several spur trails leading over to the stream along the trail, and I didn't follow more than a couple of them, one of which was to the first waterfall. I just thought those other spur trails were made by people going over to look at other parts of the stream--and I guess thinking that is what caused me to miss finding the bridge. I'll know next time, but right now, my quads and calves are still sore from that steep climb. And my achilles were killing me for a few hours after the hike as well. I did check the elevation gain prior to leaving on the hike, and it was just barely less gain per mile than the Mt. Olympus trail, which as you probably know is also very steep (and killed me the last time I climbed it!). I thought I was in better shape this time, which I probably am, but haven't done much that would build up my quads. I guess the important thing is that if and when I go back, I know more now than I did before.

I second going up to Thunder Mountain. I too wasn't too impressed with the upper lake but thought the meadows above the lake were really great. The trees thin and you get views of the surrounding peaks. There are some mini "ponds" up above the lake that are nice. Views from Thunder are really good too. You can also summit Lone although it's a scramble and would likely suck, especially getting back down! Plus you would miss Lone Peaks Cirque, which is one of the best spots in the Wasatch.

I was just up there the other week for the first time in many years. The water is freakishly high and moving faster than I recall ever seeing it.

Anyway, it's really easy to miss the waterfalls, both have you seemingly go off the trail to the left toward the river. We got a late start and were headed toward the upper resevoir, so we didn't wander off toward them.

If you stick to the right for most of this hike, with the exception of one spot, you will pretty much find your way up without having to do much backtracking, but you will miss the waterfalls (a common complaint up there is that it's easy to get off the trail and waste a lot of time). The exception to this rule is when you come to the small glen far up (past the waterfalls). This area was rather boggy when I was up there, and the path was hard to find. Basically I'd suggest heading left toward the center of the glen. Almost dead center, slightly hidden by trees from below, is a log placed so you can cross the stream.


There are other crossing points, but the log is the easiest. Basically you want to get to the left side of the river, and you should find an obvious path heading toward the cliffs on the opposite end of the glen, where the river is coming from. From here it's switchbacks up the cliff face, and the trail becomes fairly clear again for the rest of the way up!

Hope that helps!

Sorry to hear you weren't able to make it to Upper Bells. Looks like you had a nice outing regardless. Nice pics. Thanks for sharing.

I went by Upper Bells for the first time en route to North Thunder (TR here) about a month ago with a friend. It's definitely tricky to navigate to Upper Bells, especially if you've never been. There was a large group hiking up that day and we used their knowledge to get us there with no floundering. I think my buddy and/or I have the actual track (Garmin) at home. Here's Lanep's .kml view of it and here's the actual .kml file. Let me know if the actual track would be useful.

PS - I'm assuming our route was pretty much the correct way up. We did hit snow before Upper Bells and kinda of followed the path of least resistance.

I attempted the hike today. Didn't make it to the upper reservoir, but there was trail confusion. Got some fantastic pics of the leaves starting to change. I had a GPS, but seemingly no data for the area. I would be interested if someone has a recorded gps track to follow.