Hiking the Water Canyon to Squirrel Creek Loop, Canaan Mountain Wilderness, Colorado City, Utah
This hike is one of my favorites in southwest Utah. My husband and I did this as a loop hike where we started on Water Canyon Trail, headed up to White Domes, went east on Canaan Mountain Trail, and headed back to the trailhead by way of Squirrel Canyon. While in hindsight I love this hike, there we points where we thought about turning around when we were actually doing this hike. We would not have been able to complete the loop without Gaia GPS on our phones as we frequently found ourselves “off-trail” simply because there was no trail. I would only recommend doing this loop to experienced hikers that are comfortable navigating based on GPS. If you don’t have an app on your phone that offers GPS navigation, I would recommend making the Water Canyon piece of the hike a simple out and back. While the navigation was tricky for this trail, the trade off was that it was very quiet, especially after we left Water Canyon. We only saw 5 other people the whole day.
Starting out in Water Canyon was beautiful, the trail was near the creek at some points, while at other times we found ourselves quite a bit above the creek. As the hike progressed up the canyon, it got quite steep, especially towards the end of the canyon when we had to climb out. I was glad we went up this section of the trail instead of going down as there were a few parts that required using your hands to get up.
When we got to the rim of the canyon, we lost the trail. For the next few miles, we found ourselves off trail, but did find a few occasional cairns. We were able to navigate ourselves to the White Domes which I thought were the coolest features we passed on this hike. Seeing all of the layers in the rock was pretty neat. We stopped for a snack and took in the views.
After a little rest, we headed east on Canaan Mountain Trail where we continued to wander through different rock formations and headed into what felt like a bit of a gully. When we hit the Squirrel Creek Trail, we turned right and beautiful views of the Beehive opened up in front of us. This was definitely the coolest looking mountain around and the Beehive seemed like a very appropriate name for it. After a little, we started descending into the canyon that should have been called Mosquito Canyon instead of Squirrel Canyon in my opinion. I was swarmed by mosquitos for the next 1-2 miles and if I stopped even for a moment, I would be completely attacked by mosquitos. This was my least favorite part of the hike, and we definitely picked up our pace. After what felt like an eternity (although I’m sure it was probably less than an hour), we made it back to the trailhead and said goodbye to the mosquitos for the day.
Overall, it was a great day with some navigational challenges. If you are an experienced hiker looking for a beautiful hike, this hike should be considered.
Total stats: 10.7 miles, 2000 ft of elevation gain.
