Things to Do In Ogden: The Indian Trail

The wife wanted to go hiking with the kids again so we decided to take a trip up Ogden Canyon and hike The Indian Trail. The trail was initially used by Ute indians to travel up Ogden Canyon during spring water run-off season. Due to Ogden Canyon's very narrow and impassable features (prior to modern blasting to make room for roads) the Indians found it necessary to use this trail.


The trail starts on the south side of Ogden Canyon Rd about a mile up into the canyon. The first thing that caught our attention was the giant restored kiln that dominates the trailhead. A very cool feature thanks to the folks at the Weber Heritage Foundation and a bunch of other local contributors who made the restoration of this old kiln possible.






The first part of the trail is on some fairly steep parts of the mountain. Fortunately, improvements in the trail make for easy walking at first. We took our four daughters with us so our progress was slow going most of the way.







If you are wanting to see fall colors, I strongly recommend this hike right now. The trees are changing all over the trail. I was amazed at some of the brilliant colors we saw. Its been a while since I have seen colors this intense.


Unfortunately, we made a wrong turn at the very beginning of our hike. Instead of hiking on the Indian Trail, we ended up in some weird section of a trail that high school kids use on weekends for recreation. We found a big open space that made for good camping. Just to the east of this spot is a giant sinkhole in the side of the mountain. Its a wacky 20ft depression with very steep walls. I am sure its full of water most of the year.



As we continued up this wrong spur of the trail we found some interesting firepits that almost resembled altars. They were higher up on the trail and away from good camping. Very wierd to find in this location. Whats makes them even more interesting is that the stones were mortared together. Somebody really wanted these here.

Ultimately the trail came to a dead end at a rockslide. We poked around trying to find a continuation of the trail but could not find one. By that time the kids were tired so we turned back, ate lunch at the camp site and returned home.

Next time we will follow the map and do the REAL Indian Trail.