Park City Rest Day

Wednesday, June 30
In four days I hiked from Spanish Fork Utah to Kamas Utah. Each day I covered just over 20 miles and each day was a little bit different. The first day involved walking past an amazing hot spring called Fifth Creek Hot Springs. I spent almost four hours relaxing in the warm, actually hot water and socializing with other people enjoying themselves in the blue colored water. It was awesome to sit there and listen to a couple speak in the language of Portuguese, a beautiful language. After the hot springs soak was complete around eight in the evening I hiked on further to find a good camp for the night.


The next day involved climbing up to the crest of the mountains and following an ATV trail many wonderful miles north. The views down to Strawberry Lake to the east, and Utah Lake to the west were awe inspiring. I positioned myself in a convenient spot where I could wake up and walk down to a mountain pass called Daniels Summit. Just before I reached the area of habitation, I saw two moose. So maybe I should’ve thought there could’ve been a wildlife fence in my future. I decided to go cross country to cut an acute corner off, but this resulted in me running into a ten foot high wildlife fence. It rerouted me just like it was intended to reroute wildlife. Yes well I fences do work on The Animal. I had breakfast, but when approaching the place I was wondering if they were actually open. I asked him are you open and they said yeah maybe for another week unless we get new customers. After eating breakfast I think the best way they can improve their customer base might be to improve their breakfast. I did give the lady a good tip, but the breakfast didn’t sit well with me and slowed me down for the rest of the day.


Later in the day and walking slowly all day I did run into sheep herder from Peru. He said he was watching over 1000 sheep. I kept walking into the evening, this was a very challenging day because basically I walked up hill all day long. The scenery was beautiful and a good portion of the day I was on a cross country/animal path that went up a beautiful valley. I reach the top of Heber Peak at 10,207 feet just in time for a phenomenal sunset. I was tired and decided to spend the night behind a very good wind shelter. The sunset was one of the best I’ve seen on the trail so far. I did a long Facebook video of the sunset and many enjoyed the beautiful views.


Since I went uphill the majority of the entire day, the fourth day hiking would be entirely downhill for all practical purposes. This allowed me to cover almost 20 miles by 4 p.m. The hitchhike into Kamas was a piece of cake, I got a ride in about five minutes. When I arrived in Kamas I learned there was no hotels. You would’ve thought that I would’ve research this prior to the trip but I just assumed there would be a mom and pop hotel in this town. The downpour of rain started and I was wondering where I was going to sleep. I had some slices of pizza from a local pizza restaurant, the only thing open, and determined to the closest lodging was in Park City Utah, about a $25 Lyft right away.


I got a ride from a Lyft driver that needs to take driving lessons, he was from Brazil but I’m not really sure where he learned to drive because it was quite jerky. Upon arrival in Park City it dawned upon me this is a ski town and ski towns have ski bums and ski bums don’t have a lot of money so where do they stay they stay, hostels. The $64 room for the night Definitely beats $200+ dollars for a hotel, and there are people who are willing to socialize. The local hostel which was nice clean and amazing. When I walked in the first thing I was offered was green chilies enchiladas, and Tomales from people who lived in Albuquerque New Mexico. Present were people from Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Washington state, California, and New Hampshire. Many of them were taking “golf course management” internships at the local golf course. It was awesome to learn the different types of careers people create for themselves. The second night in a hostel involved wonderful conversations with people that ranged from mathematics in high school, to climate change, to mental health, to hitchhiking. This is the advantage hostels have because you meet people who want to have phenomenal discussions.


I spent the day having breakfast drinking coffee, and I got an amazing two hour massage. I visited the Wasatch brewery and had a delicious IPA. I took time visiting art galleries and sat on Main Street on a beautiful park bench writing this journal. It turns out on my day off I ended up hiking 10.1 miles just in town.


The big thing that surprised me today, I would like to say thank you to the generosity of people. My breakfast this morning was covered by my server I said you don’t have to buy my breakfast and she said, I want to because she was so amazed with my hike I was accomplishing. I was really surprised my server bought me breakfast. It was a delicious scramble that had Brussel Sprouts and marinated pork with spinach and eggs. I was so surprised that she bought my breakfast. I walked away actually forgetting to tip her. I called Maria to to tell her how awesome people are, and she asked, did you tip her. I realized I didn’t (oops), so I took all the free cash I had, ran back to the place found her doing your job for others and gave her a nice generous tip.


The plan for tonight is to go find a canned microbrew bring it back to the hostile, do some more socializing with people staying there tomorrow I will Uber back to Kamas pick up my food supply, and head back to the trail. My next section is just over 145 miles long one of my longest sections yet, and it probably has a lot of elevation gain so this might be one of the hardest sections I do. I am walking all the way to Vernal Utah.


The Four Corners Loop is turning out amazing the trail magic just keep showing up and every day I walk with a smile because life is good I just have to walk around and look at stuff.


One last thing, I was asked a question today by a lady in an art gallery, she said “what have you learned while on your hike“. This was a very challenging question to be asked by a stranger. I will spend the next nine days while walking through the Unita mountains thinking about this very good question.


Thank you for reading,
Kevin Koski
The Animal