By Tyler Delumyea

The hiking season is upon us! It’s that time of year to get those dusty old hiking shoes, grab your best hiking bud and hit the trails! We all have our favorite trails here at the Chief, but I’ll give you a run down on one of our personal favorites, Shirley Canyon. This hike is quite possibly one of the most popular trails in our area due to its beautiful views of squaw, waterfalls and awesome granite out crops. Currently the water in the creeks and rivers running down the mountain are still carrying some momentum, however they are slowly but surely slowing their roll as the snow melt is coming to an end.

The Shirley Canyon trail is roughly 4 miles one way, and there are three ways to go about hiking up the canyon. Depending on how intense you want to get out there you could start at the base of Tram face and go up all the way to high camp. This way by the time you’re all worn out and ready to go home you can stop at the top for a nice refreshing beer at high camp. The second option would be to take the cable car up to high camp and hike down into the canyon and maybe take a dip in one of the many relaxing pools of the creek. And finally the third option, if you wish to take it mellow, is to walk up the canyon as far as you please and walk back down the way you came. Be sure to always have the creek on your left while walking down to make sure you make it back to the car!

The Shirley Canyon hike is nothing less then awesome in every way. From the mountain flowers you constantly see the whole way up, to awesome out crops of granite and the beautiful alpine lake of Shirley. Nothing is better then enjoying our beautiful out doors then with a nice stroll up one of the areas best trails.