Sherwood Hills Resort Conference Center & Spa is a hikers paradise. From the front door of the resort, you can start an invigorating hike through Quaking Aspens and Rocky Mountain Maples that will take you on an easy four-mile trek through the forest.

You will make a loop that will take you into areas where you might see some Mule Deer, or certainly hear them bounding across the forest floor, or possibly stumble across a Moose. You will also hike right next to the base of the Wellsville Mountain Range with its shale chutes and rugged peaks. The views are spectacular.

For the more adventurous hiker, a day hike to the top of the Wellsville Mountains, towering over 9,000 feet in the sky, will create a memory that will last a lifetime. You can literally look in the windows of the airplanes that fly by!

From the top of the Wellsville Mountains, you will have soaring views from Salt Lake City on the South past the Great Salt Lake on the West, into southern Idaho on the North and over to Wyoming on the East. What an amazing story to tell your friends and family at home ... "I climbed the steepest mountain range in the United States!"

(Some have even said the steepest in the world.)

Additional Trails On the Wellsvilles:

Deep Canyon (Mendon, Utah)
     From the trailhead the trail climbs steadily up Deep Canyon for a distance of 3.2 miles, finally reaching a small saddle on the summit ridge after an elevation gain of 2,700 feet. The trail splits at the saddle, with the southern branch going to Stewart Pass and the northern branch proceeding along the ridge to the top of a small unnamed peak 0.7 mile away.
     This peak is supposed to be an especially fine place to watch the hawks, but in fact if the conditions are right they can be seen almost everywhere along the ridge. The best time to see the hawks is during the fall migration on days when there is enough wind to create good updrafts on the western side of the mountain.
     The Wellsville Ridge is surprisingly devoid of vegetation. Perhaps the dry winds that blow across the mountain from the Great Basin Desert leave the rocky soil too dry for the forest to flourish. Whatever the reason, the absence of trees along the ridge makes for some marvelous views of the valleys below.
     From the saddle above Deep Canyon the main trail proceeds southward for 1.7 miles to Stewart Pass. Along the way the route traverses around the west side of Scout Peak (8,687 ft.), another good place for hawk watching. There are no signs to let you know when you arrive at Stewart Pass, but there is a stone monument marking the place. This is where the ridge trail intersects the Coldwater Canyon Trail, and where you must start your descent back to your shuttle car. Stewart Pass is the lowest point on the Wellsville Ridge between Scout Peak and the Wellsville Cone.

Coldwater Canyon (Between Wellsville and Mendon, Utah)
     The hike down through Coldwater Canyon is much like the hike through Deep Canyon, except the trail is slightly steeper. You will loose 2,500 feet in 2.6 miles. About 0.6 mile before you reach the trail head you will pass by Coldwater Lake, a small pond about 100 feet long.

Wellsville Cone
     If time permits, you really should make a side trip to the top of the Wellsville Cone before starting down the Coldwater Canyon Trail from Stewart Pass. The Wellsville Cone is 1.6 miles from Stewart Pass, over an excellent trail, with an elevation gain of 980 feet. The side trip to Wellsville Cone and back will add about 2.5 hours onto your total hiking time.
     Wellsville Cone, which can be clearly seen from the top of Stewart Pass, looks like an old volcanic cinder cone with its northern side eroded away. The mountain is made of sedimentary limestone, however, so the cone could not have been formed by a volcano. The Cone has two summits with the eastern peak being the higher one. The ridge trail passes between the two peaks. You will probably see another faint trail coming up through the bowl below Wellsville Cone on the west side of the mountain. This trail originates at the bottom of West Coldwater Canyon, but it is little used now and hard to follow.
     For still more ambitious hikers it is only another 0.9 miles from the Wellsville Cone along the last part of the ridge to Box Elder Peak (9,372 ft.). Box Elder is the highest point in the Wellsville Mountains, but the views are not much different than the views from the summit of the Wellsville Cone.