Did Elizabeth Smart and her kidnappers spend several months last summer hiding out in Dry Canyon, northeast of the University of Utah? If they did, they could have lived in relative obscurity in that canyon's rarely traveled south fork, some outdoor enthusiasts believe.
Mountain bikers regularly frequent the lower portion of the main canyon, because it's a fairly smooth portion of the Bonneville Shoreline trail. However, the canyon's south fork, which splits to the right about two miles up, is in a rocky, dry stream bed and is much lesser-used.
Salt Lake City police jealously guarded a primitive campsite Thursday afternoon, possibly used by Brian David Mitchell, Wanda Ilene Barzee and their captive, located three miles from the University of Utah Hospital in the south fork of Dry Canyon. It's almost a mile off the main trail in the area.
The mouth of this canyon is located about four miles northeast of the Ed Smart home. The canyon is also found between the "U" block on the mountainside and the U. hospital to the south.
Several reporters headed to a possible campsite were turned back by authorities Thursday afternoon.
"Turn around or you'll be arrested," a police officer yelled to two reporters as they approached a primitive camp in the upper canyon that was marked with some clothes and other items that helicopter news crews had seen from the air.
Keith Clapier of Parley's Summit was in Dry Canyon with his mountain bike and dog, Joe, Thursday and said he's been in the area more than a hundred times.
"I've seen runaways up here," he said, explaining he could find better places to hide but agrees there's so much oak brush in the canyon that the south fork would be a place where you would see few visitors.
He said if someone was in town by day, they could come up in the canyon just after dark and probably never be noticed.
Clapier also found a sleeping bag and two pairs of old hiking shoes in the lower part of the canyon that someone had recently discarded. He said there's a narrow cave in the canyon that could be used for shelter, several seeps of water and a year-round spring of water near the mouth of the canyon.
Reporters also found the bones of two small animals along the upper south fork trail. Almost all of the trail has a very gradual incline.
Two longtime Salt Lake-area hikers, Alexis Kelner and Dale J. Green, say there's another spring of water higher up the canyon, though it's fairly obscure.
Kelner's not surprised that someone could hide out in Dry Canyon, not to be confused with a different canyon by the same name that's south of Little Cottonwood Canyon.
"There are a lot of possibilities up there to hide in," Kelner said. "It's not on the beaten path."
Green said he hasn't been in the area much the past eight years after retiring from a job at the U. However, he recalls it always being a busy area.
"A surprising number of people use it," he said.
Indeed, more than three dozen mountain bikers alone used the lower canyon in a two-hour period Thursday afternoon.
Gary C. Nichols of Salt Lake wrote the book "Trails of the Wasatch" in the late 1990s. He notes there are maple trees, an old stove and bed parts in the upper portion of the south fork, which eventually reaches the Black Mountain Ridge.
The canyon is dry right now. There are a few small patches of snow two or more miles up, but otherwise no water is visible along the trail. Kelner feels someone could survive there in the summer, if they knew where the upper spring was.
"The spring is well hidden," he said.
There are also some small mammals living in the area.
E-MAIL: lynn@desnews.com