Intermountain Region

To visit Cascade Springs from Midway, take the Cummings Parkway dirt road through Wasatch Mountain State Park over the ridge. To make the loop through Provo Canyon , take the paved road west from the springs to Utah Hwy 92, the Alpine Loop. Take this road left past Sundance to Provo Canyon, US Hwy 189. Turn left on US Hwy 189 and follow it back to Heber City. For more information on the Cascade Springs Utah scenic drive or the Alpine Loop Scenic Backway, contact the Pleasant Grove Ranger District of the Uinta National Forest at 801-785-3563.

Three interlinked loop paths criss-cross the pools and streams, in places on raised boardwalks above the ponds with their clear water, travertine (tufa) terraces and a variety of lush plant life. The ponds have abundant fish, and otters may also be seen occasionally. Further up the slopes the path follows the gushing whitewater streams that feed the lower pools to a ground water discharge area that provides the main source. Here, the water (on average 7 million gallons per day) seeps up through a thin part of the layer of glacial debris that fills the valley.

Drive up American Fork Canyon as far as you can towards Mineral Basin. When the road gets too rough for your vehicle, get out and start walking. After about 1.25 miles, a sign indicates the location of the erstwhile fen. Several hundred yards down the road the Bog Mine discharges red, iron-rich, acidic water into the creek. The Iron Bog and Bog Mine are located below Pittsburg Lake.

The "Iron Bog" as it is called, is not a bog at all, it is a peat deposit formed in a fen that was destroyed when the Bog Mine intercepted groundwater and dewatered the fen.  Now the dry peat routinely catches of fire. This fen and its peat deposit formed over thousands of years since the end of the last ice age. Fens are wetlands that develop where a relatively constant supply of ground water to the plant-rooting zone maintains saturated conditions most of the time and the water chemistry reflects the mineralogy of the surrounding and underlying soils and geological materials. The water that discharges from the Bog Mine portal is acidic and contributes metals to the creek. This is a prime example of the kind of damage to wetlands, streams, and aquatic ecosystems caused by historic mining in the west.