Adams Canyon, and the trailhead nobody can agree on the address of.

There is one lot and three published street numbers for it, all on Eastside Drive, the frontage road east of US-89 above east Layton. Layton City's trails page gives 600 South Eastside Drive, this site's own Layton city guide gives 600 North, and a 2023 city document gives 450 North. The Census Bureau geocoder resolves 600 North and 450 North to points about three hundred feet apart on the same short segment, both inside Layton city in the 84040 postal code. If you print a number, print 600 North and note that the city's own trails page disagrees.

The Forest Service publishes Trail 614 as 1.8 miles one way with a gain of a little over 1,000 feet, on the Salt Lake Ranger District of the Uinta Wasatch Cache National Forest, with the falls, the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and the Great Western Trail listed as destinations. Layton City's trails table says 1.9 miles of unpaved trail to the waterfall. The city's economic development office gives 3.5 miles, which is a round trip figure. Crowd sourced apps put the climb at fourteen or fifteen hundred feet. Publish both figures if you like, and believe the agency.

The maintained trail ends there, and the Forest Service's own record for Trail 614, checked in August 2026, describes what continues rather than forbidding it: the route is maintained as a primitive route once it crosses the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and climbs to the falls, and beyond the falls the trail is difficult to follow, travelling through a series of cliff areas as it meanders to the ridge. The widely repeated statement that hiking above the falls is not permitted does not appear on the agency's page. What is true either way is that the rescues in this canyon are concentrated above the falls, the responders are Layton City Fire and Davis County Search and Rescue, and the waterfall is the sensible turnaround.

Because the agency manages the trail and the city built the car park. The Forest Service's live Trail 614 page, checked in August 2026, still directs drivers north on the highway past Oakhills Road at the Layton City water tank, onto the frontage road, to park at the end of the pavement at a fenced off reservoir. Layton City replaced that arrangement with a paved trailhead including flush restrooms, water, a bike repair stand and an information kiosk, opened on 26 April 2024. The federal page is accurate about the trail's rules and out of date about a facility that was never its own.

Yes, on a leash. The Forest Service's record for Trail 614 states directly that leashed pets are permitted, and that there is no motorized use on the trail. That is a real point of difference within Layton, because the city's two largest parks, Layton Commons and Ellison, both ban dogs entirely and the city posts the rule in capital letters. So a dog walking household's Layton map runs to the canyon trail, the creek corridor at Kays Creek, the paved city trails and the twelve city parks that do permit leashed dogs.

The falls run hardest in May and June, which is also when the trail is busiest and the creek crossing is at its most serious. The lower section is walked year round. From roughly November through April the shaded parts of the canyon hold packed snow and ice long after the valley has cleared, so traction devices are the difference between a walk and a retreat. On any fine summer Saturday the lot fills by early morning, and Eastside Drive is a frontage road without a sidewalk, so a full lot is a reason to come back another day rather than to park on the shoulder.

The North Fork of Holmes Creek, and following it downhill is the most Layton thing about this canyon. It comes over a roughly forty foot fall, crosses the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, passes the trailhead the city built, comes out onto the bench and ends in Holmes Creek Reservoir at 2692 East Gentile Street, about 2.3 straight line miles east of Layton City Hall. That reservoir is open year round with no swimming, no motors and no floating, is managed for bass with a limit of six largemouth and only one over twelve inches, and requires a state walk-in access permit simply to enter.

Both, in different halves, and knowing which is which saves a lot of confusion. The trail is Forest Service Trail 614 on the Salt Lake Ranger District, so its length, its gain, its rules about dogs and motors and the closure above the falls are all the agency's and are the ones that govern. The trailhead facility, the paved lot, the restrooms, the water, the bike repair stand, the kiosk and the search and rescue plaque, is Layton City's, built and opened in April 2024 and maintained on a city budget. The Davis County canyons page carries the rebuild, its funding and its facilities in full.

It is the busiest single trail in Davis County, and the parking is where you feel it. The lot Layton City opened in 2024 replaced a gravel area that held roughly twenty cars, and before the rebuild the overflow parked along a frontage road with no sidewalk in numbers the county counted. The new lot's capacity is not published and it still fills by early morning on a fine summer Saturday. Early starts, weekday mornings and shoulder seasons are the answer, and the county canyons page compares this trail against Mueller Park and Deuel Creek if you want a quieter first hike.