Weather:  Cooler - in the 80's in the valley with threatened rain and thunderstorm activity.
Present were:  Mike, K7DOU;  Tim, KK7EF;  Dale, WJ7L;  Bryan, W7CBM;  Gordon, K7HFV;  Clint, KA7OEI.
Destination:  Cardiff Pass, from the Alta side.
Question of the day:  "What was that???!!!"
Total distance:   2.51 miles, round trip
Times:  Depart vehicle: 1845;  Took trail that bypasses a loop in the road:  1852;  Rejoined main road:  1856;  Turn off main road to follow a portion of the road to Monte Cristo mine:  1919;  Arrived at Cardiff Pass:  1946;  Departed Cardiff Pass:  2024;  Reached cutoff trail:  2050;  Returned to vehicle:  2103
Altitudes in feet ASL (approx) from GPS:  Vehicle:  8700;  Bottom of trail that bypasses a loop in the road:  9000;  Top of bypass trail:  9085;  Cardiff Pass:  10040
Altitude gain/loss (approx.): 1340Ft.
Local sunset on this date:  8:12 PM - (We've lost 11 minutes of daylight since last week - about 52 minutes since the solstice.)

We went to this same place in 2004 - click here to see pictures from that trip.

Images (289-814k each, .JPG):

• IMG02945 - Gordon and Mike, ascending the trail in a field of wildflowers.
• IMG02946 - Along the trail, toward the south, with Mount Baldy in the middle and Hidden peak toward the right edge.
• IMG02947 - Dale, making his way up the trail.
• IMG02948 - Devil's Castle (behind the ridge in the foreground) and Sugarloaf. #2959 is similar and zoomed in.
• IMG02997 - Across the canyon on the west ridge of Cardiff Fork, a heard of mountain goats grazing - the white spots in the center of the image on the green patch.  #3001 is a zoomed-in view of the same area taken a few minutes later, after the goats had moved up the slope a bit.
• IMG03000 - Alpenglow, on the Reed and Benson Ridge.
• IMG03004 - The last vestiges of sunlight over the western ridge at the head of Cardiff Fork.
• IMG03010 - "William the goat."  Just as we were getting ready to leave, this goat appeared at the radio site on the peak above, approx. 500 feet (150 meters) away.  He stayed around for a while, watching us watching him.  #'s 3016 and 3020 show him moving around in the quickly-fading twilight.  These pictures are beginning to get noisy as longer exposures (with smaller apertures for best focus) through a long lens (equivalent to 340 mm on a 35mm film format) were required in the gathering darkness.

These pictures are composites of many smaller pictures.  Please note that they may not display properly on some browsers.  You may need to use an image viewer like Irfanview to view them properly and zoom in on some of the details.  Note that details of these images (exposure, time, location, etc.) are noted in their EXIF "Comments" fields.

• Cardiff Pass Trail Panorama (1a) - This is a panoramic view of the Alta/Albion Basin area, taken from the trail at a point just below Cardiff Pass.  (Size:  2058kB)
• Cardiff Pass Trail Panorama (2a) - This is a view similar to that of 1a, but taken slightly higher up the trail and encompassing a wider angle.  (Size:  2665kB)
• Cardiff Pass Panorama (3c) - This view, encompassing nearly 180 degrees, was taken from Cardiff Pass about 20 minutes before local sunset.  On the extreme left may be seen the portion of the ridge containing Flagstaff Mountain while on the extreme right may be seen the radio site above Cardiff Pass.  (Size:  2526 kB)

Maps/profiles:

Note that GPS elevation data is sometimes a bit "ratty" due to frequent blockage and degradation of the satellite signal.

• The elevation profile of the hike
• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks)

This was a nice, pleasantly uneventful hike.  The beginning of the trail is at the Alta city offices, following first the blacktop - then the dirt road - around, along the ridge and up to the pass.  This route follows old mining roads, passing multiple prospects and a few mines along the way and heads very steeply up the hill toward the pass.

This is actually one of the steepest hikes of the season - but it is also one of the shorter ones to make up for it.  The view at the top of Cardiff Pass gives one the dual opportunity to look down into Cardiff Fork of Big Cottonwood canyon as well as get a breathtaking overview of the Alta area as well as some of the bowls and peaks in the upper reaches of Little Cottonwood canyon.  As the sun set, the warming colors spectacularly played off the large clouds wandering around the area, bathing the vicinity in their indirect light.

From Cardiff Pass, we could see, across the way on the other side of the head of Cardiff Fork, a broad slope covered with greenery.  In about the same place as last year, we spied a heard of mountain goats, foraging and frolicking in the dying daylight.  At this distance they were mere specks, looking very much like white rocks, but careful observation revealed that they were moving around.  Image #3001 is an extreme telephoto view:  You can just make out that these specks have legs and heads.

After the sun had set, we decided to head down, but just as we were getting ready to depart the pass, Tim spotted a solitary billy standing near the radio site, about 500 feet away from us.  He seemed to be observing us, possibly making certain that we weren't any sort of threat to his territory or harem.  Whether he was attached to the group spotted across the way, with another group much closer - but out of our view, or just by himself, we couldn't be sure.

After a few minutes of watching and taking pictures, we headed back down in the growing darkness.  Up to this point, we had been surrounded by a few banks of clouds, but none of them threatened to do anything.  Several hundred feet of elevation down from the summit the canyon resonated with a very loud "boom" - but none of us had noticed an accompanying flash of lighting (hence the question of the day.)  It sounded very much like thunder, but we suppose that it could have been rockfall or even a detonation of explosives somewhere.

At the trailhead, we met up again with Mike (who'd started down earlier - and had missed the goat) and waited for Gordon.  After a few minutes, he appeared - with two extra people in tow.  This other couple (from Georgia) had started out from the Cliff lodge and made a day of hiking along, apparently following the ridges - but now hoped to get a ride back to the Cliff Lodge:  Tim graciously obliged.

Afterwards, all of us but Bryan gathered at the TGI Friday's at the Cottonwood Mall for our traditional after-hike "dime-lime."
 

Comments:

• If you want one (or more) of these images and wish some sort of adjustment (color, brightness, exposure, etc.) please let me know:  All of these image have been processed in some way.
• These images are in chronological order.
• No-one ever said that all of these images (or any of them) were good.  Some of them may have definite focus/exposure "issues."
• EXIF data is present for most of the images, showing time, date, and precise exposure conditions.  Recent versions of Irfanview will show this in the "View->Image Information->EXIF" tab.  Note that cropping/noise reduction required the use of another program which may have removed some/most of this EXIF data.
• Images suffixed with "h" (if any) are half-size.  This was done for images that were somewhat out of focus (due to misfocus or camera/subject movement associated with long shutter times) or those that required some extra noise reduction and had lost some detail anyway.
• All images taken using a Sigma SD-10 camera and were taken using the 18-50mm zoom lens, except as noted in the EXIF data.

Go to the 2005 Wednesday Night Hike page, or main Wednesday Night Hike index page.