Signpost at Broads Fork trailhead.
Click on image for a larger version.

Weather:  Mostly clear sky, unseasonably cool - beautiful weather for a hike!
Present were:  Gordon, K7HFV;  Bruce, KI7OM;  Randy, KG7GI;  Mike, K7DOU;  Ron, K7RJ;  Clint, KA7OEI
Destination:  The meadow in Broads Fork.  (You know, the one below the Twin Peaks cirque - the one with the beaver pond...)
Question of the day:  "Where are you at?"
Total distance (GPS):   4 miles, round trip
Times:  Depart vehicle:  1846;  Cross bridge:  approx. 1910;  Arrived in meadow:  2010;  Departed meadow:  2053;  Crossed bridge:  2207;  Arrived at vehicles:  2238
Approximate Distances (in miles):  0.9 miles from trailhead to bridge
Altitudes in feet ASL (GPS approx):  Vehicles:   6250;  Bridge:  7060;  Meadow:  8270
Altitude gain/loss (approx.):  2020 Ft. 
Local sunset on this date:  2102  (we gained 2 minutes of sun over the past week, and the latest sunset of the year is only about 1 minute later)
Total 2006 WNH mileage (if you've gone on all of the hikes thus far):  12.75 miles
Total number of footsteps (according to my pedometer):  About 11700 (about 26 inches/step)  This makes an estimated 35250 step hiked during this WNH season.

Images (332-1226k, .JPG):

• IMG03506 - Ron and Randy preparing the gear for the hike.
• IMG03509a - Ron, pausing for a drink of water in one of the small meadows passed through on the way up.
• IMG03510 - A view in the meadow, lookup up toward the Twin Peaks cirque.  Randy had just arrived and sat down on the rocks.
• IMG03513d_sharpened_crop - An extreme zoom of one of the groups of goats on the ridges.  This image was rendered at 2x normal resolution and a convolutional "de-misfocusing" algorithm applied and then cropped to be of reasonable size.
  
• IMG03524 - Across the canyon, to the north, taken from the meadow.
• IMG03529 - A view across the meadow, down onto the beaver pond.
  
• IMG03546_refocus - The obligatory group picture with the mountains in the background.  L->R:  Clint, Randy, Mike, Ron, Gordon and Bruce.  (I suspect that this won't win the award for "best group picture"...)  This image also had a convolutional "de-misfocusing" done to it -  The original "blurry" version is here, for comparison - and you are right if you say that processing didn't really help it out much...  although it did sharpen it nicely!
  
• IMG03552_NR - A view toward the sunset and over the Great Salt Lake, taken on a ridge just as we were leaving the meadow.  Very similar is #3550_NR.
  

These are composites of several smaller pictures.  Please note that due to the size, it may not display properly on some browsers and 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 (exposure, time, location, etc.) are noted in file's EXIF "Comments" field.

• Broads Fork Meadow Pano1 - A wide shot of the area around the meadow, taken from the large rock at which we congregated.  Yes, I know - I'll try to include people's legs next time... (2.86 meg)  Here is A smaller version (1/4 image size, 252k.)
  
• Broads Fork Meadow Pano2 - A wide-angle shot showing one of the peaks above the cirque as well as the beaver pond and dam.  Yes, those are day-hikers coming down from the trail above, and yes, one of the panels is slightly blurred.  (2.75 meg)  Here is A smaller version (1/3 image size, 523k.)
  

• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail.  Note that the first 1/4 mile or so is from "wandering" around in the meadow and not from the descent trip.  This graphic shows only the "down" portion of the hike as there was very poor satellite geometry during the hike up, resulting in sparse elevation data - and the "down" is a mirror image of the "up" anyway.
  
• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks, 2.71 meg.  Here is a .JPG version that is only 798k and slightly fuzzier.)
  

This is the first "North-facing Slope" hiked during the 2006 Wednesday Night Hike season.  As can be seen from the pictures, the snowline is now between 9500 and 10000 feet.

This day was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year - but it was not the day on which the latest sunset occurs:  That happens in another week or this year.  Being that there is still plenty of sunlight, we embarked on this, a traditional "early season" hike, and the fact that it was, again, cooler than average made it even nicer - much nicer than it was last year when we did this same hike.

Shortly after leaving the parking lot, we heard another occasional Wednesday Night Hiker (or, more accurately, runner...) John, WB7SUB, appear on the air.  While he couldn't join us on the hike (he said had a rendezvous with a beautiful women up the canyon - his wife, he claimed) he did stop at the trailhead where we had a brief chat.  Soon after this, we got word that Mike, K7DOU, running slightly behind schedule, was on his way.

The hike up the trail was steep, but it was long.  Randy, leading the way, soon disappeared into the distance while Ron and I trudged along, followed by Bruce, Gordon at some distance behind him, and then Mike, having gotten a late start at the trailhead.  Upon arriving at the meadow, we spotted Randy, having arrived a few minutes before and appearing to be well-rested.

On the the rocky slopes above the Twin Peaks Cirque I spotted several small groups of mountain goats, happily foraging around;  Using Randy's binoculars, we could see that there were not only full-grown goats, but some young kids hopping around as well, staying fairly close to their mothers.

In the gloaming, the shadows lengthened and the light grew warmer (but the air grew colder) painting the peaks and hills nearby with a spectacular alpenglow with the nearly-cloudless sky providing a striking contrast to the warm colors.  A short time after Ron and I arrived, Bruce appeared, followed a few minutes later by Gordon.  Calling Mike on the radio (hence the question of the day) he stated that he was making good progress, but would be 10-15 minutes behind.  True to his word, he arrived at about the time he'd predicted - as he should, as he'd been there the Sunday before.  As it began to get dark we began our trek back down the trail, pausing briefly to enjoy (and attempt to photograph) the sunset across the Great Salt Lake as seen from a vantage point very near the meadow.

Going down the trail, one realizes (and it was opined by several) that this trail seems to be a lot steeper going down than it was coming back up.  This observation may be counter to what one expects, but one of the theories is that when one is in a state of exhaustion, one's memory becomes rather selective or simply doesn't faithfully record ones physical stress (a possible explanation of why long distance runners do what they do...):  When it comes to retracing the steps down the trail, the faulty memories simply don't reflect the effort that had been required to go up the trail in the first place.

The trek down the trail was mostly uneventful save one brief instance where Mike got attacked by a horse - one of Charley's, actually...  After waiting a few minutes to recover, he was once again on his feet, none the worse for wear.

By the time we got down to the vehicles, it was quite dark and because the return to the parking lot wasn't until a few minutes before 11 pm, we decided to forgo a post-hike "dime lime" and we headed our separate ways.

Relatively little mining or prospecting was done in Broads Fork:  It was a source of timber (a logging trail can be followed down to within a few hundred feet of the canyon bottom, generally paralleling the stream) and it's biggest historical note has to do with the fact that there was, a short-lived hydroelectric power plant at its base and the remains of its penstock can supposedly be seen near the bottom.

As for the name "Broads Fork" the origination is unknown.  In the 19th century, it was known by several similar names, such as "Broughts Fork," "Brocks Fork" and "Borck Fork" - and it wasn't until 1908 that the name "Broads Gulch" was applied to it.  It is suspected that the current "Broads Fork" is a perversion of one of the earlier names.

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 2006 Wednesday Night Hike page, or main Wednesday Night Hike index page.

Historical info about Broads Fork was taken from "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller