July 7 - Twin Lakes and Lake Solitude Loop

A rather nice day in the valley with temperatures in the 80's, partly-cloudy skies and a slight breeze - so why wasn't the parking lot full this time? 'Dunno. We can only guess, but we suspect that the venue for the Wasatch Mountain Club's weekly hike was not for a hike in Big Cottonwood.

At about the appointed time the gathering started, with the different parties arriving at their usual times - some of them still a few minutes out, communicating their intentions by radio and asking us to let them know the plan for the evening as soon as we did. As the quorum grew in size plans began to materialize and we decided to do something fairly high-up in the canyon - partly because we knew that enough snow had melted to allow some of these destinations, but also because this was the last Wednesday Night Hike that Gary's parents could attend before their return to New Zealand.

With the hike chosen (the Twin Lakes to Lake Solitude loop) we informed those who were still a few minutes away from the destination (namely Chris) and started up-canyon, making sure that we all knew what our destination was this time (see last week's hike...) After wending our way up the canyon we parked en-masse near the Brighton store instead of the Silver Lake parking lot - which had previously sported a sign that said that its gates would be locked after 10pm - and started on our way.

Because of the still-extant runoff, the level of Silver Lake was on the high side, coming closer to the boardwalk than usual, nearly flooding portions of the trail along the west edge. As we walked along the lake the cirque was bathed in the lowering angle of sunlight - a scene being taken advantage by a number of artists that had set up their easels along the way, each committing their own visual interpretation of the vista to paint and paper. In the lake itself the smooth surface was interrupted only by fish briefly surfacing to glean a meal from among the many swarms of gnats and other insects that were hovering randomly about as well as from the gentle wake from a party's lazy drifting across the lake in a canoe.

Rounding the far west-ish edge of the water, we soon found ourselves ascending the trail toward Twin Lakes. Starting out amongst the trees this trail briefly breaks out into the open along a slide area giving a clear view of Silver Lake and its surroundings before ducking once again into the trees and at this point the trail steepens somewhat, getting rockier, before finally approaching the dam. Keeping to the right, one passes the spillway (which was dry this time) and after a brief detour from the main trail, you arrive at the shore of the lake.

There, we waited as the group recombined, taking in the scenery as well as taking pictures. Once everyone had arrived and had a few minutes to re-hydrate and "re-wind" I decided that this was likely the best opportunity to get the obligatory group picture, so we gathered along the shore for the traditional shot. After taking several pictures, Dale rushed forward with his own camera, setting it atop mine and after some fussing with menu options, managed set the 10 second timer to get his own version of the group photo. Satisfying our needs for recording the event we gathered up our things, pressing forward and upward along the old mining road.

After a few more minutes we arrived at the junction and decisions were made: Some of the group would start a leisurely walk down toward Lake Solitude while others would strike out toward Twin Lakes pass - a 30-40 minute detour, with a fairly small group (including me) heading off toward the pass with Elaine and Mike starting down - and everyone else following them - or so we thought...

Striking out once again, we followed the old road upwards and coming to the point at which a trail separates from the road off to the left, we started up toward the ridge that separated us from the Twin Lakes cirque. Crossing a still-extant snowfield, we soon found ourselves looking, once again, down onto Twin Lakes, only a few hundred yards from the pass. A few minutes later after making the traverse along the side of the bowl, we found ourselves once again looking down in to Little Cottonwood Canyon with Twin Lakes at our backs: There, we sat down, took pictures, and started in on our snacks. A few minutes later we noticed several small groups of people heading toward us along the traverse: Wielding his a pair of binoculars, Dale determined that the rest of the group - except for Mike and Elaine - could be spotted heading our way and shortly, Charlie arrived, followed shortly by Gordon, Kay, Ron and - delayed by his picture-taking - Gary. When we expressed surprised that so many people decided to come to the pass after all, Gordon mentioned that he'd initially thought that only a small group would go to the pass - but with the majority of people deciding to make the side-trip, it seemed reasonable to go along.

While sitting at the pass one couldn't help but notice being surrounded by birdsong - but the only avian in evidence was a gray bird sitting at the top of the tree. Since none of our number have even a passing resemblance to an amateur ornithologist, those of us who had even the vaguest ideas about such things were trying to decide the species. What became evident was that the birdsong we were hearing didn't appear to be emanating from the one bird that we could see - whose rather nondescript plumage indicated that it was a female - but rather from the wooing by unseen males in surrounding trees.

After our picture-taking, we decided that it was time to start our descent so we re-traced our steps along the traverse and to the snowfield. There, different people took their own paths back down: Some followed along their original path of ascent while Ron and I seemed to take a more direct approach, simply walking down the snowfield to the nearest-available rocky outcrop, requiring that we walk an extra (short) distance along the bottom. Finding ourselves back on the road we soon came to the junction and started down toward Lake Solitude.

Soon after we parted company with Mike and Elaine they reported that they had a run-in with the law: A short distance from the junction there were some deputies that had been patrolling the area. Their vehicle being stopped by a snowbank on the road, they were on their way up on foot to where they could see Twin Lakes and, after a short chat, Elaine and Mike continued on their way down. By the time we got there the deputies were long gone, the only evidence of their recent visit being a set of still-fresh tire tracks.

Unlike on some past years' hikes, we got down to the shore of Lake Solitude while there was still a reasonable amount of daylight - even though the sun had set some time before. There, Ron and I gave Charlie a brief demonstration of the "Suck 'n Blow" mine (a.k.a. the Solitude Tunnel). As usual, it was in the "blow" mode where air cooled by the interior rock falls due to its increased density and blows out through the narrow portal. Soon, Kay and Gordon arrived and after a brief reprise of the history and explanation, we resumed our descent.

By this time Bryan and Dale were some distance ahead of us while Mike and Elaine had already reached Silver Lake. The hiking was pleasant and as it was still bright enough to safely walk without lights in the relatively open woods, we could still enjoy the surrounding scenery and the changing colors to the west. After going down-canyon for a while, the trail curved somewhat to the right, resuming a course in the general direction of Silver Lake. At about this time we heard Dale on the radio talking about the "Cruzer" route and a sign, asking which way we had gone. Not really understanding the statement, we replied with non-committal answers, saying that we had just continued on what seemed to be the correct course - at least until we came to a rather obvious arrow and sign. With our flashlights (now needed, as the darkening woods made them necessary for safe travel) we saw the sign of which Dale had spoken, but we decided to take the "straight-ahead" route - the "non-Cruzer" path, marked with an arrow that indicated "Silver Lake" - the same path that Dale and Bryan had decided to take.

We continued onwards. Along this portion of the trail, I always feel a bit of uncertainty as to whether I've taken the correct fork: On several occasions, we made a mistake along the way, the worst one being taking a left when we shouldn't have, ending up near Solitude and requiring a much longer return path than we'd intended. Another mistake made on a previous trip was to take an inadvertent right: This error wasn't so costly in time, however, as it simply deposited us at a junction along the trail up to Twin Lakes near the clear spot where one first gets a view of Silver Lake, below, requiring a descent to erase the altitude that we'd just gained. Fortunately, the consensus had been correct and we emerged where we had expected that we would and we soon found ourselves walking along the far shore of Silver Lake in the dark. We weren't too surprised to see that all the artists had gone, although I could imagine the results of someone painting in the dark - the result looking as though someone had glued a piece of black construction paper to some canvas and called it good...

Reaching the vehicles once again we noted that Chris had already departed. After waiting for a few minutes, we soon saw Gordon's tell-tale green flashlight bobbing in the distance, growing closer. Reunited and with everyone with the same vehicles in which they'd arrived, we worked our way down the canyon - mindful of the occasional deer browsing along the road - making it uneventfully back to the parking lot where where we said our goodbyes to Kay and Charlie - who would be on their way back to New Zealand by this time next week - and went our separate ways.