Scale…or perspective….
It’s nice sometimes, and necessary at other times, to take a step back…or up, to get another view of the objects of our attention…. It’s amazing what we can see when we’re not so focused on the one single thing…but on the whole and big/huge picture…. I hope you’ll enjoy these photos of one of my favorite places here in the canyons and mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA….
This is what appears to be an old water-wheel house on the banks of the stream in Little Cottonwood Canyon. If you were to peer inside the window, you could see the old spooned wheel that used to turn with the flow of water to generate electricity many years ago.
Here’s another view from a little farther away…. I’m actually standing in the middle of the stream-bed taking the picture. The stream is empty right now, as the entirety of the water is being captured upstream and diverted into the water supply for the metropolitan Salt Lake City area. It will be flowing bank to bank in a couple of months when the water from the snow-melt is running.
This shot is from the slope heading up the side of the mountain that is on the south side of the canyon…you can see the empty stream-bed.
And lastly, this one is from way up on the side of the mountain. You can see the wheel-house on the stream bank near the lower right-hand corner of the photo….
We clove the Earth…
…and robbed her treasures…hidden things that meant nothing until they were found…and now they’re gone, and gone away…the precious mystery revealed and now nothing remains…save the ever weeping scar….
Faces of the Falls
This is from my first visit to the Bells Canyon’s lower falls in October 2010…
…and five months later in March 2011….
…and in July 2011 at the height of the snow-melt…it was hard to photograph any closer because of the spray….
…in September 2011…
…and a couple months later in November 2011….
…and now in January 2012…the only time I’ve seen it frozen-over…. I could barely hear the water trickling beneath the ice….
It still thrills my heart to live in a place where there are significantly changing seasons…different times of the year when the natural world puts on another face and shares a side of herself that we would miss if we didn’t visit her often….
Sand or Snow?
On first glance, it looked like dried-out salt grass along the beach sticking up through beautiful white sand…
These images were taken along the Pipeline Trail between Burch Hollow and Elbow Fork in Mill Creek Canyon, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
The Ice Tube Revisited
Just over two weeks ago, I found an ice tube in the stream in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Maybe it should be called a “chute” instead of a tube…because it performs the function of a chute…with water passing through it from one level down to another. At any rate, one tube was complete and it appeared as if another tube was forming to the left of the completed one. I took a few photos of the tube/chute to preserve it and hoped to return to take more pictures to see how it might have changed over time. Please press the highlighted number for December 17, 2011 on the calendar to the right to see the earlier post. For some reason, I am unable to create a link in the text at this time.
I thought I remembered the tube on the right as being smaller and less opened at the bottom…or maybe it changed a bit over the weeks. As you will see in the last photos of this series, there is an icy lace or filigree on the right tube that wasn’t there in the earlier photos.
I had to go to the other side of the stream and come in from the right to get these last photos. The two previous shots and the ones from the earlier post were taken from the left side of the stream as you’re looking at the water-fall.
Pattu loves the snow….
This post is for my blog-friend, Pattu, who loves the snow…and doesn’t get to see much of it where she lives in India. You can visit Pattu’s gardening blog by clicking on the name: “Gardenerat60.”
When you stand on this bridge and face to your right, you will see a snow-covered European Mountain Ash tree with its beautiful red berries hanging over the stream -
All of these photos were taken along the stream in Little Cottonwood Canyon, which is to the south and east of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. The photos were taken after the first significant snowfall of the season, which happened to be in the first week of November of this year. If you are familiar with the trail, you might notice that the photos start near the beginning of the trail by the Mormon Temple Quarry and progress toward the end, which is beyond the church ruins, approximately three miles into the canyon.
This last photo was taken at one of a few spots along the stream where the trail is significantly above and perpendicular to the stream. This vantage point allows you to see a relatively lengthy stretch of the waterway and its accompanying natural beauty. Few other locations afford such a clear and unobstructed view of the stream.
I hope you have a happy Christmas, Pattu. 
Ice Tube?
I believe I mentioned in an earlier post how the stream in Little Cottonwood Canyon is greatly diminished during the winter months when the annual snow-melt is finished and when most of the remaining water is diverted into the local cities’ water reservoirs. To take these pictures from the front angle, I was stepping/crouching on rocks that were in the middle of the stream bed. You can tell from the pictures that the stream is not flowing with any significant force or quantity of water. During the rush of the snow-melt months, the stream is usually flowing with several thousands of cubic meters of water per minute…and it would be impossible to capture pictures from the middle of the stream during those times.
When I first saw the ice formation from the side of the stream, it appeared to just be a bunch of ice that had formed near the flow of water. The closer I was able to make it to the actual waterfall, the more I could see that ice had formed in the shape of a tunnel or tube and the water was channeling through it from the rock above and into the little pool beneath…another crazy little marvel of nature…and a beautiful one at that.
It seems that the flow on the left is forming another tube…with the outer edges eventually coming together to completely enclose the water channel…maybe. It would be interesting to return in a few weeks and see if it happened…provided nothing destroys it in the interim.
This last picture is my favorite….
Ruins
I stood there on the opposite bank and searched for a way across, a way to get to the other side without soaking my feet in the stream, and finding none in my purview, I settled for looking for a way to cross time. I thought that might be easier, somehow.
I found a place where the snow could be cleared from a sizeable rock, one that would support me in my leaning against the bank, one that would hold me, whole, and almost comfortably as I chose to sit there in the freezing air and try to pass through eons of time, years that had passed, a century and more.
I stared into the windows and at the fallen beams, trying to see the rocks all back in their places, the carved and solid arches back over the window frames, glass reflecting the day’s gray light, or even some candles there, on the various sills, or on the mantle over the wood stove that might have been tucked into the far corner of long ago.
I heard notes floating in the icy air, these from a tinny piano that had been brought out from back east in a mule-drawn wagon for someone’s home and later donated to the church, the congregation, to His people, so it might accompany their country and refined voices as they lifted their praise and worship on those mountained Sunday mornings of then and gone.
I heard notes and the scuff of leather work boots on the lumbered floor…and then I heard a car horn honk in the canyon roadway, an engine roar, and a fading note. The cold was reaching into my muscles on the rock by the stream as I closed my eyes again and listened hard to what might have been, to what might still be there in spirit form, to what might still be living there in the rocks and beams from that other time.
The rocky stream wore icicles on her edges and snow on her banks and silver-gray clouds hung low in the air and I thought I smelled wood smoke, that piney richness that even curls in your mind when you smell it again after it has been so long. Women’s voices, high and low, some children at their sides, tiny voices singing, too, as fathers and single men stood at the sides and in the rear of the white granite building with hats in their hands as they growled and hummed the hymns’ refrains and shuffled their boots and scuffed the floor…as the stream still rolls and the water is cold and the trees sway in a growing wind…that carries notes and wood smoke out into the mountains and draws and tucks them away into moments of time that will live again in my imagination and then….
We Sought the Gods…on Mount Olympus
We rose early and climbed hard and steadfast in our march to the top of the mountain.
The trail was steep and full of natural perils that sought to sweep us off of our feet and cast us below. But we persisted as we did, and then, and found ourselves at the base of their thrones. We scrambled up and down and up again, but fell short of attaining their glory, not because we lacked heart or because our wits had left us, but because the final rise was treacherous and beyond our mortal grasp…bottom line, essentially, is that there was ice in the hand- and foot-holds, the rocks were slippery as hell, and we didn’t know whether or not we were actually in the right place and were not, collectively, ready to lose our limbs or lives climbing up the hill and finding no thrones.
But it was fun, nonetheless, and taxing, too, and truly beautiful beyond compare, up there, almost at the top of our world…and we climbed Mount Olympus.
Contemplation
We stand and marvel sometimes at the spectacles we find when visiting nature, when sojourning through a land that is ours to frequent and adore and love, but never really become a part of or control…such force and power…an amazing wonder, truly…and the feelings such a sight can evoke…of humility, awe, joy, and even peace, strangely, as we are nearly overcome with the loud and noise of rushing and pounding water on water and rock and earth…and the very core of our souls….
Winter Trail Trials…
A few weeks ago, I purchased my first set of gaiters for deep snow hiking in the wintry Wasatch. When I went out on the Little Cottonwood Trail last weekend, I had the opportunity to see how well they did with snow in the mid-calf range. This weekend, I was able to try them out in the above-knee range of snow depth as I hiked the trail up to the Bells Canyon Upper Falls in the mountains just south and east of Salt Lake City. The gaiters worked wonderfully…I didn’t have to stop every five or six steps to dig the snow out of the sides of my boots to keep it from melting down into my soon-to-be-soaked socks like I did last year.
I hope you enjoy the pictures of my second snow-hike of the season…Bells Canyon Reservoir and beyond….
The weather forecast for the day mentioned something about a seventy percent chance of snow…and the clouds were very convincing. It was too warm for just snow, however, so I had the rain-jacket on to help keep me dry. Low clouds and looming…they were almost mysterious…and threatening….
If you could look to the left, or north, of where the above picture was taken, you could see into the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon…more low clouds….
It is still quite early in the winter season; it’s not even late fall, actually, but the lower reservoir of Bells Canyon is already almost completely frozen-over.
It’s strange and beautiful how the shifting clouds can change the whole appearance of the mountains in a matter of minutes.
I’ve been up here almost a dozen times already, and I still find it breath-taking to watch these falls…. Even though they’re not flowing with crazy and raging white water, the lacy ice and snow create an incredible frame for this natural water-feature.
The falls shown above are about an hour to ninety minutes up the trail from the parking lot, depending on the weather and the condition of the hiker. Somewhere between another half to full hour, you will come to a house-sized rock that will be an indication that you are about another fifteen minutes or so away from the upper falls. This is what the trail looks like between the lower and upper falls. The red slash on the tree tells you that you’re headed in the right direction…when you can’t see anything that resembles a trail….
I think these are the prettiest of the many types of cones on the fir and pine trees in these forested mountains. These are cones from the White Fir tree.
As I was looking down and choosing my next step in the almost knee-deep snow, I noticed that a black fleck seemed to be sliding or moving along the surface of the snow. A closer look revealed that it was a little beetle…not yet dead or hiding away from the freeze….
A little while later, I lost sight of any further red slashes on the trees and decided to go “off-trail” and see what I could see. It seemed safe and that the chances of getting lost were pretty much nil, as I only had to turn around and follow my tracks to take me back to what I knew was the trail. As I slogged through the deepening snow the further up the mountain I progressed, I happened to round a little bend or protrusion on the mountainside and almost bumped into an elephant…first a beetle and now an elephant in the snow-covered Wasatch!
Another half hour of hiking through the still-deepening snow led me to a boulder field and white powder that was at least half a foot over my knees. Given that I was hiking alone and had never been this far up the side of the mountain, it seemed like a good idea to turn around and head back to more familiar territory. Sometimes when I’m hiking and watching the actual trail to see where my feet are going, it’s easy to miss part of the scenery. As I turned around and was making my way back down the trail, I noticed the snowy granite sides of the mountain. It was almost like seeing them for the first time….
Through the spring and summer of this past year, I’ve found that the return trip from wherever I’ve hiked usually takes about half as much time as it took to get there. With the snow, it took a bit longer. While I knew where I was going and had been the one that made all of the tracks on the trail, there was quite a bit of difference between going down a snowy trail and climbing up one…it’s much easier to lose your footing and slip.
When I reached the bottom of the trail from the waterfalls and was back near the lower reservoir, the clouds were still moving all over the valley….
Looking to the north…
And then to the south…
Overall, it was a wonderful day for a hike…cloudy and rainy and snowy and even a little sunny…with temperatures in the low to mid thirties up in the mountains.
As for the gaiters…they passed the second trail trial.
This final picture is actually from last week when I was trying the gaiters for the first time….
One year already….
I took an unplanned hike this morning, on an unplanned day off in the middle of the week. As chance would have it, I found myself on the trail that I first hiked when visiting the Salt Lake area in preparation for my move from Phoenix.
I have hiked sections of this particular trail about six or seven times in the past year, and only twice now from start to finish. Shortly after crossing one of the trail’s bridges, it dawned on me that I haven’t been to this specific section since I was up here locating the apartment where I would stay until my family arrived a few months later.
There was an odd recollection-quality to being there again, remembering my excitement (and fear) at the coming relocation, my physically being out in the woods and along a rushing stream again for the first time in decades with all my senses noting the sights and sounds and scents of being out there…and the notion of standing on the ledge of time and change and wondering what the next step would hold for me and my family.
The past year has, more than anything else (of course) been one of incredible change and adjustment and prioritizing of resources, time, and emotions. We’ve cried happy and bitter and sad tears, and mourned the losses of a familiar life and loved ones and have hoped incredibly for normalcy in all of the realms of our lives where we’ve missed it, both individually and collectively.
We have also longed to sit again among our entire family on the weekends like we used to do, and to spend our weekdays with and among our long-time and beloved friends and coworkers whose absence still aches in our hearts after all this time.
And yes, we have considered, too, what life would be like if we could roll back time and return to that old and familiar place, to have never left…or to even return to it now, afresh, after being gone for this single and elapsed year…we have wondered so, and have measured our past against our present and our still hoped-for future and we still wonder if it was the right thing to do, while telling ourselves that it was.
And so there I was again, walking under the familiar and green canopy of beautiful trees, smelling the natural and alluring perfumes of forest mulch and wild flowers and grasses riding the cool mountain breezes and listening to the accompanying and ever rumbling stream that was sometimes loud and close and other times quieter and removed, but ever-present, depending on the trail’s nearness to that peaceful and natural water-feature.
I was there, looking for distraction and peace and comfort after a crazy and sad month, hoping for a calm to return, hoping that what my senses experienced on the hike would remove images and texted sentiments and echoes of angry and sad words from my rambling and disjointed mind…hoping again for peace to be restored…and my hopes were answered, in this sense. Peace did come and quiet a portion of the unquiet things in my mind…it was a good hike.
I know I have posted similar pictures many times over the past year, but these images, these snapshots of our local and natural beauty are just too good not to share again, in my thinking anyway.
Yes, it’s been a year, and while I still miss my old friends incredibly, miss having them as constants in my every-day…I’m still loving it here. I hope you enjoy the pictures….
Cecret Lake and Surround….
One of the pioneers from years gone-by named it “Cecret Lake,” probably because it was/is hidden way back at the end of a canyon and was little known to others…it is also referred to as “Secret Lake,” because…it probably feels more correct to do so. The lake is at the end of a trail that is only one mile in length and is surrounded by beautiful crags and dome-shaped mountain tops. On the other side of the hills around the lake are winter ski areas that receive more than 50 feet of snow each season. All of this is in the Albion Basin, located at the end of the road that leads through Little Cottonwood Canyon and takes you to the ski village of Alta…which is about 15 miles from Sandy…one of the neighboring cities/towns of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Along the way to Grandeur Peak
It’s been a while since I’ve climbed a mountain…it has literally been half of my lifetime. I’ve climbed among them, through their forests, and along their streams, but not since I was 24 have I actually climbed to the summit of a mountain. When I was of that younger age, a friend and I took our dogs and climbed the north spur of Blodgett Peak just north of Colorado Springs…back in the days before they cleared a trail that led to the summit from the south side. At any rate, yesterday, I followed the trail to the top of Grandeur Peak with numerous other Saturday-morning hikers, single individuals and groups of two and three or more. I started essentially at the Church Fork trailhead, at 5,900 feet, followed the three-mile trail, and made the summit at 8,299 feet approximately two and a half hours later. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Looking to the west through Millcreek Canyon, you can see the Oquirrh Mountains on the far side of the Salt Lake Valley.
Another forest pathway…taking you away….
The higher I climbed, the greater and more spectacular the view….
I came across probably a dozen streams rushing or slowly making their way down the mountainsides.
As the trail climbed across the mountains, there were many switchbacks….
I had never seen Mt. Olympus from the west before, I have always seen it while looking east, so this is essentially the backside of the mountain…the standing plates from the other side….
And this is Grandeur Peak…not much to look at from its backside, really, but it does afford quite a view of the surrounding mountains.
And now those surrounding mountains and valleys…astoundingly beautiful…
A closer look at what is actually the eastern side of Mt. Olympus….
I asked another hiker to take a picture of me on the summit, but this one is more interesting, the National Geodetic Survey marker planted on the mountain-top in 1973.
And finally, near the last quarter of the trip back down the mountain pathway, it was like entering a forest cathedral with the living arches of a beautiful sanctuary….
Spring and the Snowmelt
The last time I was on this particular trail, the Little Cottonwood, it was packed with more than a foot of snow…and when I occasionally stepped off the trail proper (the snow trail that had been packed-down by the hikers who had gone before me), I often sank past my knee into the cold white stuff. While I enjoy the snow and the cold of winter, it was refreshing to behold the new green of the waking forest. On today’s hike, I wandered up and down trails that I had never seen and was lured deeper into the forest by the sounds of rushing water. I was rewarded for my exploration by finding streams coming down the mountains in the most random and unexpected places. I later returned to the main trail and found myself walking in the rain along the rushing river of snowmelt that comes from the many dozens of feet of snow that has fallen during this past winter and early spring. Enjoy….
