Desolation Trail Memories
I can’t assume that it’s a body memory, as my body only made this particular venture once, exactly two years ago this weekend, although I had been on various parts of the trail several times over the years, but this occasion, this hike, has been floating around in my mind for the past few weeks and I decided to take a look at the photos again. I won’t present an entire gallery or series of images as I did after taking the hike, but I will share a couple of photographs that I find to be particularly appealing and representative of the beauty of the region.
The above image is but a fragment of what must have been acres and acres of wildflowers that were covering the south and western facing slope of Mount Raymond. When I was sitting in the saddle of the mountains in the below image, the deeper cup shaped spot to the left of the highest points (the Twin Peaks), one week later, I could still visualize the yellow blanket of wonderfulness that I was standing beside as I made these two photos…even though I was probably six or more miles away.
Thank you for visiting and sharing some sweet memories with me….
sometimes we need this….
OK, maybe it’s just me…sometimes I need this…like an ache or a hunger, a yearning, a desire, a want…yes, a want…a place where we can ask questions of the ether and the answers come to us in the whisper of a breeze or in the light ticking of aspen leaves against their fellows, tiny golden hands clapping so softly that we might imagine hearing them in a dream…or they come to us in the peace that the intensely enormous awesomeness of it all confers on us by simply being there….
You might remember the image, as I’m sure I shared it after my hike. This is Mineral Fork in October, 2011…one of the tributary canyons that extend south from Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah…just south and east of Salt Lake City.
Toward Lake Blanche in November
My older son and I made our first snow-hike of the season a few Sundays ago…we made the familiar trek up the canyon to Lake Blanche. I know I’ve shared many photos of the area over the past couple of years, but there is a timeless beauty to be captured and appreciated up there, so it’s difficult to get tired of the views and the sheer wonderfulness that Nature has to offer to those who will endure the hike up into the mountains to partake of the feast. You can click on any of the images to be taken to a slide show where you might see them in a larger format.
“Chipmunks” in Days Fork
I should have investigated the little guys before just throwing a common name at them, but these are actually Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrels, Spermophilus lateralus. They do look very similar to Chipmunks, but they are lacking stripes on their faces, so they’re not. A special thank you to my friend who raised the question. 🙂
Cardiff Fork…middle….
I suppose this is right about where we left off at the end of the other post, “Cardiff Fork…beginning….” You can see my son standing on the remaining basement wall of the bunkhouse where the miners used to live and sleep. That bit of a brown line near the stumps or logs in the foreground of the image, the part that looks something like a saw-dust trail, is actually a decomposing tree that is headed back into the ground.
We found about a half-dozen established camping areas throughout our hike in the largely privately-owned canyon of Cardiff Fork. This was something very unusual, given that all of the other hiking locations in the canyons of our local Wasatch Mountains are essentially wilderness areas and the most we might find is a recently used fire-ring. My son is examining a metal arrowhead that he found laying atop the stump/post next to him. It seems the landowners have put quite a bit of work into having a nice place to sit and cook for their camping/hunting excursions.
The below photo is looking further, or deeper into the fork…
…and this next photo is looking back at the trail from somewhere near the base of the trees in the above image.
I would imagine that the hole was larger when the mine was being worked, but it seems to have been filled-in a bit, either naturally or intentionally, over the years since it was in operation. There was a bit of a cool and wetly metallic breeze coming out of the ground here….
The boiler and bit of a foundation with re-bar sticking up from the ground is all that remains of the Baby McKee mine.
I’m not sure why, but it was kind of neat walking across these huge slabs of rock on the hillside. I’ve not encountered anything like them in the dozens of other locations I’ve hiked here in the Wasatch….
It’s fascinating to contemplate the geological forces that must have combined to cause the canyon to appear as it does today…such mind-boggling power coming from inside the earth.
We were nearing the end of the Cardiff Fork canyon at this point. You can see that there’s a bit of a bowl up there above the wormy line of trees near the upper center of the photo. We actually headed up the slope on the left side of the rock slabs toward the right of the image…our goal being to make it to the top, or right side of the line of trees and then to look down into the bowl or cirque. We imagined that there might be another mine up there, although there were no roads leading up to it…so maybe there was no mine.
My son and I couldn’t see it from the vantage point where I made the above photo, but if you’ll look at that darker spot of rock just down from nearly the very center of the line of trees in the photo, that’s where we found the shaft and broken rock structure that are in the next two photos.
Stay tuned for the next and final post in the Cardiff Fork series.
Dromedary Peak…twice…..
This is an early-June, 2013 photograph of one of the iconic mountains that provide a backdrop to the Sister Lakes in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Found at the terminus of the drainage or tributary canyon, Mill B South, it is a frequent site and common reference when trying to orient one’s self while hiking in this area of Big Cottonwood Canyon. If you’d like to see other images of Dromedary Peak, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and type its name in the search widget to be provided with a list of other posts that contain photos from other seasons.
Twin Peaks from afar…in September
A few months ago, I hiked up Porter Fork from its trail-head in Millcreek Canyon, essentially did the loop or horseshoe-shaped trail around Mt. Raymond, and then went down Bowman Fork back to its trail-head in Millcreek Canyon. Near the base of Mt. Raymond, which is technically on the north side of Big Cottonwood Canyon and faces south, you can see into the other drainages or tributary canyons that lie perpendicular and head in a southerly direction from Big Cottonwood Canyon, which runs east and west; I hope all of that makes sense. At any rate, you can see Twin Peaks (11,330/11,328 ft) near the top center of this image…the drainage that is down and slightly to the left of the peaks is Broads Fork…and if you take the ridge-line to the left, you might notice Dromedary Peak (11,107 ft) as the last prominence…which you might remember is just above and to the right/west of Lake Blanche and the other Sister Lakes…and lie in the drainage called, Mill B South. When I’m out hiking, I always find it fascinating to encounter new views or perspectives of the places I’ve visited in the mountains and canyons…such wonderful and beautiful places…..
To see more images of Twin Peaks, Broads Fork, Dromedary Peak, and Lake Blanche, you can scroll down and utilize the “Search” feature near the end of the page to locate several posts about those subjects.
Sundial Peak in Winter
You might remember Sundial Peak from various posts over the summer…and into the fall…possibly from the one dedicated specifically to Lake Blanche, one of the Sister Lakes located at the end of the drainage, Mill B South, up in Big Cottonwood Canyon…tucked away in the Wasatch Mountains…just south and east of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA…. It took twice as long to get there with the deep, deep snow…even with snow-shoes…but, oh, what a reward at the end…..
Derail…
Derail –
1. to cause to run off the rails
2. a. to obstruct the progress of
b. to upset the stability or composure of
Synonyms: agitate, ail, alarm (also alarum), bother,concern, disturb, discomfort, discompose, dismay, disquiet,distemper, distract, distress, exercise, flurry, frazzle, freak (out), fuss, hagride, perturb, undo, unhinge, unsettle, upset,weird out, worry
Antonyms: calm, compose, quiet, settle, soothe, tranquilize(also tranquillize)
Related Words: aggravate, anger, annoy, bug, chafe, chivy(or chivvy), exasperate, fret, gall, get, grate, harass, harry,irk, irritate, nettle, peeve, pester, pique, put off, put out,rile, vex; bedevil, haunt, plague; abash, confound, confuse,discomfit, disconcert, discountenance, embarrass, faze,fluster, jar, mortify, nonplus, rattle, shake up; daunt,demoralize, discourage, dishearten, dispirit, unnerve
***Above information courtesy Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary
Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Fall
This photo is from roughly two months ago, looking toward the east from the south side of Mount Raymond…. This peak is on the ridge between Millcreek Canyon to the north and Big Cottonwood Canyon to the south. On this particular Sunday, I climbed the trail in Porter Fork, rounded the back/south side of Mount Raymond, and then went through Baker’s Pass and down into Bowman Fork…which took me to about 1/4 of a mile from my starting point at the Porter Fork trail-head in Millcreek Canyon. This route around the mountain, up one fork, around the mountain, and down the other fork, is somewhere between eight and nine miles in length and has an elevation change of approximately 2,400 feet. I had been up Porter Fork a couple of times in the past, and in Bowman Fork only once, but had never taken the trail all the way around Mount Raymond…so this view was entirely new to me…and a wonderful surprise.
Sundial Peak over Lake Blanche
This is one of the last photos from my trips up to the Sister Lakes this past summer…haven’t made it up there yet to capture images of the place under three and four feet of snow….
Together
I was searching through my photo files a little while ago and came across this image of a couple on the hills over Lake Florence in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. While this image is strikingly different, it reminded me of a post by Adrian Chillbrook at his site, Cornwall – A Photographic Journey. Adrian shared this photo of a couple standing at the top of Helman Tor for a weekly photo challenge with the topic of “silhouette.” The beauty and drama of color and light in his photograph are characteristic of much of Adrian’s work…if you haven’t visited him already, I hope you’ll do so…spend some time traveling over Adrian’s island home of Cornwall…participating in the beauty that he has captured for us in photo-form.
Cloud Halo…?
Walking the Great Western Trail from above Desolation Lake toward Guardsman Pass in the Wasatch Mountains, I happened to uncautiously look up from the steeply slanted snowbank that I was crossing and had to quickly steady myself from falling backwards as I stood upright and gazed at the strange clouds above me….
Another mile or so down the trail, I happened to look up again and off to the east beyond the mountains and found that the cloud was slowly dispersing….
Scott's Place...Images and Words 