OK, it is supposed to be "hiking Wednesday", but sometimes a good trail is hard to find. Today was one such day. It was mystery hike night. We had no plan, except to meet at Susan's and make a plan. Someone suggested Grizzly Gulch, up near Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon. We weren't exactly sure where to find the trail though. Jess thought she knew, so we parked and headed up a narrow trail, straight up the mountain... into the willows, where it sort of disappeared. We bushwacked our way up to the cabin road, but once there, couldn't find the trail. We headed back down through the aspens, an easier route, and then found a trail alongside the gulch's creek. Alongside the creek, through the creek, scrambling over rocks and up steep creek beds. I wasn't entirely sure it was really a trail either, except for the deer, but after finding a tiny car wreck in the creek we knew someone besides deer has traveled that route. Finally, after scrambling up the steep hillside along the creek, we came over a ridge and found, ta-da, the old mining road that led to grizzly gulch.
From there finding the way was easy, a steep rocky road that wound through old mining areas, then narrowed into a trail, that took us to Twin Lakes Pass. The trail ascended about 1200 ft in a couple of miles, but seemed harder than it was, as we were hiking quickly since we knew that our slow bushwacking start meant we were racing the sun. We made it up to the pass, took a quick photo op, and headed down in the setting sun. A beautiful setting sun, which more than made up for the slow bushwacking and scrambling start of our hike.
Scrambling through the creek.
Up the gulch
A small car wreck!
Remnants from the mining days.
Twin Lakes Reservior, from Twin Lakes Pass
1 comment:
Grreat post thanks
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