Hiking: Broads Fork

I hadn't been up on the Broads Fork trail for at least ten years, so I thought I'd give it a shot this morning. After all, it's Memorial Day weekend and the crowds would be huge on most of the trails, or so I thought. Lake Blanche being highly popular, and from the same parking area, I had already made up my mind to do Broads to try and have less company. As it was, I ended up being the first one on that trail, even starting as late as I did, which was 8:11. No one passed me on the way up, and as I was going down, I only saw six people. Not quite what I expected, even from the Friday of a holiday weekend.
The trailhead is accessed at the bottom of the S-curve in Big Cottonwood Canyon.The trail itself was moderately difficult. It starts out pretty steep right out of the parking lot, but levels off here and there along the route. Being alone, I had a lot of time to think and take whatever pics I wanted. The sky was overcast so I didn't quite get the contrast in my photos that I would like, but it was still a lot of fun trying to get good shots. When I'm hiking--especially alone--I mess around with my camera a lot as you'll see from the pics below.
I got up to the bowl just before 11:00, sat down and ate my lunch, and looked at the Beautiful scenery. I had been surprised at how little snow was on the trail below, but I was not surprised at all at how much snow still remained on the peaks. I was halfway tempted to hike through it over to where the stream was cascading down, just to see if I could get some good shots, but I had told my wife that I would be home by three and I had a stop or two to make along the way home so I decided against that idea. I took some pics, then headed back down.

My wife said if I wasn't home by three, I'd be sleeping on the
couch. I was happy to.

It was a great hike. I highly recommend it for those who want a trail with some scenery, but that isn't as popular as some of the other nearby trails.

A glimpse of the Oquirrhs across the valley.

Broads Fork, like all the local streams, is a raging torrent.

The upper portion of the trail is extremely Beautiful.
From this point a trail forked to the right. I suppose it went
further up, but vanished beneath the snow.

No selfie stick needed!

The ant crawled up just as I took the shot.

Flowers just beginning to appear. The key is for size comparison.

This is my favorite shot of this particular trip.

Lake Blanche hike

I had the opportunity of hiking up to Lake Blanche, high in Utah's Wasatch Mountains yesterday. I've been there several times in the past, but this time I wanted to take my fishing pole. I had always seen fish jumping in the lake and it looked like a great opportunity to catch some trout.
Sadly, last year my telescoping rod had broken, so I had to take my two-piece rod with me, but it strapped on nicely to my day pack so it was no problem.
I started hiking at around 5:30 am. I was hoping to get some good pics of the sun hitting the peaks. Along the trail I saw a slug about five inches long crossing the trail. Here's a photo of it:

I took another shot of it beside my foot to show it's relative length, but when I put my foot down near it, it scrunched up a little--in protection mode, I think.

There was still quite a bit of snow up there on the peaks, because of the cooler weather we had up until recently.

The wild flowers were dazzling.

Then there's the lake itself, with Sun Dial Peak on the left behind it:

I tried the fishing and caught this little monster on the first cast:

It was about seven inches long. I caught another one even smaller. The fishing appeared to be good and I would have loved to have stayed longer, but after 45 minutes, I needed to get going. I'll need to go back and fish longer sometime, when I have someone with whom to shoot the breeze.

All in all it was a great day, with more fun throughout. A gem of a day indeed.

Thinking About the Mountains

Wow, the Wasatch Mountains are beautiful when they're snow covered. Actually, they're stunning any time of year. I love living near them and am impatiently awaiting spring, so that I can once again traverse their wooded paths and climb their rugged peaks. I'm not looking forward to the annual inversions that we have around here, that obscure my view of those fantastic spires. The lower photo is of the Big Cottonwood Canyon area, covered in snow, shrouded in clouds. I have a better winter picture somewhere--I'll just have to dig it up. The photo on the right is Sun Dial Peak, with Lake Blanche in the foreground.