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.

Hiking: Porter Fork

I needed to get in a good leg/cardio workout today. I didn't want to go to the gym, and I had about an hour and a half this afternoon to do a little bit of hiking, so I headed for Millcreek Canyon. Some of the trails lower down in the canyon were packed, so I decided I'd hike up the paved, but gated, road at Porter Fork.

It was about 1.5 miles to where the road ended and I wanted to make it to that point before I turned around. For those who've never been up this trail, it goes through a cabin area and that's why it's gated. They don't want just anyone driving up there. The road itself is quite steep and I pushed it to get my heart and lungs working. The steepness would take care of the leg workout. Anyway, I began hiking at 2:23 pm and felt that I could hike until three and still make it home when I needed to be home.
The trail winds up the road past a beautiful stream, and through a nicely forested area around the cabins.

I ended up getting within eye shot of the pavement ending at 3:00, and took an extra couple of minutes to actually get to the dirt part of the trail.

Sign right where the pavement ends.

About 25 feet after the pavement ends the wilderness begins.

I only took my cheap camera--my phone--with which to take pics. Of course, that helped me to hike faster not having to pack my Canon digital SLR.
I've traveled this trail a few times in my life. When I was a kid, I came up it a couple of times in the winter to spend some time in a cabin that one of our Scout leaders owned. I also spent a night with a friend at that same cabin catching worms for our Scout week camp which was coming up the next week.

Could this have been the cabin I stayed in as a kid? I wasn't sure, but I thought maybe it was.

Later on, just a few years ago, I climbed the trail once alone, and once with a friend. It eventually links up with other trails leading down into Big Cottonwood, or over to Mt. Raymond and Gobblers Knob. The time I went with my friend, my friend's wife dropped us off at Porter Fork and then picked us up later in the day on the Big Cottonwood side. Today there were a lot of people up in the canyon for November 6th, but not tons of them on the same trail as me. That made it a little nicer. It was cool enough to wear a light jacket, but I had sweat coming off my forehead by the time I made it to the end of the pavement. I took time to notice on the way down how peaceful it was, and it smelled heavenly up there. A short adventure, but well worth the effort.

With late afternoon coming on, the distant peaks looked Beautiful