Saturday, May 26, 2012

Hike: Mineral Fork

Today I hiked the Mineral Fork trail up Big Cottonwood Canyon. The weather forecast for Brighton (which is farther up the canyon) was for snow, I also read weather notes for the city that included thunderstorms. In the end I was grateful for every last layer I took with me!
Poof! Here we are in the more of the alpine-y area which is where I turned around. The people I was hiking with were keeping a pretty good pace so I didn't have time to pull my camera out until this point. The trail goes up to the Wasatch Mine from here. (The group continued on and I heard there was still snow up there so they couldn't get to the mine, and there was an avalanche to circumnavigate.)
The stream-trail.
More of the stream-trail.
It's always nice to look back when hiking. Today I had an excellent view of the glacier carved canyon.
Water re-direct?
 Early spring flowers.
Squirrel homes?
 Just starting their year. 
More fresh leaves.
 Wildflowers.
It had been sprinkling, but really started raining when I decided to turn back. It was snowing at higher elevations. (See the snow dusting the mountain above the tree line?)
Later in the summer the trail runs thru a shallow stream. Not today.
This is the bridge. 
I wasn't sure if taking this picture was such a good idea on a wobbly bridge.
The bridge.
Another view from the bridge. I didn't fall off! Score!
The trail also runs through two cascades. Here's of one of them.
Here's both cascades from the switchback below.

Hope you are having a nice Memorial Day weekend!

Many thanks to our veterans.

Suz

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