Fall & Winter both on the same trail

So after reviewing the weather forcast for this week, Kalita and I determined that today would be the best day for our hike. We decided on hiking up to White Pine Lake. It is located in Little Cottonwood Canyon which is another beautiful canyon just a few miles from where we live. As we drove to the trailhead, this is what it looked like. This is the most fall colors that I have seen in any of the canyons we have hiked this fall. It is really hard to capture the intensity of the colors with just my little Power Shot camera. I actually took this photo after our hike as we were driving back down the canyon.

This hike is rated as "easy". It follows an old off-road vehicle tract so the pathway is wide and well marked. No motorized vehicles are allowed in this area anymore though mountain biking is allowed. The hike is a steady uphill climb but it switches back and forth along the mountainside so it is not necessarily steep. But it does gain 2500 feet of altitude in the 4 miles up to the lake so it gets you breathing pretty heavy. We left the parking lot at 9 am and we got to the summit by 11 am. I felt great with that pace.

We went from leaf-covered trail to snow-covered trail about half the way up the mountain. The trail narrowed down to just
1-person-wide as we got up to where we were traversing over a huge rockslide area. The weekend before this past one, we had a major snowstorm here. We even had about 4 inches of snow in our yard. Of course, it hasn't stayed on the ground in the valley but up here at 8,000' - 9,000 ' elevation, there was a fair amount of snow we were treaking through. It is hard to decided what to wear on a hike like this because you start out warm in just shorts and a long sleeved shirt but then you soon find yourself needing an extra sweatshirt and some gloves.

Ta Da!!! I just love it when we get the the top! It was really windy and chilly up there so we snapped a few pictures and headed back down. We had a lot of cloud coverage on the trek up the mountain but the sun broke through the clouds and the clouds disappeared and it was sunny and bright for the downhill portion. I'm always surprised how many other people are still out hiking this late in the season (crazy like us!). We passed 3 other guys today. The total mileage was 8 miles!!! That is the furthest I have hiked this year. It really helps to have half that total come from the downhill, gravity-supported portion. We got back to the parking lot by 1 pm. I felt really pleased with our 4 hour time frame. So, so fun!!!

(PS: more weekend adventure to share with you tomorrow)