Wednesday's Hike

I took a hike today and here are a few pictures. I drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Brighton ski area, parked in their parking lot and headed south up the mountain. I had seen on my hiking map, that there are 5 mountain lakes in the area. I had only hiked to one of them before (Twin Lakes) which is a little south and mostly east of the ski basin. It is a fairly easy hike because you start at about 8700 feet elevation so you don't have to climb too much.

This is the Brighton ski area taken from trail on my way up.

At about 9300 feet elevation and 1 mile up the trail is Dog Lake. It is very small but in a pretty setting.

Lake Mary is suppose to be a pretty big lake but it was mostly empty. It is about a half-mile from Dog Lake and is at about 9500 feet elevation. This shows the upper end of the lake where there was a little water. On the lower end of the lake there is a man-made dam that is about 30 feet high, but there was no water behind that dam at all.

From above you can see how empty Lake Mary is. All that rocky area you see is covered with water when the lake is full.. I haven't hiked here before, but I will be anxious to do so next spring, because this will be an impressive high mountain lake when it is filled, about a half-mile long.

This is Lake Martha, a small pretty lake that is only about a quarter-mile from Lake Mary

Lake Martha from above on trail to Lake Katherine.

Lake Katherine is about another mile and sits at 9900 feet elevation. I really like the setting of this lake. It is beautiful. It sits in an upper bowl, just a few hundred feet below the pass that goes over into the Albion basin (Little Cottonwood Canyon and Alta ski area). This picture was taken from the east (looking west) and you can see Katherine pass just behind it. The pass is less than a half-mile away and it is at 10,300 feet in elevation. I ate lunch here. It was a perfect day, beautiful, nice and cool at this elevation and I had the lake to myself for a while - some other hikers showed up later.

I then hiked on up to the top of Katherine Pass.

This is the sign at the top of Katherine Pass. It sits at 10,300 feet. From that spot, looking one way you can see the Brighton ski basin and on the other side you can see the Alta ski basin (Albion basin). (Sorry about the shadows on the picture). Pretty cool.

Looking west toward the Albion basin (Alta and Snowbird) from Katherine Pass

Looking northeast into the Brighton ski basin. You cannot see the ski area because there is
a peak directly to the north of where I am standing blocking the view, but you can see the top end of one of the lifts. The white buildings/towers on the upper right mountain are on Guardsman pass that you can drive up and over from Big Cottonwood/Brighton to Park City.

The round trip hike was about 7 miles (included a few side excursions) and I loved it all