Fall Hike #2

I took another hike on Tuesday to Silver Lake in American Fork Canyon. (That is not the same "Silver Lake" that is next to Brighton - which requires no hiking at all!)

You go up American Fork Canyon and turn north to the Tribble Fork Reservoir, shown here, (My kids may remember going to the Ames family reunion over 20 years ago when we pulled Grandpa and Grandma Larson's large camping trailer behind our van and camped about a half-mile beyond this reservoir.)

Then I took an "unimproved road" up the south side of the canyon (you would not want to do it without a 4-wheel drive high clearance vehicle) for about 3 miles to Silver Lake Flats Reservoir. There was some great fall colors along the way, but the portion of the road shown here is not representative - lots of large rocks, gullies, etc, that you had to negotiate. That 3 miles takes about a half hour since you can only go about 5 mph.


The Silver Lake Flats reservoir was nearly empty as you see here. The trailhead starts just north of the reservoir

The first part of the trail, for about a mile is through a beautiful grove of aspen that pretty much were still green.

As you get a little higher, the maple trees were bright red and the aspen were getting a little bit of yellow.

Most of my hikes have been hiking south, up canyons that are north-facing. This was just the opposite. It is a south-facing canyon and I hiked north. So, this canyon was much drier than the one I took a couple weeks ago. A few flowers, but not like they were near Lake Mary and Martha a couple weeks ago. Nevertheless it was still beautiful.

One of the big differences on this hike from my earlier ones was the wonderful panoramic views as I came out of the aspen grove and started up the switchbacks that went up the canyon wall. Looking down into the canyons was spectacular. The pictures don't really do it justice.

But hopefully these shots will give you some idea of what it was like.

For late September, it was quite hot and the switchbacks are totally exposed to the sun. It felt like is was in the mid - 80's even though I started hiking at about 7600 feet and hiked to about 9000 feet. It's about 3 miles and took me about an hour and a half.

You cross Silver Creek several times along the way, which you might guess comes out of Silver Lake. It was flowing pretty well for late September, but again, nothing like the streams that I crossed last week on north facing canyons of Big Cottonwood.

It was interesting to me that at the higher elevations, there were rows of bright yellow aspen, just above rows of aspen that were still completely green.

As I got higher, I had a great view of the northeast (back) side of Mount Timpanogos. You can clearly see the glacier that stays there year round.

As I said, all these panoramic views were great. I just had to stop periodically and drink it all in. (Not to mention the fact that also let me rest a while ) :)

And, I got my weekly dose of solitude. I met one couple on their way down as I was hiking up, and one couple hiking up while I was hiking down.

And, finally there it was, Silver Lake. A pretty bluish green lake a couple hundred yards across and 300 to 400 yards long. Two views, one looking south and one looking northwest. The picture below has Mt. Baldy (that's appropriate) in the background. It is 11321 feet at it's peak. If you climb up and over those mountains you are just above and south of Red Pine Lake and White Pine lake that I haved hiked to from Little Cottonwood Canyon.

But! I didn't do that. There is no trail, you just have to go cross country and even at the passes you have to go to about 10,600 feet to get over. Since I hike alone, I don't leave the main trails. I may love to hike, but I'm not crazy. I know I'm 70!

Anyway, as always, I absolutely loved it!!