August 3; Hike to Desolation Lake

I haven't been on many hikes this year, but I have gone on a few. In early August I decided to hike to Desolation Lake that is north of Big Cottonwood Canyon about 2/3 the way up to Brighton. It is one of the lakes in the Wasatch Mountains that I had never been to - because (1) how attractive can a place be with a name like "Desolation Lake" and (2) because the trail maps show it is a long way on one well-marked trail (about 6 miles one-way) or very steep (about a 3000 feet elevation change on the "less-used" short trail - about 2 miles). The less used trail is hard to find. It starts near a bunch of summer homes (private property) and there is no trailhead or parking lot. So it took me a while to locate it (with a little help from a local resident). The trail is called Beartrap Fork (must be a story behind that?). 

The trail was obviously not used frequently and it was not always clear where to go, but I just continued up the canyon and with my trail garmin (gps) it was pretty easy to find the way. It was pretty dry ( a completely dry creek bed) on this south facing canyon but still lots of lovely scenery most of the way.

Some nice wild flowers but not as prolific on these south facing slopes as they have been on some others.

I knew pretty early into the hike that I wasn't really in shape for this hike because as the canyon opened up it kept getting steeper and I was stopping pretty frequently to get my pulse rate back down to a tolerable level.  I thought about turning around a few times but I really hate to give up once I decide where I want to end up.



And, as I got a little higher in elevation a few more flowers started showing up.

 

As you near the top there was a final steep mountain to go over.  I new from my GPS that the lake should be on the other side of that mountain so I just kept climbing - albeit at a pretty slow pace!

You get just a little feel for how steep it was from this picture about half-way up that last hill.  I had started at about 7000 feet elevation (beginning of the trail) and this hill (mountain?) topped out just under 10,000 feet.

As you came over the top of the mountain there was a very well-marked and well-used trail.  Turns out it is a part of the Great Western Trail and while I was there several groups of bikers came by.  Some stopped to rest and talk with me.  It turns out that this part of the Great Western Trail goes along the tops of some of the mountain ridges from the Mill Creek Canyon area all the way to above the Brighton ski resort (probably 15 to 20 miles) and most of the trail is at 9500 to 10,500 feet elevation.  Apparently it is used by lots of bkers.  You see the trail here going into an aspen grove.  It comes out the other side and winds up and around the mountain as you can see in the next picture.

 




If you look closely you can see the hiking/biking (Great Western) trail winding up the side of and going over the top of this mountain that was southeast of where I came out at the top of  Beartrap Fork (You may have to enlarge the picture so see it, but trust me, it's there!





And, a hundred yards north along that same trail and off to the left, there it is - Desolation Lake.  It was about 400 to 500 feet below me so I did not hike down to it since I did not want to hike back up.  As you can tell, this late in the year, the lake is a little low.  Interestingly, there appears to be no outlet to this lake - fully surrounded by a bowl, so no water flows out.  It is just the water left from the snow melt into this bowl each year.

And, if you look at the surroundings, I decided that this Lake is badly named.  Isolation, maybe.  Desolation, certainly not!  It sits in a beautiful pine and mountain-grass covered valley and it, and everything around it is spectacular and gorgeous.