Red Rock Rangers
hiker-trash extraordinaire!
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2015
- Messages
- 23
Summer = mountains! The desert is hot and dry; the mountains are cool and lush. Simple as that.
My buddies, Amanda and Caitlyn, invited me up to the Wasatch Mountains to go on a backpacking trip into the Lone Peak Wilderness. We wanted to check out White Pine Lake and Red Pine Lake -- both tucked up around 10,000' and surrounded by mountain peaks. Being the hardcore mountain beasts that we are, we decided to hike between the two lakes on an off-trail route that looked simple enough. Big mistake! But more on that later...
White Pine Lake
Get there:
The trailhead to reach White Pine and Red Pine Lakes is really close to Salt Lake City. You drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon for about 5 miles until you reach a parking lot on the right for the White Pine Trailhead. Nothing to it. Because the hike is so pretty and so close to town, brace yourself for tons of people, especially on the weekend.
Do it:
We started hiking up a well-defined, gradually climbing trail. After 0.8 miles, we reached a definitive intersection, where we veered left (northeast) and started climbing up towards White Pine Lake. This trail used to be an old jeep road, so it's wide and gradual. We walked through aspen and pine before popping above treeline and getting some big views of snow-capped peaks. 3.7 miles past the trail intersection, we reached White Pine Lake -- a classically gorgeous turquoise alpine lake. We lounged around for a while, soaking up the scenery.
After that, things got ... interesting. We wanted to check out Red Pine Lake, too, but instead of hiking all the way back down to the trail intersection, we decided to traverse an off-trail ridge. It looked easy enough on the map, but we weren't expecting the TALUS SLOG FROM HELL. Pretty much the entire distance between the two lakes was a never-ending boulder field. It took us four hours of rock hopping and scrambling to cover about one mile. NOT WORTH IT. It would have been faster just to backtrack to the trail intersection and hike up the official trail to Red Pine Lake. Oh well. We survived.
TALUS FIELD FROM HELL
At long last, we reached Red Pine Lake. We set up camp, drank some whiskey to nurse our battle wounds, and called it a night. (My legs look like I ran through barbed wire -- classy.) The lake was fairly busy with other campers, but we found a quiet little spot with great views. Zzzzzzzz.
The next morning, we started the quick 4.2-mile trek back to the trailhead. After the talus slog the day before, the trail felt like a breeze. It would have been steep going up, but we flew down, passing dozens of other hikers along the way.
In hindsight, I definitely would NOT have done the off-trail connector route. And honestly, the trail to Red Pine Lake was so steep and busy that it wasn't all that impressive. On the other hand, the trail to White Pine Lake is less popular, the lake is just as pretty, and you spend more time above treeline. If I were going to do this hike again, I'd just head up to White Pine Lake.
My buddies, Amanda and Caitlyn, invited me up to the Wasatch Mountains to go on a backpacking trip into the Lone Peak Wilderness. We wanted to check out White Pine Lake and Red Pine Lake -- both tucked up around 10,000' and surrounded by mountain peaks. Being the hardcore mountain beasts that we are, we decided to hike between the two lakes on an off-trail route that looked simple enough. Big mistake! But more on that later...
White Pine Lake
Get there:
The trailhead to reach White Pine and Red Pine Lakes is really close to Salt Lake City. You drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon for about 5 miles until you reach a parking lot on the right for the White Pine Trailhead. Nothing to it. Because the hike is so pretty and so close to town, brace yourself for tons of people, especially on the weekend.
Do it:
We started hiking up a well-defined, gradually climbing trail. After 0.8 miles, we reached a definitive intersection, where we veered left (northeast) and started climbing up towards White Pine Lake. This trail used to be an old jeep road, so it's wide and gradual. We walked through aspen and pine before popping above treeline and getting some big views of snow-capped peaks. 3.7 miles past the trail intersection, we reached White Pine Lake -- a classically gorgeous turquoise alpine lake. We lounged around for a while, soaking up the scenery.
After that, things got ... interesting. We wanted to check out Red Pine Lake, too, but instead of hiking all the way back down to the trail intersection, we decided to traverse an off-trail ridge. It looked easy enough on the map, but we weren't expecting the TALUS SLOG FROM HELL. Pretty much the entire distance between the two lakes was a never-ending boulder field. It took us four hours of rock hopping and scrambling to cover about one mile. NOT WORTH IT. It would have been faster just to backtrack to the trail intersection and hike up the official trail to Red Pine Lake. Oh well. We survived.
TALUS FIELD FROM HELL
The next morning, we started the quick 4.2-mile trek back to the trailhead. After the talus slog the day before, the trail felt like a breeze. It would have been steep going up, but we flew down, passing dozens of other hikers along the way.
In hindsight, I definitely would NOT have done the off-trail connector route. And honestly, the trail to Red Pine Lake was so steep and busy that it wasn't all that impressive. On the other hand, the trail to White Pine Lake is less popular, the lake is just as pretty, and you spend more time above treeline. If I were going to do this hike again, I'd just head up to White Pine Lake.