Howells Outdoors
Adventure is my middle name...actually it's Keith.
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2012
- Messages
- 444
This is a bit past due -- I think we did this trip back in August-- but I'm finally got it posted on Howells Outdoors and now to get it on Backcountry Post.
Back in August Chelsea and I took off for our first backpacking adventure in northern Utah. We wanted to start small, but beautiful. We had a short time frame since we both work until about 5 pm on Fridays and we needed to get back by Saturday afternoon.
So, we decided to go backpacking to Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Lake Blanche is in the Twin Peaks Wilderness Area of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and is a VERY popular hike. But at sunset all the day-hikers are gone and won’t be back until the morning.
This place was well worth the trip. We took off from our house in Salt Lake at about 6 pm and started hiking at probably 7 pm. We just cruised up the trail, but took time to notice the plants and the scenery. we really wanted to get up to the Lake before the sun set. Which was a really weird sunset that day. It was during all the fires out west that covered the sky.
When we got to the lake, I was in love with it.
Sadly, since we got such a late start most of the campsites at Lake Blanche were taken. This was really only sad at first because in the morning we realized we didn’t get bothered by the day hikers like everyone else.
So we checked out the lake for a bit and then started hiking to the west to the two smaller lakes below. It was pretty sad seeing all the crap and names carved into the rocks. There was trash everywhere at Lake Blanche.
Since all the sites were taken at Lake Blanche, we set up on the far side of Lake Lillian (which is past Lake Florence). This proved to be the best. We didn’t hear a soul the entire time.
The day-hikers that came up in the morning only went to Lake Blanche. By the time we left we still hadn’t seen anyone down at these two lower lakes, but when we got up to Blanche there was a large crowd of about 20 people on the shore. There were even more hiking around the lake, through the other sites where backpackers were staying.
Made me feel good about our campsite.
From there on out it was a downhill stroll back to the car.
Here’s a few other photos from the trip:
Featured image for home page:
Back in August Chelsea and I took off for our first backpacking adventure in northern Utah. We wanted to start small, but beautiful. We had a short time frame since we both work until about 5 pm on Fridays and we needed to get back by Saturday afternoon.
So, we decided to go backpacking to Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Lake Blanche is in the Twin Peaks Wilderness Area of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and is a VERY popular hike. But at sunset all the day-hikers are gone and won’t be back until the morning.
This place was well worth the trip. We took off from our house in Salt Lake at about 6 pm and started hiking at probably 7 pm. We just cruised up the trail, but took time to notice the plants and the scenery. we really wanted to get up to the Lake before the sun set. Which was a really weird sunset that day. It was during all the fires out west that covered the sky.
When we got to the lake, I was in love with it.
Sadly, since we got such a late start most of the campsites at Lake Blanche were taken. This was really only sad at first because in the morning we realized we didn’t get bothered by the day hikers like everyone else.
So we checked out the lake for a bit and then started hiking to the west to the two smaller lakes below. It was pretty sad seeing all the crap and names carved into the rocks. There was trash everywhere at Lake Blanche.
Since all the sites were taken at Lake Blanche, we set up on the far side of Lake Lillian (which is past Lake Florence). This proved to be the best. We didn’t hear a soul the entire time.
The day-hikers that came up in the morning only went to Lake Blanche. By the time we left we still hadn’t seen anyone down at these two lower lakes, but when we got up to Blanche there was a large crowd of about 20 people on the shore. There were even more hiking around the lake, through the other sites where backpackers were staying.
Made me feel good about our campsite.
From there on out it was a downhill stroll back to the car.
Here’s a few other photos from the trip:
Featured image for home page:
