Dog Lake Counter-Clockwise

Last week I hiked up Butler Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon to Mill A, and eventually on to Dog Lake, descending back down via the Mill D North trail. Today I hiked to Dog Lake from Mill D North and came back down Butler Fork. Aside from being essentially the same hike done in opposite directions, the two hikes were completely different.

Last week I drove up the canyon after work and had to hurry to get back to the car before it got too dark. Today I started early in the morning (about 6:00) and had most of the day to enjoy the scenery. Last week I went alone, and this week I went with my neighbor and his two sons.

It was a beautiful hike again, just like last week. It was interesting to see it all from the other direction.

It was also interesting to see everything in the morning rather than the evening. The lighting was completely different.

After arriving at the lake we decided to try to get up to Little Water Peak. I'd heard that there's no real trail, but I figured there would be at least a game trail we could follow and that it wouldn't be too hard to get up there. After 30 minutes--and only making it about 1/4 of the way to the peak, we gave up and headed back.

On our way back to the lake we found some great views of Millcreek Canyon. 

To get back to the car we decided to go down the Butler Fork trail to see something new. It's boring to head back down the same way. In a change from last week, though, we went straight down Butler Fork Canyon rather than contouring 3 miles around to the Mill A Basin. 

There weren't very many other people on the trail when we started, but it sure got busy by the time we headed back. Fortunately the Butler Fork trail was a lot less traveled than the Mill D trail (probably because it's so steep!).

We had great views all the way down to the road, then hiked up the street a half mile or whatever it was back to the car. I greatly preferred doing that part of the hike in the clockwise direction last week. This time I had to go uphill to get to the car.

In all, I hiked 6 miles on trails plus whatever it was on the road, and climbed about 2200 feet. So far this year I've hiked 35.8 miles in 8 hikes. I'll need to step it up to beat last year's total.