In an attempt to get another night out in the woods under my belt I asked my neighbor Casey if he'd like to do a backpacking trip sometime. We both had this weekend free, and as it turned out the mountains were still there. There are always a lot of good places to hike here in Utah and we picked one of the best ones.
We made it to the trail head by 4:45pm, a bit earlier than I thought we might, being a work day and all. There was one parking spot left (maybe two) when we got there and we pulled right in. It still amazes me how quick and easy it is to get up into the mountains here.
We took the Lake Blanche trail from the Mill B South parking area. The trail starts out on a steepish paved trail for about 1/4 mile, then the dirt trail branches off from the paved trail and gets even steeper. Our goal was to get to Lake Blanche with enough time to set up camp and cook dinner before the sun went down. The sunset in the valley is right around 8:30, but we knew we'd be losing light before that.
If you're unfamiliar with the Lake Blanche area, there are actually three lakes at the top of the trail: Blanche, Florence, and Lillian. Blanche is by far the most spectacular with Sundial Peak shooting 1500' up from the lake, but the other two are worth the climb even if Blanche wasn't there. The interesting thing with these three lakes is that you have to hike to the highest lake first, then hike down to the others. As a result, almost nobody goes past Lake Blanche.
In the image above it looks like the last mile of the trail goes straight up the side of the mountain. That's not an illusion. It's steep. According to my GPS data, the trail averages a nearly 17% grade, with the last 3/4 of a mile averaging 23%. I like trails in the 10% range.
We made slow progress up the trail. It's a lot different to carry up an additional 25 pounds. Hopefully by next summer I can lose 25 pounds from my front to make it easier to carry 25 pounds on my back. It was also extremely hot. I doubt the temperature dipped below 90 the whole way up. We were dripping sweat by the time we arrived.
Despite all of our short rests, we made it to Lake Blanche by 7:00pm, making the trip 2.25 hours. I did it without a pack last year in 2. We were very impressed with ourselves for making the climb. According to the GPS, we hiked 3.4 miles (note the 2.8 miles on the sign above... liars) to the lake and climbed 2700 feet (they got that part right on the sign).
As soon as we made it to Lake Blanche we started looking for a good place to camp. Last year I had seen a few good spots up on the hill to the North of the lake, but none of them looked very good to me this year. Camping spots can look great until it comes to throwing down your pack and setting up camp. Thinking about sleeping there can really change your perspective.
Since we arrived so early we decided to keep looking. There were a couple places that would work up near Blanche, but nothing really jumped out at us. We followed the trail down near Lake Florence (the next one down) and found the most perfect camping spot I've ever seen.
We didn't even have to keep looking. It was perfect. There was a small grassy area--easily big enough for both of our tents, surrounded by large rocks with an amazing view down the canyon.
Shortly after we arrived the sun dipped below the ridge as we set up our tents.
Casey went down to the lake to pump some water so he'd have something to drink that night, and got water for his dinner. Not having a filter, I packed nearly 4 liters of water up the mountain (that's 8 pounds of water). In the above picture Casey's coming back up from the lake.
The above picture shows the little waterfall that comes down from Lake Blanche and fills Lake Florence. We got to listen to the sounds of the waterfall all night.
We both cooked Mountain House meals. By cooked I mean we boiled water and poured it into the bag and let it sit for 8-9 minutes. While the food was rehydrating we hiked over to some rocks overlooking the big dropoff into the canyon and we ate dinner there while the sky darkened.
After chatting for awhile under a bright moon we each went to our tents and went to sleep.
When you think of sleeping in the mountains, you think it'll be cold, right? It wasn't. It was hot all night. I think we both got a bit of sleep, though, and no bears came through camp, so that's a plus. In fact, there was hardly a sound, hardly a breeze, hardly a speck of light after the moon dropped below the horizon. It was extremely peaceful.
Around 7:00am I got out of bed and got dressed. The sun was starting to lighten the sky and I wanted to get some good pictures of the sunrise. I see the sunrise most days on my way to work lately, but I'm usually cursing it for shining in my eyes as I'm trying to drive East. This was one sunrise I could enjoy.
The above picture is looking to the North at the ridge between Millcreek and Big Cottonwood Canyons. The canyon in the bottom of the picture is what we walked up.
After eating some breakfast and taking down camp we each filtered some water so we'd have something to drink on the way down. We took a little side trip all the way down to Lake Lillian just to see it up close, and then climbed back up to Lake Blanche. There were already a couple dozen people at Lake Blanche (but only one group of really quiet people near Lake Lillian--like I said, few people ever go past Blanche). As we descended we ran into about 50 more people in various states of exhaustion. We talked to a few people a little more than just the customary, "Hey, how's it going?" People seemed excited that we had spent the night up there (but they seemed equally glad that they weren't carrying our packs).
It was a great, relaxing trip. Casey and I seem to have very compatible backpacking styles, and I love being able to pick his brain about backpacking; he has a lot more experience than I do.
In all, we hiked 7.8 miles and climbed over 3000' (2700' to Blanche, then another couple hundred to get back up to the main trail). For the year, I've hiked right near 58 miles, 20 of those with a full pack.
