When I first started hiking a couple years ago one of the first trails on my list was the trail to White Pine Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Its relatively gentle slope and long length intrigued me a bit and I always wanted to go. The trail is five miles to the first view of the lake (don't believe the sign at the trail head that says it's only four. The trail starts at the White Pine Trail parking lot (pretty easy to remember) and climbs up over 10,000 feet.
Fortunately I was able to convince my brother-in-law Shawn to hike with me. I'm still a little leery about camping alone so far up, so it was nice to have some company. Plus, since he's in better shape than me he kept me moving forward even when I wanted to stop.
This time of year is always a little difficult for backpacking since all the highest elevations still have snow. We chose White Pine because there are quite a few good camping spots on the way up so if we were unable to make it all the way to the lake we'd be able to find a spot to sleep without heading all the way back home.
The trail begins by dropping a couple hundred feet to the river, then slowly climbs to the West for about a mile. At this point there's a sign pointing left for White Pine, and left for Red Pine. Yes, you read that right. The Redd Pine trail turns left also, but a few feet past the White Pine turn off.
We saw quite a few people on our way up to the junction, but very few after. I don't think White Pine is nearly as popular as Red Pine, but it certainly should be.
The trail has a few switchbacks and you gain elevation pretty quick, but within a mile from the junction the ground levels out a bit and there are some level areas where the hiking isn't too bad.
The picture above is the first time we saw where we were going. You can sort of make out the trail on the left side of the picture up in the snow. White Pine Lake sits just to the right of center behind the hill.
We saw a few more people as we climbed higher; a lot of them running the trail (crazies). About 3.5 miles in we stopped and talked to a couple that had been up at the lake. We asked how the snow was and if there would be any place to camp. They said that it was mostly snow-covered, but that there were already two tents up there and there might possibly be enough dry land for another one. That wasn't encouraging.
About 4 miles in we hit the snow. We had been climbing over small patches here and there, but our luck had run out. We would have to climb a couple hundred feet up a snow field to get to the lake.
In the above picture you can see the footprints on the right, and the trail up higher in the snow. In the picture below we're standing on the trail at the top looking back down to where we started in the snow.
The views from up on top were spectacular, though. We were over 10,000 feet (I forgot to check and see exactly how high) and just below some of the highest peaks in the Wasatch. The snow, though tricky and arduous to climb through, made the mountains look even more majestic and beautiful.
The next picture I took the next morning, looking back at the snowy trail. It was about half snow and half rocks, but the steep slope made it a little spooky on the snowy parts.
We dropped down into the little valley with White Pine Lake at the bottom. Most of the ground was covered in snow, and the only bare spots we could see already had tents. We kept sliding down the snow till we were almost at the lake and found a small patch of bare ground big enough and level enough for two tents. It even had a nice rock to cook dinner on.
We got camp set up, cooked dinner, and settled in for a cold night. After the sun went down about 9:00pm my thermometer dropped quickly from 70 down to 50. It was going to be cold. Every time I woke up during the night I checked the thermometer; it never dropped below 40.
In the morning the temperature had climbed all the way to 50 by 7:00am. We got up, ate breakfast, repacked our bags and headed out by 8:00am. The trip down was uneventful, except that the snow was much icier than it was the night before.
We made it back to the truck at about 10:15 and headed home to rest.
We ended up hiking a total of 10.3 miles, and climbed 2700 vertical feet or so.
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