Red Pine Lake...in a Kilt

It has been a month since this hike and I can't remember all the details, but it's slowly coming back to me as I look at the pictures.

Since I started hiking a few years back I've always wanted to see Red Pine Lake up Little Cottonwood Canyon. I came close last year, but the snow got too thick about a quarter mile short of the lake. My first thought on this trip was to spend the night at the lake, but with the limited daylight in October, and the fact that I'd have to leave for the canyon after work, (and the possible cold temperatures) I decided to just head up and back.

Another reason I was excited about this hike is that it would be my first opportunity to hike in my new kilt. I was a little nervous stepping out of the car with a kilt, but by a mile in I felt completely comfortable. I would estimate that only 10-20% of the people I passed even noticed I was in a kilt, and not one of them said a thing. It was a busy day on the trail, too; I probably passed more than 100 people.

The trail to Red Pine Lake is very easy to follow with the exception of the part with an actual sign. About a mile in there trail splits: The trail on the left goes to White Pine Lake, and the trail on the left goes to Red Pine Lake. Technically, the trail to Red Pine is the second left, but it's not real clear unless you've been there before.

I passed a couple looking at the sign trying to figure out which trail to take. I would have stopped to help, but it sounded like they just weren't sure which lake they wanted to hike to. I took the second left up the switchback, crossed the bridge over the creek, and kept heading up the trail. As I recall, it was about 3.5 miles to the lake, give or take a half mile. There were steep parts and less-steep parts.

I wasn't entirely impressed by the lake at first: it was October so the level of the water was pretty low. After passing to the other side of the lake and looking back, though, it impressed me much more. There were great reflections of the surrounding peaks in the lake and, well, maybe it was because the trail was flat as it passed to the other side of the lake.

As I started climbing the hill toward Upper Red Pine Lake I came across a dozen deer just hanging out. They just stayed there no matter how close I got. I probably could have jumped on top and rode one of them. It was crazy how close they let me get. I came across the whole herd again on the way back down. (I think this picture is from the way back down).

I came up a little short of Upper Red Pine Lake. The sun was setting too fast and the last half mile of trail was a bit more cross-country than I wanted to navigate in the dark. So with the lake almost within view I turned around and headed back down the mountain. It got cold as soon as the sun set, too, especially wearing a kilt. I had to put on my headlamp about 2 miles from the car, and couldn't see past the light reflecting off my breath in front of me.

I made it back to the car in complete darkness and went home. The total distance was about 8.3 miles with about 2300 feet of elevation gain. I'll definitely be back to spend the night some time. And I'll definitely be wearing my kilt.

White Pine Lake - Maybe a Little Too White

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.

Red Pine Lake

This weekend I was able to get out and do my first overnight camp as an adult. I did a lot of camping as a scout, but it's a whole different experience when you grow up you're the one that's responsible for surviving the night and not getting lost. My sibsprother (wife's sister's husband) Shawn and his son (my spephew) were able to come along and I'm glad they did; it's nice having someone out there who knows what he's doing.

When we first talked about wanting to backpack someone together Red Pine Lake came up early in the conversation. I had never been there, and Shawn hadn't been in a long time. It's a little lower in elevation than a lot of lakes so there was a chance that we'd be able to get to the lake without hitting too much snow. I think we were about 2 weeks too early for that, but it was a lot of fun anyway.

To get to Red Pine Lake head up Little Cottonwood Canyon to the White Pine trailhead. (Yes, I know my colors. Just trust me.) There's a pretty big parking lot there and more parking on the street if you get there later in the day. There were only a half dozen cars in the parking lot when we arrived Friday about 5:00pm, but there were cars lining the street when we came back down around 11:00am Saturday.

The first mile of trail is easy. Really really easy. First you go downhill to the river, then gradually gain elevation on a wide, mostly smooth trail. You don't even have to stop for people going the other way because the trail's so wide. After about a mile the trail splits; the trail to White Pine Lake goes off to the left, and the trail to Red Pine Lake goes off to the left. Yes, that's right. They both go to the left, but there's about 20 feet between the turnoffs. 

We took the second left to Red Pine, and soon came upon the bridge over the creek. I tried to get a picture of Shawn and Mikey going over the bridge with the water rushing beneath it, but the screen on my camera doesn't work and this is how it ended up. Just imagine a raging river mere inches below the bridge.

As we wound around the ridge to get to Red Pine Canyon there were many great overlooks of the canyon. This is one of the many pictures I took on our way up. You can see the windy road all the way down the steep canyon.

As we rounded the corner up into Red Pine Canyon the trail got much, much steeper, and we started seeing our first patches of snow. At first it was sort of fun to climb up over the snow banks and slide down the other side, but after awhile the snow got so deep and so frequent that we started doubting we'd make it to the lake.

About 2 1/2 miles in we reached the bridge that goes over to Maybird Gulch. We weren't going there, but it was nice to see the bridge. We knew the bridge was pretty close to the lake and we didn't have much farther to climb.

Unfortunately, not more than a couple hundred feet past the bridge we ran into an impenetrable snowfield. Okay, so it wasn't that bad. It was, however, enough to make us stop and think. At this time it was about 7:30pm. We still needed to find a place to camp and cook dinner before the sun set. It's a new moon so we knew it would be dark quickly after the sun went down. We calculated that we could probably make it to the lake, but that it would take us so long that we'd be scrambling to get ready for bed, and we still weren't guaranteed that we'd find a dry place to camp if we kept going.

So we backtracked to the bridge and checked both sides of the creek for a level camp spot. We found a place overlooking the trail and the river with an old fire pit (fires are currently not allowed in the canyon). We immediately set about getting camp set up.

On this trip I wanted to test out my backpacking set up. It's all easy enough to set up and make work in the backyard, but I wanted to make sure I could do it all out in the middle of nowhere. It turns out that I was able to. Not surprising, really, but reassuring.

The sun dipped below the trees about the time dinner was finished cooking. For dinner I brought up a Mountain House meal. It was Teriyaki chicken and rice, or some such thing (I could zoom in on the picture or walk ten steps to the garbage and tell you for sure, but it really doesn't matter). I heated up 2 cups of water with my homemade alcohol stove and dumped it into the bag, then blew up my sleeping pad while waiting for it to rehydrate.

It was a tasty meal, and I think it still would have been tasty even if we hadn't just hiked 3 miles up the canyon.

One of my big fears of this trip was that I would be cold at night. I was asleep by 10:00pm and at 1:30 woke up completely covered in sweat. I spent the rest of the night with my upper body completely out of the sleeping bag and the bottom half of the bag unzipped. It was plenty warm. The above picture (with my foot) is the view from inside my tent. It was a perfect spot to camp.

In the morning we got out of bed around 8:00am, reassured ourselves that we had indeed survived the night, ate some breakfast and packed up to head home.

There were just as many great views on the way down as the way up, There seemed to be a bit more water on the trail going down though.

We made it back to the truck by around 11:00am (again, I could check the time for sure but it doesn't really matter) and went home.

We hiked just under 6 miles, climbed nearly 2,000 feet in elevation (most of it in the last mile), saw a lake's worth of water on the trail in both liquid and solid form, and didn't get eaten by any bears. This trail is one of the prettiest I've been on (I know I say that every time). Maybe we'll try to get up to White Pine Lake later this year when the snow's gone.