Where’s the snow?

The question in the title might be a tip-off, but it’s Shane’s turn to write. Today marked the second snowless Saturday since we moved to Utah. I’m much less excited about this streak than I was about the last one, but hopefully we’ve just shifted to weekly snows on Friday or something like that.

Today’s niceness made itself obvious while I hunted through the bargains at a ski swap in search of skis for Jayna, and by the time I made it home (skis in hand), I had decided that today would be the perfect day for a hike. I definitely got that part right.

I think the hardest part about hiking in the Wasatch has nothing to do with altitude, steep slopes, talus, brush, moose droppings, hunters, or anything like that. Rather, the hardest part is deciding which one to do. There are at least four parallel canyons I’m aware of, and each of those has a bunch of drainages, each of which seems to have a minimum of two trails heading up it, and this all adds up (well multiplies, actually) rather quickly. This makes choosing one’s first real hike in the Wasatch somewhat daunting. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and the Google (which is awesome, I’m told), I found a top ten list of sorts, picked the easiest one that sounded worthwhile, and called it good.

Figuring we’d find temps somewhere between 20s and 60s, Jayna and I grabbed an assortment of layers and hopped into the car for the quick drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We reached the parking lot to find three cameo-clad bowhunters with weapons in hand hanging around a largish truck and two moms with infants in kid-carriers hanging around a pair of subarus. Interesting cultural mix here. After circumnavigating the lot, I found the trail over by the bathroom and we were off.

Our theoretical destination was a spot just a mile and a half up the trail that overlooks the canyon and the city beyond. I thought I mentioned to Jayna that the trail continued for another couple of miles (and an additional 1500′ climb) to a lake that might be cool to see, time and energy permitting. Did I really need to mention that we’d obviously be gunning for the whole deal, even if we were nominally only going to the overlook? Apparently I did.

Unfortunately our early-season snow is currently on the melt, though we found nice and chilly temps in the shade. Since the trail was the flattest ground around, it was covered in melt-freeze snow for much of the way, which made for slippery going since it was definitely in the freeze-side of the cycle. We crossed a stream that had as much ice as liquid water in it and generally made good time, despite the slippery terrain, to the lookout. The lookout was a cool spot, and it did present a very nice view, but it had one fatal flaw. It came way too quickly. Jayna met my claim regarding this point with something less than unfettered glee.

Nevertheless we marched on for another 45 minutes or so, climbing close to 1000′ in the process, before hitting the arbitrary turnaround time I was forced to choose before my life partner would concede a single upward step beyond the lookout. At some points, the trail had been reprovisioned as a stream, which had itself been recast as a frozen stream, making the walking both treacherous and difficult.

On the trip back down, the aforementioned love of my life suddenly discovered a well–nay, a fount–of vigor and vitality, and we made speedy time back to the car. Yes it was mostly downhill, but I could hardly keep up with her on the occasional uphill segments either, so I think there was more to it than that. She said it had something to do with “going home,” so I’m thinking that if I could only redefine “home” to mean peaks, cirques, and hanging valleys, I’d have myself a hard-charging hiking partner.

It was super cool be doing all of this a half hour from home rather than ten times that. Now we need our snow back.