Supposed to be a great day with mostly sunny skies in the upper-80s - cooler in the mountains of course.
The original plan is to hike up to Catherine's Pass in the Albion Basin. We arrive at at the summer road entrance around 7:45am and were told that the lots were probably already full - 80 cars passed thru the gate; there's only 40 spots. Darn! (And quite amazing!)
Time for Plan B - drive back down Little Cottonwood Canyon and then up Big Cottonwood Canyon to hike up to Twin Lakes.
It's amazing that when we arrive, there were hardly any cars in the Silver Lake parking lot -- I guess they were all up Little Cottonwood Canyon! (All the better for us!)
We pack and head past Silver Lake to the actual trail. Meadow is green and tall. Lake looks wonderful as always.
We head directly to Lake Solitude thru the flowers and the woods stopping only watch a Pika with a mouthful of green vegetation scampered over some boulders alongside the trail. (Looks of squirrels and chipmunks running around the forest this morning.)
We arrive a Lake Solitude; we have it all to ourselves.
Then we head up the big hill that leads over Twin Lakes. Many butterflies flying - all Frits!
We're almost to the top when we here another Pika and stop to look for it. We never find the Pika but we do find a chipmunk on the rocks. The chipmunk is chirping and the funny thing is that he only chirps when he wags his tail. Pretty cute!
Soon we reach the ridge above the lake and then move to my "secret spot" for a break! Beautiful day!
We decide head down to the lake and then take the trail alongside the lake to the opposite side. Down we go thru masses of flowers!
We head on top of the dam. The lake is still very full and the little fish are still near the overflow.
See a California Tortoiseshell flying around the lake as well as Frits.
We then head down the trail to the other side. Always a pretty neat walk but even more interesting now since the water is right next to the trail in spots - there's usually a beach by this time of year.
Lots of flowers!
Along the way, I see a few Blue Coppers flying.
I see our lunch spot just ahead.
Awesome spot!
Here I see a Weidenmeyer's Admiral and Mourning Cloak.
Time to head back to the dam and when there play with the fish (with shadows) one last time before heading down.
(Did I mention this whole time, we basically had the lake to ourselves? I'm sure that will change as we head down -- it's the afternoon.)
And it did - lots of folks coming up now!!
As we head down, a guy tells us that there is a big male moose a little ways down the hill. He's laying in the woods. Cool!! (My nephew hadn't seen a moose yet.)
We go to where they guy said - behind the ski markers. We look around but can't find the moose. As we start heading back down, another guy (on his way) up tells us were to find the moose.
A little further down, we spot the moose in the woods; he's a big guy! He's hard to see in the shade. So we continue further down where there's a crowd of people standing on the trail. Still can't see him from the trail so we walk about 10 feet off trail and there he is!!!
Time to leave this big guy alone and continue down. As we cross the ridge over Silver Lake,
we look for Pika and Marmot but nothing. We do see large vegetation piles collected by a Pika.
Wonderful day!!
