Friday, November 13, 2015

Nov 13 - Dog Lake (Big Cottonwood Canyon)

Had a nice snowstorm this week in the mountains - one resort got 15 inches. (Yea!) But the hiking options are fast reducing in number.

Heading to Dog Lake today. It's on the south facing side of the canyon so it gets more sunlight which means there should be less snow.

Driving up the canyon, the south side is all nice and snowy but the north side is mostly clear (the sunny south facing slope). There's a good number of cars in the parking lot this morning -- mostly big trucks -- probably hunters.

Its still in the low 30s when I start but sun is out and it's clear.

The trail is mixture of snow pack, ice, clear and muddy - will not be a dull hike.

The mountains the south look incredible.

Lots of squirrels out today and chirping.

Otherwise pretty quiet and uneventful hike.

The interesting part was there were blood drops on the trail. In some spots, a lot of blood! The blood trail started several hundred yards for the trail head all the way to the trail split at around 2 miles. I hoping its from an animal -- otherwise, someone's in real trouble.

I get to the split and make the final approach  to Dog Lake. I'm more in the shade now so there is more snow around.

I crest at the lake -- frozen and snow-covered as expected. Lovely shadows of the snow covered pine trees on the lake.

I head up above the lake for a better view of Mt Reynolds -- there's a good 6 inches of snow on the ground but on the Peak, I can still see lots of brown stalks from vegetation.

I was hoping to have lunch here but there's no where to sit so I'm heading back down.

Beautiful day - lovely hike.


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