Last of Winter

This post squeezes four separate hikes, all in the same canyon, into one post. 

The snow is gone from the lower slopes and washes in the Wasatch Mountains, but quite a bit remains higher up. You might think that as winter changes to spring and moves on into summer that all would return to just the way things were the summer before. However, common to these mountains, a little bit of geological rearranging frequently occurs over the colder months. I've seen it as it has happened on occasion. For instance, this five foot wide boulder wasn't here in the trail last year:

This hike took place April thirteenth of this year, in one of my favorite canyons in the Wasatch range. Higher up the trail, the hike eventually became over snow. That's the way hikes go this time of year. Passing clouds put me in shadow sometimes, but some part of the landscape was always sunlit.

Every once in a while I stop to take a selfie, enjoying the outdoors as always.

I hiked as far up the trail as I could before postholing in deep snow became a problem. Then it was time to return. 

In and out of sunlight and shadow, the section of trail shown below was illuminated as I returned down canyon.

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A week later I was back up the same trail. The weather forecast that day called for a chance of rain. It was a chance I was willing to take. There was, of course, less snow on the trail. An avalanche tongue I've hiked across each time I've come up the canyon had shrunk considerably and was showing more of the debris it had brought down the mountainside earlier in the year.

Here's a view back down canyon from the receding avalanche tongue:

Dark storm clouds moved over the canyon, and an occasional clap of thunder echoed off of the canyon walls.

I didn't want to stay up that high if lightning became a concern, or if heavy rain became a possibility, turning the yet deep snow into a messy slush. As raindrops began, I donned my rain gear and headed back down the trail.

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On a very pleasant day late in April I was back up the canyon. There was, of course, less snow this time. The avalanche tongue had shrunk even more since the last time I visited.

In fact, snow had receded off of most of the rocky trail that had been covered by the avalanche earlier in the year. Standing on the trail below the avalanche tongue, I observed how smaller trees which had survived the avalanche had become visible again as the snowpack had shrunken here. Judging from those small trees, and how they had revealed themselves incrementally over the past weeks, I was able to see that the trail where I was standing had been buried under about eight feet of snow when I was up here earlier this year.

There were still large patches of snow in the canyon, but it was such a pleasant day for a hike. I had packed a jacket in my day pack, but it was such a shirt sleeve kind of day, I never needed it.

One more look up canyon as I headed back down late in the day:

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Early May saw me up the canyon once again. Down in the valley trees are well on their way to being fully leafed out. Not so up in the higher elevations, where trees are just beginning to bud. There was, however, much less snow than the week before. The avalanche tongue was growing thinner by the week.

The day had started out with very nice weather, but as it grew later in the day and I climbed higher, scattered storm cells began to form and pass over the mountains. None of the storm cells hit me directly, but I did get a little sprinkling of rain as one passed near. It wasn't enough to make me change my plans though. With less snow I was able to hike farther up the canyon, up into the elevation where aspen trees grow.

Not everything up here has the drab greyness of late winter. I took the right fork at the top of the trail and hiked to a nearby meadow. There I found large patches of bright yellow glacier lilies beginning to come into full bloom:

The meadow was mostly free of snow, though large patches still surrounded it.

This meadow is a good place to stop and rest. I planned to stay there a little while that day, so I built a fire of rocky mountain maple wood and cooked myself something to eat.

Apple cinnamon oatmeal, along with an outdoors-appropriate pot holder ;)

Here's the view I had to the south of the meadow:

There was plenty of moose sign in the area, but I saw no moose that day. To the north my view was of a mountain that rises nine thousand feet above sea level. As the sun moved toward the western horizon, shadows cast by mountains west of me began to creep up the sides of mountains to my east.

After dinner (which besides oatmeal, also included some whole grain fig bars), I cleaned the pan with snow and heaped a pile of snow on the dying fire to make sure it was out. Then I hiked the short distance back to the fork in the trail, and went up the left fork to a meadow I call "Moose Meadow". From there I had a great view of a mountain to the east, one that rises over eleven thousand feet high.

As I began my hike back down, I met a man who had decided, just on the spur of the moment, to hike up the canyon that day. He told me he was sixty seven years old, had always lived in the area, and was recovering from months of cancer treatment. We hiked back down together, telling each other our experiences in the canyon, and about animals we've met there. We saw a couple mule deer as we descended the trail. I dearly hope that when I'm 67, I'm still hiking in the mountains. Is 77 too much to ask?