Yeah, I always thought that sounded vaguely obscene, too. :lol:
It was time to wear ourselves and the dogs out again today. AmyZ and I first hatched plans to head for the Uintas, but today dawned something that's rarely seen during a Utah summer: an overcast day. I looked at the hour by hour weather forecast for the Uintas, which looked too risky for afternoon thunderstorms while we'd be above treeline. AmyZ suggested Mill Creek Canyon Dog Lake, and I agreed.
But while I waited for her to show up I pondered the fact that I'm a bit burned out on Dog Lake. By the time she arrived I had other plans to visit an area of Mill Creek I had yet to visit: Alexander Basin. We loaded Jake and Jack, the black lab from next door that I'm dog-sitting this week, into the truck and began the 10-mile rumble up to the trailhead.
Unlike the Big Water Trail to Dog Lake on a dog-legal Saturday (they're only allowed off-leash on odd-numbered days), the Alexander Basin trail was relatively deserted. And unlike the Big Water Trail, the trail to Alexander Basin starts off with a bang: over 1,200 verts in the first 0.6 miles. :shock:
Who laid out this trail, the morons who lead the Boy Scouts?? Switchbacks? What are those?
So the wind is taken out of your sails almost as soon as you leave the trailhead parking lot.
Wildflowers were abundant as you'll see in the coming photos, as were all of the little critters trying to take advantage of their fleeting bounty.
After about 0.7 miles you reach the junction with a trail leading across the landscape to Bowman Fork, after which the Alexander Basin mellows out to a merely reasonable uphill grade.
About midway up the basin you reach treeline and get the first view of the route ahead. When we started hiking we weren't sure how far we'd go, but upon realizing that we were already three-quarters of the way to 10,246-foot Gobbler's Knob it only made sense to bag the summit. Between us and the top, however, we'd have to scale another ridiculously steep slope up the headwall of the cirque to make the ridgeline separating Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood Canyons. The only problem is that we hadn't encountered a drop of ground water in Alexander Basin, forcing me to water the dogs by creating a spurting fountain with my Camelbak hose.
Even though we were only a hundred or two vertical feet below the summit, we paused at the ridgeline to take in the view of Big Cottonwood Canyon across Reynolds Flat, Silver Lake and Solitude to Brighton beyond.
We sat for a bit at the summit, wolfing down a Clif Bar and taking in the 360-degree view.
While sitting on the summit I dug out my paper map, realizing for the first time that we could make a loop out of it by following the ridgeline toward Mt. Raymond to Baker Pass, then crossing Pole Canyon and Yellow Jacket Gulch to Bowman Fork, where we'd split off of the main trail to follow the 1.6-mile connector back to Alexander Basin. The distance would be more than twice as long as simply returning via the same route as our ascension, but that also meant that the downgrade would be less severe (except for that last 0.6 miles). This route held the added advantage of Baker Spring, which the trail basically crossed on top of. That would provide an opportunity to freely water the dogs and safely refill my now nearly depleted Camelbak. We had the time and seemed to have the energy, so we went for it.
We followed the trail along the ridgline until it descended steeply to Baker Pass, a low point between the mountains that separate Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood Canyons. There we turned right 270 degrees and doubled back on ourselves to traverse the western slope of Gobbler's Knob, the one clearly visible from much of the Salt Lake Valley.
Up until now we had only been hit by an occasional sprinkle of rain. As we traversed the high ground toward Alexander Basin, however, the clouds lowered and enveloped the summits we had been walking only an hour earlier, and a light drizzle moved into the area. I stopped to don my rain gear, which ended up turning out to be a bit of overkill. We arrived back at the truck 7.58 miles and a total of 3,787 vertical feet of climbing later.
For those who would like even more detail, here's our GPS track for Google Earth:
View attachment Gobbler's Knob.kml
And all of our photos geotagged on a map, including many more not published here, are visible at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/albumMa ... 486545#map
It was time to wear ourselves and the dogs out again today. AmyZ and I first hatched plans to head for the Uintas, but today dawned something that's rarely seen during a Utah summer: an overcast day. I looked at the hour by hour weather forecast for the Uintas, which looked too risky for afternoon thunderstorms while we'd be above treeline. AmyZ suggested Mill Creek Canyon Dog Lake, and I agreed.
But while I waited for her to show up I pondered the fact that I'm a bit burned out on Dog Lake. By the time she arrived I had other plans to visit an area of Mill Creek I had yet to visit: Alexander Basin. We loaded Jake and Jack, the black lab from next door that I'm dog-sitting this week, into the truck and began the 10-mile rumble up to the trailhead.
Unlike the Big Water Trail to Dog Lake on a dog-legal Saturday (they're only allowed off-leash on odd-numbered days), the Alexander Basin trail was relatively deserted. And unlike the Big Water Trail, the trail to Alexander Basin starts off with a bang: over 1,200 verts in the first 0.6 miles. :shock:
Who laid out this trail, the morons who lead the Boy Scouts?? Switchbacks? What are those?
So the wind is taken out of your sails almost as soon as you leave the trailhead parking lot.
Wildflowers were abundant as you'll see in the coming photos, as were all of the little critters trying to take advantage of their fleeting bounty.
After about 0.7 miles you reach the junction with a trail leading across the landscape to Bowman Fork, after which the Alexander Basin mellows out to a merely reasonable uphill grade.
About midway up the basin you reach treeline and get the first view of the route ahead. When we started hiking we weren't sure how far we'd go, but upon realizing that we were already three-quarters of the way to 10,246-foot Gobbler's Knob it only made sense to bag the summit. Between us and the top, however, we'd have to scale another ridiculously steep slope up the headwall of the cirque to make the ridgeline separating Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood Canyons. The only problem is that we hadn't encountered a drop of ground water in Alexander Basin, forcing me to water the dogs by creating a spurting fountain with my Camelbak hose.
Even though we were only a hundred or two vertical feet below the summit, we paused at the ridgeline to take in the view of Big Cottonwood Canyon across Reynolds Flat, Silver Lake and Solitude to Brighton beyond.
We sat for a bit at the summit, wolfing down a Clif Bar and taking in the 360-degree view.
While sitting on the summit I dug out my paper map, realizing for the first time that we could make a loop out of it by following the ridgeline toward Mt. Raymond to Baker Pass, then crossing Pole Canyon and Yellow Jacket Gulch to Bowman Fork, where we'd split off of the main trail to follow the 1.6-mile connector back to Alexander Basin. The distance would be more than twice as long as simply returning via the same route as our ascension, but that also meant that the downgrade would be less severe (except for that last 0.6 miles). This route held the added advantage of Baker Spring, which the trail basically crossed on top of. That would provide an opportunity to freely water the dogs and safely refill my now nearly depleted Camelbak. We had the time and seemed to have the energy, so we went for it.
We followed the trail along the ridgline until it descended steeply to Baker Pass, a low point between the mountains that separate Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood Canyons. There we turned right 270 degrees and doubled back on ourselves to traverse the western slope of Gobbler's Knob, the one clearly visible from much of the Salt Lake Valley.
Up until now we had only been hit by an occasional sprinkle of rain. As we traversed the high ground toward Alexander Basin, however, the clouds lowered and enveloped the summits we had been walking only an hour earlier, and a light drizzle moved into the area. I stopped to don my rain gear, which ended up turning out to be a bit of overkill. We arrived back at the truck 7.58 miles and a total of 3,787 vertical feet of climbing later.
For those who would like even more detail, here's our GPS track for Google Earth:
View attachment Gobbler's Knob.kml
And all of our photos geotagged on a map, including many more not published here, are visible at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/albumMa ... 486545#map
