Today we decided to take advantage of the nice spring weather and head out for a hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We drove up to Silver Lake (between Brighton and Solitude resorts) to do our hike, but were confronted with 4 feet of snow still on the ground and the trail completely covered! Guess we haven't had enough "spring weather" yet at 8,700ft. So we headed a little ways back down the canyon (to 7,300ft) where the snow had mostly melted and headed up the Mill D North Fork trail which follows one of the off-shoots of Mill Creek.
The trail is lined with pine, spruce and higher up with aspen, and although it is too early yet for wildflowers the views as you climb the trail are very nice. This shot is looking south towards Mill D South Fork and Kessler Peak (10,402ft). After about 30 minutes of climbing we ran into complete snow cover again and decided it was a good place to turn around. (Yes, you can "hike" on top of the snow, but it's hard to discern the trail when it looks the same as the surrounding ground).
The white bark of the aspen trees unfortunately seems to tempt many people to carve their initials on trees along the trail. We found this rather more creative petroglyph-looking piece of graffiti on one of the said aspen trees. I wonder if the Ute indians ever carved pictures on aspen trunks?
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