Brighton Lakes

On Saturday morning, my dad, Tyson and I went for a hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon. I had just recently realized that I have never been on a real "hike" while living here in Utah and told Tyson that I would like to do a few hikes before the summer was over. We went out last weekend and bought a book called "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Salt Lake City" and found what we thought would be a pretty good first hike. After a breakfast of Egg McMuffins in the car (with chocolate milk - YUM!) we started around 7am.

Our goal was Lake Catherine about 2.5 miles up (according to the sign at the trailhead) and we headed out. The trailhead is at the back of the parking lot of Brighton Ski Resort. It was pretty chilly when we started - the temp in my dad's car said it was 51º when we started - but after walking up the trail for about 5 minutes I wasn't cold anymore. I was working too hard! The beginning climb was pretty steep! One thing I quickly realized we would wish that we had brought - bug spray. There were mosquitoes galore and I must be a rare delicacy for mosquitoes because I feel like I am being eaten alive (and then my dad and Tyson come away with 0 bites).

This sign wasn't very accurate for the miles (at least, not according the Garmin that my dad was wearing). I think that we had hiked for almost a mile when we got to this sign. I also noticed the difference of spelling for "Catherine". It's been "Catherine" in the book and on websites that I've read about the hike... so the difference here on the sign makes me laugh. Maybe all of the books are wrong?The first lake that you come to is Dog Lake. And it was very boring, so I didn't even take a picture of it. It was more like Dog Pond. But we did see a doe Mule deer with her baby at that lake. The baby was teeny and cute.

The second lake is Lake Mary and it is surrounded by granite and very pretty. We stopped for a couple of minutes to take pictures and then moved on.

The next lake is Lake Martha and it is smaller and just above Lake Mary. Tyson and Dad voted it the prettiest lake.

It was a little farther up the mountain to reach Lake Catherine and we started to see patches of unmelted snow. We reached the lake, coming around and down from above and then quickly moved on... the mosquitoes were scary at this lake. You could see the top of the lake just covered with them and eggs. YUCK!

Total round trip for the hike was just over 5 and a half miles (according to the Garmin again) and... I can't remember how long it took us. I want to say that we were back to the car by 10:00am but I could be wrong. I remember that we were home by 11am though. And for our first hike, it was great! The wildflowers were blooming and when we first started the hike we could hear woodpeckers working on trees and we were one of the few hikers on the trail. I'm glad that we started as early as we did, but we might start the next hike we do even earlier. The way down was starting to get busy with people coming up and it was starting to get hot. We were hoping to see moose on the trail, but we didn't. We saw one grazing in the front of a cabin on the way up the canyon though.

We had a lot of fun and I got a good workout (my calves were a little sore and tight on Sunday). But this was one of my favorite parts. The Sego Lilies were blooming like crazy up the mountain. They are SO pretty.

Our next hike is scheduled for August 1st. (Do you like how I say "scheduled"? We have to make plans in advance for it, or else we won't do it. That's another way of saying that we are lazy.)