dog; sledding

What's better than going to the gym on the day after Christmas to work off all those beer and eggnog calories?  Going winter hiking under blazing sun and bluebird skies. 

Another inversion has settled into the Salt Lake Valley so we headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon late morning on Saturday to find ourselves some clearer air.  A hike to Dog Lake (ironically named as there are no dogs allowed) was the plan, the trailhead 9.1 miles up the canyon road.  It's a popular trail, only 4.6 miles round trip, with a steady but not too steep (until the last .6 miles) climb on a level path with no switchbacks, and although we'd brought our snowshoes, we didn't end up using them as the trail was well-packed from all the traffic.

Although we hiked by ourselves, we passed a lot of other people - people in hiking boots, people in hiking boots with Yaktrax, people on snowshoes with ski poles, people on snowshoes without poles, backcountry skiers skinning up and backcountry skiers shussing down - so nice to see so many people out and enjoying the great weather.  The folks who seemed to be enjoying it the most, however, were taking advantage of the most genius ideas H and I have seen yet: they had snowshoed up to the lake but descended on plastic sleds that they'd taken with them.  They came flying past us, laughing, while we just stood there, wishing we'd thought of that.  I can promise you that plastic sleds are now on our list of gear we need to buy.

It took us an hour and fifteen minutes to go up, through stands of conifers and naked aspen trees, a little creek far below us on the canyon floor.  We started shedding layers immediately and by the time we reached the little lake, we were hatless, gloveless and sweaty.  It was warm enough in the bright sun to eat our quick lunch on the shore of the lake, observing the tracks from backcountry skiers on Reynolds Peak above us and generally grinning like goofs because it was so darn pretty.

The way down was fast (although not as fast as it would have been if we'd had sleds) since the snowpacked trail was smooth, even and not at all slippery footing, and gentle on the knees to boot.  It was cold, though: we ended up putting all our layers back on but our hands still got very, very cold since we weren't working nearly as hard on the descent.  At one point, H exclaimed that he'd "never hiked so fast in [his] life;" I had to trot to keep up with him - which helped keep me warm, so I didn't mind.

The parking area was packed when we got back to the car as there's a well-known sledding area across the canyon road, and it was swarming with families - again, so nice to see people enjoying the outdoors.  It just goes to prove that even when the valley is socked in with murk, fresh air and great days are just up the road a-piece in the mountains.