emma ridge

The north side of Little Cottonwood Canyon is Emma Ridge, dividing LCC from Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We've been up on that ridge several times (Cardiff Pass, Days Fork, Prince of Wales mine, Silver Fork/Honeycomb Canyon, etc.).  At some point I said to H, I bet we could make a loop by walking the length of the ridge and going down the bowl to the east of Flagstaff Mountain.  So that's what we did on Sunday and it was great.

P at the Honeycomb cliffs

We met P at the parking lot across from the Bells Canyon trailhead and drove up to Alta.  Even at that early time (about 8:30 a.m.), cars were already pouring into Snowbird, trying to nab parking before they started charging to park for Oktoberfest.  Once past the Bird, however, it was pretty quiet up at Alta.

Love a ridge walk

We parked above Albion and started up the trail, leading to the old mining road through Grizzly Gulch.  That first bit is really steep and I always forget that.  When the road forked - right to Twin Lakes Pass; left to Davenport Hill - we went left.  Temperatures were perfect: a little chilly in the shade but quite pleasant in the sunshine.

View of Alta from Emma Ridge

Since P hadn't been there before, we took a side trip out to the Prince of Wales mine, where the rebar gratings covering the pit openings has been replaced since our last visit.  We also climbed up to the ridge, where the Honeycomb cliffs top out at Solitude, and peeked over the chalky stones.  Although we've been in Honeycomb Canyon a fair bit, either hiking or skiing, we'd never been up there so it was fun to see it from that angle.

Clinging to the ridge

We retraced our steps back to Davenport Hill and then started out south along Emma Ridge.  For the most part the trail is evident, if not heavily trafficked.  It did fizzle out a bit at the Silver Fork/Days Fork divide, so we ended up scrambling up the same bowl H and I went down on our 2016 Days Fork hike.  It's definitely easier to go up those steep bowls than down.

Emma Ridge stretching back to the east(-ish) behind us

Once back on top of the ridge, the trail was pretty easily followed although it got faint and steep on the descent to the pass just west of Flagstaff Mountain.  This was where we planned to make our exit: from what we'd been able to tell, Flagstaff gets a little cliff-y on the Cardiff Pass (Pole Line Pass) side.  We didn't readily find any trails down (which was a little surprising) and instead followed game trails down the steepest portion until we reached a faded old mining road.

The way out

This would be a gorgeous bowl to explore in July because of the wildflowers.  As we made our way down, we saw tons of tracks and dirt wallows so the deer are big fans of this drainage too.

P and me, making our way down

We continued down the overgrown mining road, which got wider and clearer when we passed the turn-off to Cardiff Pass.  We followed the road out past Alta's town offices and just went up the main canyon road back to the car to complete the loop.

What we just came down

Despite the beautiful day, there were very few people out enjoying it up there, even when we moved the car down to Albion Base to take advantage of some shade to enjoy our beers.  It was extremely satisfying to stand there, looking up at Emma Ridge, knowing that we'd just walked it.  And later that day, H said that it was his favorite hike of the season.  If that's not a glowing recommendation, I don't know what is.

Hike stats:  7.14 miles; 3;02 moving time/2.3 mph moving average; 4:35 total time/1.6 mph overall average; 2650' feet of climbing