whither wolverine

 Since we stayed in northern Utah this last weekend, H wanted to do a road ride Saturday morning.  He hasn't been able to ride as much as usual this summer, due to the excessive heat and our going down to Moab so often, so when the opportunity presents itself, he tries to take it.  Me, I don't have a road bike (nor do I want one), and I took my own opportunity for a quick hike up at Alta.

Morning sunlight hitting Gunsight

I didn't get the earliest of starts since the sun doesn't come up until around 7:18 a.m. (and comes up over the Wasatch mountains even later than that) and the overnight temperatures at Alta were pretty chilly.  I was parking above Albion base at 8:20 a.m., and after some puttering around, headed up the mountain via the summer trail through Sunnyside.  There were only a couple people on that trail, and a couple more as I segued to the Catherine's Pass trail - a far cry from the last time I hike and was dodging other hikers left and right.

By 9:35 a.m., I had gotten to Catherine's Pass.  There were quite a few folks there, most from the Brighton Lakes side and heading towards Sunset Peak.  Not me: I put another layer on (it was getting windy), had a quick snack and started up the very steep, loose trail to Tuscarora.  Fifteen minutes of up later, I moved past Tuscarora's summit, heading towards Wolverine.  I encountered several more hikers there, all heading down towards Catherine's Pass.  By 10:04 I was atop Wolverine, where I saw that I was going to catch another solo woman hiker about halfway around the cirque.

Steep and rocky above Brighton

The first time H and I hiked around Wolverine Cirque, it hadn't seen that many hikers and the trail was pretty exposed in spots.  Now, however many years later, enough hikers have rerouted the sketchiest sections towards the Alta side of the ridge and it really isn't intimidating.  The cirque is still jagged and steep and impressive, of course.

Aspens just beginning to turn

I had gotten off the cirque and made my way down the steep tumbledown less than half an hour later.  I met more hikers there - a group of four going up; a large group going down - and heard, but didn't see, pikas.  By 10:41 I was at the Twin Lakes pass and heading down through Grizzly Gulch, which is always a much longer run-out than I remember.  It took me an hour to walk out along the old mining roads, past all the mining ruins.  I stopped once to give some hikers directions to the Prince of Wales mine; they seemed dismayed when I told them how far up they had yet to go.  Not me: I was done with the up and nearly done with the down and one quick beer later, was back home before noon.