Much to Milton's dismay, I did not take him on a Dimple Dell walk Sunday. We got up early and did our medium length neighborhood walk (twenty minutes or so) but then I abandoned him (in his mind) and drove up to Snowbird to see how the wildflowers were doing there. I did this exact hike last August but the wildflowers were a little further behind because of the snow. And every time I do this hike (and post about it), I complain about how dang steep it is.
The route is a lollipop: up the Peruvian Gulch trail to the Peruvian Cirque trail, then down the Peruvian Gulch access road to reconnect with the PGT again. It is so steep: a quad-buster on the way up and a knee-buster on the way down. It wasn't nearly as loose underfoot as it ofter is, however, because Saturday evening brought some rain to the Wasatch Front.
I started at 7:10 a.m., with a delightful 60F temperature. Since the Bird is steeper and less accessible than Alta for summer trails, it gets a lot fewer hikers. I got passed by two trail runners and one guy was following me up but never caught me. I passed two hikers at the start of the PGT and then went by them again as I was heading down the access road ... and they were still coming up. After 9 a.m., there were more hikers coming up but not the hordes that Alta gets. The solitude was welcome.
And the flowers were just spectacular, especially in the bowl of the Cirque and the upper part of Peruvian Gulch. I decided to do a paintbrush study, to see how many color variations I could find; the results (as shown in this post) were impressive, although I didn't see any white ones, which you can sometimes find at Alta.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment