Lake Mary Trail

 

Last weekend while we were hiking Donut Falls, Landis mentioned how, even though it was unlikely, it would be awesome to see a moose up here. Then as we were in the general store before we hiked around Silver Lake, I noticed a map and saw Lake Catherine. I remembered reading about it and saying hey, people have mentioned seeing moose there, so maybe we should hike that one day. Of course we ended up seeing a moose at Silver Lake, so moot point, but we did find a new trail to explore today.

We are currently experiencing quite a few wildfires around the state which are definitely adding a lot of haze in the valley.

The trailhead for Lake Mary is just up the road from Silver Lake, at seriously the furthest point you can drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon, right next to the Brighton Ski Resort ticket building.

Not a terribly long hike, but some definite elevation gain here.

The trail starts out pretty steep and follows these chair lifts. I was worried we were going to be following them the entire trail for a minute, but it is just the first part.

I was hoping we would be high enough to be out of the haze, but unfortunately we were not.

Luckily it is just the one direction though, as a view the other way is still blue.

The wildflowers were very abundant up here! I took a lot of flower shots.

Gorgeous electric blue butterfly, I believe it to be an Arctic Blue. I am absolutely thrilled I got a useable image. The butterfly let me get close (unlike every other butterfly I saw today), but the wind was flipping it about something fierce.

A little further up the trail I had turned around to take a photo of the view below when Landis started going crazy, fox Andrew. Andrew FOX!!! I turned around and sure enough.

It kept it’s distance, but still got rather close to us. Busy trail, must be used to humans by now.

And now for the view I was trying to capture, plus a random fox. :)

It continued down the trail for a bit until something in the woods got it’s attention and it went that way.

I got some cool shots of this flower on our Donut Falls hike, but I didn’t get the really cool part which is the tendrils behind the flowers.

A nice shot of the trail.

And more flowers.

View below.

A little bit off trail we found the stream cascading down.

This one actually turned out pretty nice being in the sun without my ND filter, or a tripod.

Just above the small waterfall.

Indian Paint Brush. Growing all over the place up here.

Dead tree.

The trail gets a little rocky at parts.

The water is so clear!

So many wildflowers!

I’m just going to say it. Realizing I have been hiking under a dam for almost an hour kind of freaked me out. eep!

Pretty cool looking beetle.

Nice shot of the peaks above.

Lake Mary. Wow! Look how blue and clear the water is!

If you look closely, you can see that this lake can be quite a bit deeper.

I really wish I had taken video, but watching the wind whip waves around the lake was really fascinating.

Well obviously I thought this was a rather pretty lake. Lots of pictures here.

It would seem that the majority of the hikers stop here. After this point the number of times we passed a body on the trail was severely diminished.

More Indian Paint Brush

First view of Lake Martha.

I just love the little island!

After this the trail gets a little steep again.

Well, they are no Redwoods, but some of the trees up here can get pretty big!

View below.

Lake Martha from above.

 

And the stream that feeds it.

…which just comes out of the side of the hill here at the trail.

Pretty.

And from here we can see both Lake Martha, and Lake Mary. They are pretty close to each other.

Random snow bank = SNOWBALL FIGHT IN JULY!!!!

Pretty yellow flowers blanket the ground.

Just a few feet back there is a fork in the trail with 2 signs. One saying don’t camp within 200 feet of streams or lakes, and the other saying Trail pointing to this trail. So, we followed the sign and stayed on the trail.

Before long I began to suspect the lake was actually the other direction, and we were now heading up towards the summit. Before long we passed some people coming down so I asked if this was the lake trail, or the summit. Summit. I knew it! So we went up a little higher, and then turned around.

Luckily I spotted a small side trail taking you back to the lake, so we didn’t have to back track too much.

And it took us through this pretty field of… some marsh loving plant.

And Lake Catherine! You know, it was a beautiful hike and don’t regret doing it, however, I think this is the least pretty of all three lakes.

Almost looks like a landscaped garden!

Quick panoramic.

Better from this angle.

With some flowers.

After relaxing at the lake and rehydrating, we decided to start back down.

 

I don’t know if you can see it from this image very well, but there is a stream coming down from the lake (just behind the tree line pictured.), it curves to the right out of shot, and then back in towards the bottom of the picture but.. then where did it go? I think it ends up going underground and coming back out at that point above Lake Martha! Maybe it is a trick of the eye, and I didn’t go tromping around in the plants and mud to find out for sure where it went, but going through the images… it does appear to just, disappear!

Lake Mary from above.

I am almost 100% certain this is Dog Lake from above.

The main trail takes you above Lake Martha, but there are quite a few side trails that take you down to it.

From the other direction.

And back to Lake Mary. Downhill is so much easier and faster!

The dam.

Dog Lake. This is only a 500 ft excursion off the main trail. We probably would have explored more if we weren’t so tuckered out.

The rock outcropping you see in the upper right, just to the left of that is where I believe I was when I took the picture from above.

And back to the chair lifts and nearing the end of the trail.

It was tough at times, and crowded at times, but ultimately this was a unique and beautiful trail that looked nothing like anything else we have done this close to the city. So so many wildflowers all over the place.

Normally I would deduct points for being a crowded trail, but the crowds did thin quite a bit after Lake Mary. We saw tons of wild flowers, and even some wildlife. Also, it was probably the most unique, unlike any other trail this close to the valley we have done so it gets a good solid 9 squirrels out of 10.