Snake Pit Trail - Partial

 The Snake Pit Trail at Alta is a pretty side trail down from the Albion Meadows. It features a pretty forest, a creek, and wildflowers. Unfortunately, my fear of heights kicked into high gear and I was unable to complete this trail, but I will post what we did do.

My plan was to head up the Albion Meadows Trail, and go down the Snake Pit, and back up the Lower Albion Meadows from there. I thought doing the Snake Pit top down would be easiest hahaha. Anyway, I was able to salvage my hike by just turning back and finishing the Albion Meadows Trail. FYI - I reused a few images from that post on this one. So sorry for any Deja Vu.

Quick Details:

Length: The full trail is only .7 miles one way. You can do out and back for 1.4 miles (plus a little to connect to it) or do a loop with the lower section of the Albion Meadows Trail which would be about 1.4 miles too.
Trail Type: Out and back, loop.
Difficulty: What I did wasn’t too rough. DR4.
Elevation Gain: About 365 feet.
Restroom: Yes, there are flush toilets at the Albion Base.
Dogs? No. Little Cottonwood Canyon is watershed.
Other Info:

To Get Here:

Drive to near the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Turn right at the 2nd entrance for Alta called Albion Base. The trail go down from between the Albion Day Lodge and the Alta Ski School. Then the shortest route to it is going down the Lower Albion Meadows for just a bit a look for the trail on the left, or head up the Albion Meadows for about .6 miles and connect to it from there.

The Trail:

Trailhead kiosk.

Directional sign.

Heading up.

Into the woods.

The first switchback swings past a very narrow and steep gorge with Little Cottonwood Creek in it. I tend to avoid getting too close to the edge here, however if I had, I might have noticed I probably wouldn’t like the trail I was intending to come down today.

Then we are hiking under a ski lift for a bit. I think it is the Albion Lift.

More forest.

At about .55 miles we reach the first trail split. Left leads to the Summer Road. You want to hang right. As of a few years ago, we generally prefer to access this area via the Summer Road. It is a smidge longer, but just a bit easier.

A slight bit of UP before the next junction.

At about 6/10th of a mile we come to the 2nd junction. Left will continue up the Albion Meadows, right will head towards the Snake Pit Trail and the Homerun Trail. So right it is.

New directional sign referencing what I just mentioned.

Heading across the meadow.

Not much further we reached the next junction. Homerun Trail to the left, Snake Pit Trail to the right.

Helpful little map to guide you.

Devils Castle and Sugarloaf Peak.

Early changing geranium.

Asters.

Crossing Little Cottonwood Creek. View downstream.

Geranium leaf getting a jump on autumn.

The Snake Pit Trail is quite a bit thinner than the Albion Meadows Trail. Here is the first switchback.

More geraniums getting a jump on autumn.

Continuing along the Snake Pit Trail.

So far, this is just a lovely hike in the woods.

Grizzly Gulch across the way.

We found a lupine still hanging on.

Little Cottonwood Creek.

Again.

Red paintbrush.

Oh boy. The trail is getting quite thin and starting to trigger my fear of heights a bit.

More paintbrush.

Forest.

Little muddy section.

Little rock bridge. Landis thought this was kind of ridiculous, but I thought this went across the muddy area, but the muddy area shifted up trail from here. So, maybe there will be some additional rock bridges in the future.

Paintbrush.

We have reached the gulch. I thought this trail might make it it’s way through this step gulch, but wow. All of my fear of heights reactions just went haywire. Rapid heartbeat, dizziness, shortness of breath, the entire gamut. I tried sitting down to catch my breath and hope I could calm myself enough to get through here, but I just couldn’t. The stupid fear of heights lizard brain won this time. I just couldn’t do it.

The thin, super thin trail was not only along a steep slope, but the steep slope dropped off into the super steep and narrow gulch. I might have been able to push through with the right circumstances, but today, yeah, nope. Landis ventured down a bit hoping he could see what sounded like a little waterfall from here, but did not have any luck. I decided I could not continue, but maybe we could check out this trail from the other direction sometime and see how it was from that way. I imagine I will struggle again at this point, but hey, then we can say we have done (most of) it.

By the way, I believe that this steep gulch is the snake pit of the Snake Pit Trail, but I am not 100% sure on that.

Geranium leaf.

Various paintbrush.

A sad lupine.

Paintbrush.

Little Cottonwood Creek again.

Paintbrush.

Some kind of mint.

Continuing along the thin trail.

We found some monkshood hanging on.

Crossing over Little Cottonwood Creek again.

Trail split. We decided that since we are already up here, might as well make the most of it. So we continued up the Homerun Trail (separate post) to the right, this is an offshoot that connects a little closer to the Snake Pit Trail. Both trails connect just a bit further up. 

After going up the Homerun Trail we came back down via the Albion Meadows Trail.

After we were finished our alternate hike, and started getting to the bottom again we spotted what we think this is the other end of the Snake Pit Trail, just a little ways down the Lower Albion Meadows Trail. We’re not 100% sure, but pretty sure.

The Lower Albion Meadows Trail. What we think is the Snake Pit Connection to the left.

Eh, the Snake Pit Trail was kind of nice, had some nice wild flowers, but my fear of heights issue prevented me from continuing it down. I am not sure if I should rate it, but with what I was able to do I want to say 8 squirrels out of 10, but taking another for the scary part.

As for difficulty, the Albion Meadows Trail up was pretty easy going. The Snake Pit Trail down was a lot more thin and a bit scary with my fear of heights. DR4.

Dogs are not allowed in Little Cottonwood Canyon due to watershed restrictions. So be sure to leave Fido home for this one.