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The Albion Meadows located at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon are hands down one of the best places to see wildflowers. Except for the fact that everybody knows it LOL. There are several ways to explore the area as well. The trails feature loads and loads of wildflowers on meadows surrounded by amazing mountain peaks. We tend to do it at least once or twice a year.
I had planned on doing Devils Castle, since we didn’t get to do it last time, but when we reached the Summer Road and saw the line, I decided we would do a quick pivot and walk up the road to the meadows.
It is wildflower season and well, I am focused on the flowers more than the trail right now.
Quick Details:
Length: It really depends on what you want to explore, we ended up doing about 3.9 miles.
Trail Type: We did a candy wrapper, out and back, or balloon options.
Difficulty: DR3. It is a bit of a climb, but not too bad.
Elevation Gain: About 650 feet.
Restroom: There are some porta potties at the trailhead, and flush toilets at Albion Base below.
Dogs? No. Little Cottonwood Canyon is watershed.
Other Info: There is a fee to drive up the summer road. We avoided that by walking it instead.
To Get Here:
Drive to the very top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Park below the toll booth and head up the summer road on foot.
You can shave off a half mile by paying the (currently $12.00) toll to drive up that far, but that seems excessive.
The mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)). I just love the perfect U shape.
As long as I have been coming up Little Cottonwood Canyon, there has always been a stick “holding up” this rock (PSP). The stick has changed, a lot. But there is always one there. I love that the community really commits to the gag.
Cliffs above (PSP).
The Welcome to the Town of Alta sign (PSP).
There is quite the line to head up the Summer Road. I wanted to do Devils Castle today but decided to pivot and decided to walk up the road to the Albion Meadows instead.
The Trail:
The Historic Bay City Tunnel.
Hoofin it past all the waiting cars.
The toll booth.
The construction project is making progress. I think I was correct that it will be restrooms when complete. But, you know, I don't really know.
The Albion Basin above.
The Summer Road.
Grizzly Gulch.
Geraniums.
Heading up the road.
Lupine.
White bog orchids.
The Summer Road again. It feels like a dirt road when driving it, but here we can see there is at least an underlying layer of asphalt.
Some snow hanging on Greeley Hill.
Golden columbine.
Lupine.
Paintbrush.
More lupine.
Monkshood and lupine.
More.
The road.
More golden columbines.
Monkshood.
Paintbrush.
White bog orchid.
Monkshood.
Purple monkey flower.
White bog orchid.
Old microwave tower.
Lupine.
At about a half mile up you reach the turn off for the Albion Meadows.
Trees on the ridge.
Geraniums.
Little side stream.
Paintbrush.
Lighter shade.
Nice flat section before the climb.
Western cone flower.
Bluebells.
Rocky outcrop. The trailhead and parking lot for the Catherine Pass Trail is on top of that.
View down.
Where this trail connects to the main Upper Albion Meadows Trail. Go forward.
Squirrel.
Arnica.
The next trail split. Forward is the main Upper Albion Meadows Trail. Right leads to the Homerun and Snake Pit Trails. I prefer to go up the Homerun Trail, and down the Albion Meadows Trail. So right it is.
Almost immediately you hit the next split. Left is the Homerun Trail, forward leads to the Snake Pit trail, which will take you down to the Albion and Wildcat Bases. So left.
Devils Castle and Sugarloaf Peak.
Arnica.
Lots of it.
The peaks above again.
Lupine.
Lots of it.
Flower lined trail.
More lupines.
Paintbrush.
The peaks above.
Nice little mix of flowers.
The peaks and some arnica.
Lots of arnica.
Snow machine.
The meadows above.
Lupine.
Various paintbrush.
Nice mix.
Mint.
The peaks.
With flowers.
Geraniums.
With Devils Castle.
Continuing along.
Hitting a large patch of arnica.
A whole hillside of it!
So pretty.
With the peaks.
Below.
Greeley Hill.
Mine tailings.
The hill above.
Lupine.
Arnica.
Ladybug.
Lupine.
Columbines.
Paintbrush.
Yellow paintbrush. Its really rare for me to find yellow ones, yet, this is the 2nd time this year. Fun.
Closer.
Another one that is right next to the others.
The first 3 again.
The peaks again.
Sugarloaf Peak.
Devils Castle.
Little Cottonwood Creek is in that little gully below.
Paintbrush.
Different shades of geraniums.
Another trail split. Right leads to Germania Pass, which we haven’t done yet. Left leads to the Cecret Lake Trailhead and up to Cecret Lake as well as the Catherine Pass Trailhead.
Devils Castle.
Sugarloaf Peak and Sugarloaf Pass.
Alf’s Restaurant. It is only open during ski season. I think they would make bank if they opened in summer. I’d love to stop in for a bite and a beer after that hike.
Next trail split. Left will head up to the Catherine Pass Trailhead, and Right to the Cecret Lake Trailhead. I thought about going left and then down the Albion Meadow Trail but, it didn’t look like it was blooming very much yet so instead we thought we’d head towards the Cecret Lake Trailhead for a little variety and to avoid more climbing.
The side of Alf’s.
The front.
Little Cottonwood Creek.
Devils Castle.
Sugarloaf Peak.
Lupine.
Some cute little yellow things.
Into the forest.
Large boulder.
The creek.
Debris. Last time we were up here there was a large pipe, so I am guessing this is left from burying it.
Little waterfall.
The supreme ski lift.
Recovery takes time.
Boardwalk over a short marshy area.
White bog orchids and some elephant heads. I was starting to wonder if I was going to see an elephant head today.
More.
The creek again.
Marsh.
Continuing up.
More elephant heads.
Trail split. They both lead to Cecret Lake with only an additional 3/4 of a mile (one way). Left will take your though the parking lots and the main trailhead though. But I just wanted to go a little further through the marshy area, so I went right.
Columbines.
Forest.
Western cone flowers.
White bog orchids.
Columbine.
Bluebells.
Monkshood.
Closer.
Finally got a closer view of an elephant head. The flowers really do look like elephant heads.
More.
Some daisy like flowers.
White bog orchids and elephant heads.
The lower Cecret Lake parking lot again.
Paintbrush.
Closer.
Giant boulder.
Little pond.
Another.
Both of them.
Paintbrush.
Forest and Sugarloaf Peak.
Split boulder.
Daisy like flower.
Lupine.
The creek.
Elephant heads.
Closer.
Marshy area.
Columbine.
Alright, we went far enough for today. If we had more time I might have pushed on up to Cecret Lake, but meh. It was getting late.
The creek again.
The split boulder again.
Sideways tree growing out of it.
Back to the little ponds.
Monkshood.
Elephant heads and white bog orchids.
White bog orchid and some geraniums.
Elephant head.
Catherine Pass.
The creek.
Sugarloaf Peak.
The creek.
Back down to Alf’s.
Trail split. Left is the Homerun Trail we came up. Right is the main Upper Albion Meadows Trail. We will go down that today.
The Albion Meadow trail above. See it doesn’t look like it has much in the way of flowers right now.
Jacobs ladder.
Geraniums.
Western cone flowers.
The meadow above with the Albion Meadow Trail.
Continuing along.
Mint.
In a different color.
Paintbrush.
Different shade.
Paintbrush and mint.
A hill full of mixed flowers.
Greeley Hill.
A colorful spot.
With Catherine Pass above.
Lupine.
With Devils Castle.
Flowers.
Mine tailings.
The split for the Albion Meadow Trail to the right. It will take you up to the Catherine Pass Trailhead. We continued forward and down the main trail.
Large patch of arnica.
And what do I spy on the hill across the way?
A pair of moose! Hello cuteys!
It looks like a male and female.
The group next to us who didn’t have as long of a lens as me thought there was a male on the right and a female on the left. I thought they were both males, but then focused on the one on the left think I definitely saw antlers. They said males do not hang out together, and I said, I assure you, they do sometimes. We just saw it much closer last weekend. But they were right, in a wrong way. This is a male and female.
Even with the telephoto lens these are not the best photos, but hey, it is still fun seeing them! Lets see, that makes 10 moose so far this year! Last year we only saw a baby and momma, once.
Just doing moosey things.
Alright, back to the trail.
Pretty hillside.
Below.
Again.
Better view of the flowers.
The hill again.
Flowers and peaks.
The hillside again.
Potgut squirrel “prairie dogging”.
Just doing squirrel things.
Paintbrush.
Prairie dogging again.
Uphill.
Downhill.
These lupines have weird beetles on them.
Better. Google lens is suggesting a blister beetle. Which release a toxin that causes rashes and blisters. Good thing I don't make a habit of handling weird bugs. I was leaning towards a tiger beetle. Honestly it looks like they could be either one I'm not very good at identifying beetles I guess.
Greeley Hill.
The moose friends again.
Both looking in this general direction.
Just doing moosey things.
The peaks.
Nice mixes.
With the peaks.
The hill below.
Geraniums.
Lighter shade, plus some mint.
Paintbrush.
Closer.
Pretty hillside.
Closer.
Various paintbrush.
Larkspur.
Flowers across the way.
Greeley Hill.
The moose are still hanging out on it.
Down canyon.
Grizzly Gulch.
Microwave tower.
Where the homerun trail connects.
Penstemon.
Arnica.
The next trail split. Left will take you down to the Albion Base. Forward will take you back to the Summer Road.
Looking down. It looks like there is still a line of cars waiting to come up the Summer Road.
Up towards the Catherine Pass Trailhead.
A deer friend. Hello!
I like it when they don’t bolt. Like, we’re just passing through, go back to doing deer things.
Some kind of seeds.
Last time we were here there was a little waterfall here. But there was still a lot of snow melting.
Side stream.
Paintbrush.
Back to the Summer Road.
Heading down.
Down canyon.
Continuing down.
White bog orchid.
Forest.
Golden columbine.
Monkshood.
Daisy like flowers.
Continuing down.
Western cone flower. This is about as showy as you’ll see with these guys.
View down again.
Starting to get a bit of a sunset.
Lone flower patch in the rocks.
Starting to hit the aspens.
Golden columbines.
Finally some fireweeds! Yay! I think that covers most of my favorites today. Just missing elk weed and shooting stars.
Continuing down.
What is this fluffy boy?
View down.
There is still a line to come up!
View down again.
Grizzly Gulch.
Fading light on the peaks.
View down again.
The toll booth again.
What I suspect will be restrooms eventually.
View down again.
The Historic Bay City Tunnel.
Then we drove down to the Albion Base.
With the construction.
View up towards the Albion Basin.
Closer view of Devils Castle.
View down.
Closer.
Heading down the canyon (PSP).
Lovely color (PSP).
Landis liked this old bucket, so he pulled over to get a better view of it. We assumed it is an old miners bucket, or reproduction of one.
Continuing down (PSP).
Loving the color (PSP).
Continuing down (PSP).
Loving the color (PSP).
One of my absolute favorite views with some color (PSP).
I just love being able to see all the way down this perfect U shaped canyon (PSP).
Again (PSP).
The 7 Curves (PSP). Landis absolutely loves driving this section of the canyon.
Is it just me, or are the sunflowers early this year again? (PSP). I tend to associate them with the end of summer.
Nearing the mouth of the canyon (PSP).
Then that last little pop of sunset color (PSP).
Wow! (PSP).
Bonus: We decided to do a quick detour up the Bell Canyon Preservation Trailhead parking lot to get a better view.
Wow! This is a great spot to take in the sunset. And, we were not the only people who thought of that.
Again.
Uh oh! What is on fire?
It looks like it was a brush fire near the mouth of Parleys Canyon (outside link). That looks like it might have been in Parleys Historic Nature park! Luckily it sounds like they got it under control pretty quickly.
Back to the sunset.
Closer.
Well, that was fun! I am actually a little surprised to see that many wildflowers, considering the weak winter, and dry spring we had. The Summer Road was busy, but for the most part I didn’t feel too crowded on the trails. Maybe a little bit on the main Upper Meadows Trail, but otherwise, not too bad. We saw most of my favorite flowers today, plus, even if they were wayyy off in the distance, a moose sighting is always nice. 10 squirrels today.
As for difficulty, it is a bit of a climb, but not too bad. I am between a DR3 and 4. I guess I will settle on 3.
Dogs are not allowed in Little Cottonwood Canyon, so be sure to leave Fido home for this one.
