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The Albion Meadows Trail is a fantastic trail through a lovely hillside above Alta. The trail features excellent views of amazing peaks and in just a few weeks should be covered in wildflowers. I also see wildlife here fairly often. Normally I save this trail for wildflower season, but I figured with the Summer Road being closed to cars still, maybe we would see more wildlife. Sadly, that was not the case today, but it was still a lovely hike. There was also a lot more snow than I thought there would be after the dismal winter we had. We absolutely did not follow the main trails. Instead we followed ski runs today. So, uh, check out this link for a normal summer season guide.
Quick Details:
Length: We did about 3 miles today.
Trail Type: Out and back with loop and balloon options.
Difficulty: It is a climb. DR4.
Elevation Gain: We did about 590 feet today.
Restroom: Normally there are flush toilets at the Alta Ski Shop, but it was closed today. We must have caught it between seasons. But they did have a pair of porta potties.
Dogs? No. Little Cottonwood Canyon is watershed.
Other Info:
To Get Here:
Drive to the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Park, and head up the Summer Road on foot.
Little Cottonwood Canyon from across the valley (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)).
The mouth of the canyon (PSP).
Wasatch National Forest (PSP).
Ephemeral waterfall (PSP).
I still haven't figured out what waterfall this is (PSP).
Fun clouds (PSP).
The Hellgate Cliffs (PSP).
Collins Gulch (PSP).
The Trail:
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The Summer Road is closed to vehicles, but is still open to walk.
View down canyon.
Grizzly Gulch.
On to the Summer Road. Whoever owns that snowmobile is gonna have to come haul it out. I don’t think you can just take them over gravel. But, what do I know?
Lots of snow machines.
One of many springs we found today.
Couple patches of snow.
View down canyon.
Weird fuzzy buds.
Some flowers starting to come up.
I wonder why this was cut this way.
Starting to see a LOT of snow! Oh boy.
Little stream.
More snow.
Much less on the north side.
The stream again.
At about 4/10ths of a mile we reached the turn off for the Albion Meadows. We had a little back and forth as to if we should continue our original plan, or maybe walk up the Summer Road instead. We decided to go up a little way and see how it was.
Lots of snow.
And then dry! Hooray! That actually gave us a false sense of security.
Snowy peaks.
Squirrel.
Small snow melt waterfall. I have never seen that here before, but then again, I generally save this trail for a little later in the season.
More snow melt streams.
Sunnyside Ski Lift and the rocky outcrop that the Catherine Pass trailhead sits on.
Down hill.
Back to snow.
The ridge that the Catherine Pass trailhead sits on again.
Little patch of forest.
Greeley Hill.
Dry spot. Again, giving us false hope.
The main Upper Meadows Trail and Sugarloaf Peak.
The trail out to the Homerun Trail looked more dry so we headed that way.
Uphill back to tons of snow. Ho boy.
Downhill.
Well, we can’t see the trail so I guess we will just follow the snow cat tracks up this ski run which is what the trail was named after, Homerun.
Devils Castle and Sugarloaf Peak.
Devils Castle.
Looking up towards the Catherine Pass Trailhead again.
Continuing up a steeper section. Ooph. Yeah, I have no idea where the trail is. But I figure, with all this snow we aren’t causing any damage. Plus, as I mentioned they have been driving heavy snow cats on it.
Greeley Hill.
Sugarloaf peak.
Devils Castle.
Looking back down.
Greeley Hill again.
Some mine tailings on it.
Grizzly Gulch.
Willows.
Little Cottonwood Creek below.
Greeley Hill.
Sugarloaf Peak.
Continuing up.
Little Cottonwood Creek.
Alf’s.
Devils Castle.
Old microwave tower.
Forest and peaks.
Sugarloaf Peak.
Devils Castle.
Lots of snow.
Forest.
I was planning to take the main Upper Albion Meadows trail down but uh.. I can’t see it. I know the 2 trails split right about here, but with all the snow I am not sure where either trail is.
Someone is driving one of the snow cats up this ski run.
With Devils Castle.
Again.
Alf’s.
Sugarloaf Peak.
The access road to Alf’s. It looks like they have plowed it.
The back side of Alf’s.
Pile of sticks and such. It doesn’t look like the normal slash piles we have seen, but I am still leaning towards that being what it is.
The Supreme Ski Lift and the peaks above.
Another dry segment. Yay!
Devils Castle again.
The peaks.
Forest.
Lots of snow.
The creek.
Upstream.
Wait a minute.. we shouldn’t be crossing it yet. I know I can’t see the trail, but I thought this would follow the general path haha. Oh well, I guess it’s an adventure!
Big boulder.
Continuing along. Oh, it looks like we are following a ski run called Over the River.
Forest.
Snow melt stream.
Flowers starting to come up.
The access road to Alf’s, we decided to just head up to that since it was only about 15 feet away.
Forest and peaks.
The access road. You can see the snow cat tracks on it as well.
We debated about heading up to the Summer Road and just heading down that, but I thought maybe I could find our way to the main trail.
Snow.
Little snow heart. At first I thought this was the remnants of a snowman, but then figured it must have been a chunk that fell down from plowing.
The top of the Sunnyside Ski Lift.
The Catherine to Cecret Lake Connector. That probably would have been easy to follow down to the main trail, but I didn’t want to go up again.
The meadows.
Continuing down. You can see some snow boulders or.. snowders from the road being plowed.
More.
Sugarloaf Peak.
Devils Castle.
Both of them.
Greeley Hill.
Alf’s again.
Slow. Quite a few of the ski runs appear to converge here so it makes sense to slow them down some.
I know the Homerun and Upper Albion Meadows Trail split here… but I couldn’t tell where. So, we just continued down the Homerun ski run.
It looks like a snow cat may have come up after we did.
Snow machine.
Greeley Hill.
Mine tailings.
Oh, we can see a small patch of the Homerun Trail. But I am worried about losing it again.
So we will keep following the ski run.
The microwave tower again.
Looking back at the peaks behind us.
Continuing down.
More ski run signs.
I knew the trail back to the summer road was nearby and was able to find it without too much issue. If we missed it, we would have ended up at the Albion Base, which would mean we would have to climb back up to where we parked.
Woo dirt!!!
Forest.
Snow melt stream.
Continuing down.
It looks like Alta has a large fleet of snow cats! Wow.
Downhill.
Uphill.
More dirt.
The Sunnyside Ski Lift again.
Little spring that is literally bubbling out of the ground!
Quick video.
Another shot.
Snow melt streams.
The snow melt waterfall again.
Little tree farm.
Another little waterfall. We just followed our ears to it.
Downstream.
Back to the Summer Road. Phew!
Hairpin turn heading back up.
Snow.
Continuing down.
Fun clouds.
View down canyon.
More flowers starting to come up.
Forest.
More fuzzy buds.
Closer.
Down canyon again.
Damaged plants. We guessed it was from the plowing since only the ones next to the road had this damage, and you know it is about road height.
Patch of aspens.
Almost down to the gate.
Down canyon through the aspens.
It looks like there are a couple of new buildings at the Albion Base.
Down to the gate.
Down Canyon.
Grizzly Gulch again.
Some wallflowers. I grew these in my garden a few years ago, but they did not come back.
The Historic Bay City Tunnel (PSP).
The Albion Basin above (PSP).
Weird tubes (PSP). I imagine these must be something for skiers to avoid snow? I saw something similar at Brighton, but I still don’t really know what they are. If you can’t tell, I am not a skier.
The Alta Ski School (PSP).
Another snow melt waterfall (PSP).
Heading back down the canyon (PSP).
Starting to get a bit of a sunset (PSP).
Again (PSP).
One of my absolute favorite views (PSP). Even if it is a little dark.
Sunset (PSP).
Wow (PSP).
Closer (PSP).
Well that was fun! Quite a bit more snow than I expected, but honestly, with the lackluster winter we had this year, I kind of enjoyed tromping through it today. I was hoping with the road still closed there would be less people and hopefully more wildlife. We got a but not b. That’s okay though, it was still pretty and fun to do. 8 out of 10 squirrels today.
As for difficulty, it is a climb! DR4.
Dogs are not allowed in Little Cottonwood Canyon due to watershed restrictions. So be sure to leave Fido home.
