Silver Fork Snowshoe Hike

This is an easy hike and a nice get-away. You can find details on this and other hikes on a cool website:http://www.snowshoeutah.com/Table-of-Contents.html  I drove 12 miles up Big Cottonwood Canyon and parked in the lowest Solitude parking lot. I then followed the road in the lower right side of the lot. This goes past a bunch of cabins. One was for sale for  $1, 750,000.00!  When you can see that the road is ending (about .9 miles from the parking lot), look for a trail off to your right. Where the trail forks, stay to the right.  This is a beautiful area with lots of large pines.  At about the 2 mile mark (from the parking lot) you get to a blocked-off mine. My gps map identifies this as the Alta Tunnel.  There are some conduits coming out of it, hooked up to a couple of solar panels. I wonder what this is for. Perhaps some kind of monitoring equipment or maybe water pumps?  I considered crossing the gulch and making this a loop hike, but the powder snow on the north-facing slope was so deep that I sank to my knees even with my snowshoes on. Maybe next time I will wear the tails on my shoes for more buoyancy.

If you want to use this outhouse you will have
to shovel out a couple of feet of snow!

Nice large pines

Trekking poles ponder the saying, "Curiosity killed the cat."

Mouse tracks remind me of stitching on
a baseball.

The snow on this fallen log looked like a giant mouth, complete with a white uvula in back!

A busy woodpecker

Blue Jay on tree right next to woodpecker