It’s quite a drive to Alta, even in the summertime. Parking is obnoxious. Which is to say that there is very little available. We had to wait in line for about an hour while the park rangers held up traffic and allowed one car to enter when one car left.
The trailhead starts at an elevation of 10,000 feet, so the air here is thin. You’ve been warned!
So far, the pictures above show the main trail that goes to the lake. There is a short rock climb before arriving just above the lake, then you have to descend a tiny bit to walk the trail that runs along the shoreline.
In the background is the peak of the mountain. It doesn’t look very high from that last picture above, but I assure you, it’s quite the climb.
Yes, you need to shimmy across that thin ledge. It’s not too difficult. Here’s Michelle doing it right now:
This is where the trail gets going. There’s a bit of a rock scramble first, then it goes up steep:
As you can see from the last picture above, we are already high above the lake.
Now the trail becomes steep. It’s tricky to get traction as you ascend the mountain.
This is the point where we threw in the towel (we’ll return to this trail and reach the peak at a later date. It’s still on our bucket list). We traveled back down the steep part of the trial until we reached a branch in the trail and took the other direction back to the car:
There’s a point in this trail where the downward slope is just boulders. It’s a mess but you can pick your way down until you sight the trail inside the forested area.
Eventually, we came out into a field of flowers.
Here’s a final picture of the road coming down from Alta:
