Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cecret Lake


It's pronounced "secret", but somewhere along the line so many years ago, somebody decided that the rational spelling of the word wasn't cool enough. It just HAD to be different. So Cecret Lake was spelled with a C.

But enough about the spelling.

Cecret Lake is nestled into the highest reaches of the Albion Basin - which is found at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. I had the day off yesterday due to plans to go to Aruba (which never fully materialized) so Tyler and I decided to do some hiking.

We left at around 1:00pm after soaking ourselves in copious amounts of sunscreen. My experience from hiking Timp a few weeks before taught me that if you're going to where the atmosphere no longer offers it's friendly protection from the sun, you should wear sunscreen, or face the consequences of remorseless UV rays. One thing I did forget yesterday, though, was a pair of shoes. I learned quickly that hiking in flip-flops brings a great deal of blunt-force trauma to your toes. Shoes are for more than just support. They protect you from the evils of rocks.

We had a great time, though. The hike up to the lake is pretty chill, and once up there we lounged for awhile on the rocks near the water and watched a slew of salamanders carelessly drift from rock to rock on the muddy bottom. Ty decided we needed more of a challenging hike, so we made our way up away from the lake to what looked like a ski-patrol tower. We were up there for a few minutes enjoying the view from our newfound steel edifice when we suddenly heard an enormous BOOOM. It didn't sound like lightning, nor tumbling rock, but had the distinct report of high explosive. The deafening roar echoed off the walls of the canyon for a good 10-15 seconds before fading into the alpine calm we'd known before. We saw no smoke, nor any evidence of an explosion, then, nor when we were driving down the canyon.

We never figured out what it was.

All in all, I had a great time with Ty. I couldn't think of a better way to spend a day off. :)

-Barry

You all know how I love my wildflowers.

Ty and the lake.

Gotta love that camera timer.

Salamandus Cecretus.

Up on the ski patrol tower, I found this wonderful bolt.

And these wires crossing.

Be free log. Be free.

This little guy (or girl) kept peeking out at us as we walked by.

4 comments:

  1. Nice to see my boys enjoying nature! Wonder what the mystery boom was? No swimming in the lake?

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  2. You have such a great talent for photography, Barry. You bring out the beauty of everything you capture with your lens, especially the ones you take of nature. Keep up the good work!

    That loud noise you heard could have been someone firing off a shotgun. Those little canyons make even the smallest noise sound like a canon.

    Nice picture of the ground squirrel! We have tons of those around here. We call them "squeakies". There's usually one sitting on or near the back porch when I get to work in the morning. They'll usually squeak angrily at me for a while before they dives into their little holes. They're so cute.

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  3. What a wonderful Brother you are. Alyssa is very sad that her Big Sis is leaving.

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  4. Barry love the pictures! I want to bring that little chipmunk home! We need to hike! I have next week off (no job) so let's play!!!

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