Day 7 - Hike to Lake Cecret

During the night the last two nights, it's rained.  One the first night, Daddy and I got up around 3am and watched the storm.  The lightening show on the other side of the mountain (the Park City side) was amazing.  Even though I was tired and ready to go back to bed, it was worth getting up to see this light show and rain.  Yesterday, the night rain did not affect the day activities.  Little did we know that it would affect today.

Our plan for the day was to go back to Park City.  This time, instead of shopping all day, we thought it would be fun for the boys to play on a play ground or go to a park and then we would drive around the area.  After breakfast, we loaded up in the car to head out.  We did not get far because the second avalanche gate was down blocking the road.  The officer explained that there were several mud slides that covered the road and at least one of them took the road out.  We could not get out until at least 1pm.  Now what?  Fortunately, the day before, some of us drove to Alta (the town and ski mountain is east and on the other side of Snowbird) to see what was in the area.  The area was amazing!  There was a dirt road that was closed that day but scheduled to be open on July 4th.  This road led to a hiking trail to Cecret Lake.

Because the road was closed and we had several hours "trapped" in the area, we decided to head to Alta and hike the 1 mi trail to the lake with the boys.  Most of the trail was flat until we got closer to the lake when the switchbacks started.  It also got really rocky at this point on the trail.

Just starting off on the trailhead

Because the mountain has over 100 inch snow base in the winter, we thought this sign was interesting because of how high and out of place it looked when there was no snow.

Collin, Foard's daddy and Foard

One of the many streams crossing the trail.  The boys loved how cold the water was.

Still looking for the lake

A small stream crossed the trail at several points and the boys had fun walking on the rocks to cross or jump over the stream.  They also wanted to climb most of the big rocks they saw.  There were several points along the way that we wondered if we would ever get to the lake.  When we did finally get there, I am glad we did not give up and turn around.  It was beautiful!!!  I did not linger long close to the lake because there were TONS of mosquitos.  I was expecting fewer bugs in Utah but there were more than I expected. 

To rest from the hike up and to enjoy the lake area, we sat for a little on one of the largest rock formations around the lake and then we walked around the lake.  Collin tried to skip some rocks with little luck.  The cool breeze was wonderful.  We all needed it because we worked up a sweat.

Collin looking over the trail we just used to hike to this point.  The valley below was breath taking.

Happy to have made it to the lake

View of the entire lake

The boys did great hiking on the way down.  Collin did scratch his leg on the initial decent and I thought it was all over.  Neither Daddy or I was about to carry him down.  He did continue to hike down but the cranky factor was getting higher and higher.  By the time we got to the car, we had been gone 2 hours and hiked 2 miles.  We thought the boys did fantastic for what we just did.