Weather:  Quite warm, few clouds, very hazy.
Present were:  Mike, K7DOU;  Time, KK7EF;  Ron, K7RJ;  Clint, KA7OEI.
Destination:  Grandeur Peak, above Church Fork in Mill Creek Canyon.
Question of the day:  "Did you see the snake?"
Total distance:  5.3 miles, round trip.
Times:  Depart vehicle:  1844;  Reached trailhead (end of blacktop):  1852;  Reached lower pass/overlook:  2009;  Departed lower pass/overlook for peak:  2020;  Reached peak:  2050;  Departed peak:  2126;  Reached lower pass/overlook:  2142;  Reached trailhead:  2232.
Altitudes in feet ASL (approx) from topo map:  Vehicle at gate:  5720;  Trailhead at end of blacktop:  5975; Lower pass/overlook:  7580;  Peak:  8299 (from GPS:  8284)
Elevation gain/loss:  2579/2324
Local sunset on this date:  9:02 PM - (We've lost about a minute of daylight since last week.)

Images (136-861k each, .JPG):
 

• IMG02557h - A rattlesnake, just up from the trailhead (Sorry for the blurry picture - you'll just have to trust me...)
• IMG02558 - Looking across to the south side of Mill Creek canyon
• IMG02560 - Looking across the valley, to the lake, from the lower saddle below Grandeur Peak.  The color has mostly to do with the high particulate concentration in the air.  #2561 is a zoomed shot of downtown Salt Lake City.
• IMG02563 - Near sunset, as seen on the trail from the lower saddle to the peak.
• IMG02565 - Ron and Tim at one of the saddles on the way to the peak.
• IMG02567 - Alpenglow, across the canyon
• IMG02568 - For 10 minutes or so, the refraction of the atmosphere was such that a pillar of sunlight appeared below the sun itself, extending to the visible horizon as shown in this picture.
• IMG02576h - Elaine, Ron's wife, was able to shine a green laser pointer toward us.  This time exposure shows the cumulative brightness of several of these flashes.  This image is an extreme close-up of portion of this image showing the laser dot in detail.  One can easily see the effects of the discrete photosites of the camera's imager chip interacting with the coherent wavefront of the laser light, causing an interference pattern.  (The individual photosites are 9.12 µm square.)
• IMG02577 - The Salt Lake Valley, 15 minutes after sunset, as seen from Grandeur Peak.

Note that GPS elevation data is often a bit "ratty" due to frequent blockage and degradation of the satellite signal.

• The recorded GPS track of the hike.
• The elevation profile of the hike
• A more detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks)

July 6 was the hottest day of the year -  to date, anyway...  Because of this, we seemed to have picked this hike - one of the lowest elevation, longest hikes that is practical on a Wednesday night - to do this week.

From the customary parking lot we piled into Mike's car and went to Mill Creek canyon.  To be on the safe side, Mike parked outside the gate, knowing that it was very likely that it wouldn't be until after 10 PM (the time at which the gates are officially closed) before everyone would be back at the car.  Parking outside the gate involves an extra 0.3 miles of walking uphill on pavement even before one gets to the trailhead - but this probably to be less of a hassle than trying to get someone to come up and rescue you if your car is behind the gate once it is locked.

We weren't more than a few hundred feet up from the trailhead when we heard an unmistakable hissing/rattling noise and observed a healthy-looking rattlesnake heading into the brush from the trail.  While it is fairly common to see a rattlesnake on the Grandeur Peak trail, we were somewhat surprised to see one so close to the trailhead.  Apparently, this snake wasn't alone, either, as Mike reported having had seen another shortly afterwards.

The remainder of the hike up to the first saddle that provides an overlook of Salt Lake City was uneventful - just long and hot.  Once we were up there and we'd taken the requisite photographs and seen the scenes, Mike began his trip down, wanting to avoid stumbling along in darkness complete enough to require a flashlight.  The rest of us, not having as much sense, continued upwards to the peak.

We arrived on the peak about 13 minutes before sunset and Ron called Elaine on the phone and asked her to flash us - with a green laser.  While we all knew that we would be able to see the laser just fine, it's always interesting to see it done and to amaze at how bright it seems to be at such a distance.  Of course, we reciprocated, and flashed Elaine (with a red laser) and she was able to see it just fine.  During our stay on the peak I took several time exposures (using the "bulb" setting) and was able to catch some of the brief flashes from the green laser.  Just before leaving, I brought out my equipment (a camera flash unit, of course!) and flashed Elaine again (with the photoflash unit) and, as expected, it was easily spotted by not only Elaine,  but Kirk Bowman - who happened to be listening on the same simplex frequency - who had wandered outside to look.  Also visible - but quite a bit dimmer - was a single white LED flashlight:  No doubt it would have been much more obvious had it been darker.

One feature of the sunset, obvious from the pictures, is that this was very "warm" looking, tinging all that could be seen with orange and reddish hues with visibility reduced by an obvious haze.  According to the newspaper, the local meteorologists were somewhat puzzled as to the unexpected density of the haze, unsure of its source:  While the lighting of 4th of July fireworks tends to cause a lot of haze, it was expected that that would have cleared out already, so the next best guess was smoke from distant wildfires.

The trip down was uneventful, aside from the usual stumbling in the dark.  At about the time we crossed the last bridge, Tim called Mike on the radio and asked if he could come up to the trailhead and save is the 0.3 mile walk down the pavement.  Just at that time, the sheriff arrived to close the gate, but he was kind enough to delay closing it (at Mike's request) until the lot of us had been retrieved from the trailhead.  While getting into Mike's car, we remembered that just as we were leaving the peak, we passed a group of three couples on their way up, none of them obviously sporting any sleeping gear:  We saw two vehicles at the trailhead and wondered exactly what their plans were as they would no doubt find that their cars were behind a locked gate when they returned...

Once back at the meeting point (the Big Cottonwood parking lot) I discovered that I had not left my HT in my car as I had thought - and it didn't seem to be hiding in Mike's car, either.  This cause all sorts of scenarios to be envisioned, ranging from it falling off a vehicle as it drove off to it having been pick up off the ground and taken by someone unknown.  Fortunately, a more thorough search by Mike (after he'd arrived home) recovered it from a crevice in his car.

The rest of the group decided to find some eats - but after 11 pm on a weekday night, this proved to be a challenge.  It was assumed that the TGI Friday's on Foothill would be open as late as the one near Cottonwood Mall, but this was not so.  Eventually, a still-smaller subset of the group found a late night mexican drive-through and enjoyed their meal on the restaurant's patio in a gusting wind. (Remember:  If nothing memorable happened, it wouldn't be memorable...)

• If you want one (or more) of these images and wish some sort of adjustment (color, brightness, exposure, etc.) please let me know:  All of these image have been processed in some way.
• These images are 136-861k in size, .JPG and are in chronological order.
• No-one ever said that all of these images (or any of them) were good.  Some of them may have definite focus/exposure "issues."
• EXIF data is present for most of the images, showing time, date, and precise exposure conditions.  Recent versions of Irfanview will show this in the "View->Image Information->EXIF" tab.  Note that cropping/noise reduction required the use of another program which may have removed some/most of this EXIF data.
• Images suffixed with "h" are half-size.  This was done for images that were somewhat out of focus (due to misfocus or camera/subject movement associated with long shutter times) or those that required some extra noise reduction and had lost some detail anyway.
• All images taken using a Sigma SD-10 camera.  All were taken using the 18-50mm zoom lens, except for #2561, which was taken using the 55-200mm zoom lens.

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