Images (.JPG format):

• IMG03957 - Two moose, grazing on the shore of Lake Dog.
  
• IMG03960 - The now mostly-collapsed ore dump at the Big Cottonwood Mine.  #3959 shows the collapsed portal.
  
• IMG03961 - Across the way, looking toward Scott's Peak.
  
• IMG03967 - The obligatory group picture:  L->R:  Gordon, Ron, Chris, Dale, Clint.
• IMG03968 - Sunset cloud lighting behind Millicent.  Similar, with a much wider view is #3970.
  
• IMG03973 - Ron, sitting in the (near) darkness by the cascade.
• IMG03976 - This is a picture of Ron sitting by the cascade.  In this picture, I was illuminating the scene with a very high-powered red LED.  Why?  Just 'cuz...
  

• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail. 
  
• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks, 523k)
  

"Fewer photons for all!"  At least, that's what it seems like this time of year.  With sunset at only a hair past 8 pm (and occurring before 8 before the weekend) our hikes are either getting shorter, more of them taking place in the dark, or both.

Upon gathering in the parking lot, the weather didn't look as though it was going to play along nicely:  There were lightning bolts a-plenty to be seen, along with several smoke plumes in the foothills around the valley from lightning-induced fires.  Not only that, at about the official gathering time, those in the parking lot retreated to the cover of vehicles to escape the fierce, but brief, downpour.

Deciding that this was not the sort of weather to do something high and exposed like Sugarloaf Peak, Gordon (or someone) suggested the loop around Lake Dog.  Another suggestion was Cardiff Fork, but this had the problem of us not knowing how much of the trail (the road, actually) had recently been posted and was off-limits - and there really wasn't enough daylight to risk a possibly-abortive attempt to find out.

Lake Dog Loop it was, so we headed up the canyon.  When we got to Brighton, it was either sprinkling very lightly, or threatening to do so, but we charged ahead.  Upon arriving at Lake Dog, we noticed two moose grazing near the water, quite a distance away.  We watched them for a time and at about the time the wind, rain and lightning started, they began to amble off into the trees.  While most of the group seemed to have the sense to don either ponchos or jackets, I simply hid under my hat:  It never did rain enough to get me very wet, fortunately...

After a bit more hiking, we arrived at the Big Cottonwood mine.  Chris, who had spent quite a bit of time in the area as his family had an acquaintance who had worked a mine in the area (someone named Dick Knight) told us a bit about his recollections of what he'd heard about these mines.  We were all somewhat surprised at the extent to which the ore dumping station had collapsed (see a picture of the building from a previous Wednesday Night hike in the area just two years ago here.)  In a quick side-trip, I followed Chris to the now-collapsed portal of the mine, observing plenty of old rails and wire rope strewn about the area.

Moving on, we caught the occasional glimpse of the nearby lakes and the interplay of the setting sun on the storm clouds making for some dramatic lighting in the distance.  Following the road around, we eventually stopped at a pretty good overlook where we could see most of the major features in the neighborhood and paused to talk, take a few pictures, and just generally look around.  Shortly after leaving this spot, we came across one of the service roads and followed it along until we encountered the trail from Snake Creek Pass (and Clayton Peak) and took it back to Lake Dog, thereby completing the loop.

The hike down was uneventful, aside from a bit of wind and some sprinkling.  At about this time, my arms were starting to get cold, but not enough so that I felt inclined to stop and put on a jacket.  Before too long, we arrived at the vehicles, went down the canyon, and returned to the parking lot, after which all of us (except Chris) went to Rocky Mountain Pizza Company to have a dime lime and listen to the live Bluegrass music.

Comments:

• Because all of the images were originally taken stored in raw binary format, they have been down-processed to .JPG for web posting:  If requested, different color/contrast/brightness may be applied and/or higher-quality uncompressed versions may be available for most of these image.
• 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 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" (if any) 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 and were taken using the 18-50mm zoom lens, except as noted in the EXIF data.
  

Go to the 2006 Wednesday Night Hike page, or main Wednesday Night Hike index page.