The signpost located at the Cecret Lake trailhead parking lot.

Images (.JPG format):

• IMG03978 - After hiking what seems like only a hundred feet or so, you run across this sign that states the distance to Cecret Lake.  Wow - so much distance covered so quickly!
• IMG03982 - What appears to be a hawk, one of several making plenty of noise in the area just above Cecret Lake.  An un-cropped view is here.
• IMG03984 - Cecret Lake, from above.
• IMG03989 - A bull moose, happily munching away in the cirque below Germania Pass.  His harem was not visible at this time.
• IMG03991 -  The obligatory group picture.  L->R:  Tim, Dale, Ron, Gordon, Clint
  

• 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, 472k)
  

The sun sets earlier every day - at least in the Northern Hemisphere.  With over an hour of daylight lost since the first week of July (when the latest sunset occurs around here) the hikes are getting still shorter and/or darker - and colder.

With our choices increasingly limited, we decided to go for Germania Pass - the pass at which the Sugarloaf lift terminates, just to the west of Sugarloaf Peak itself.  Knowing that sunset was now before 8pm, we didn't have any real intentions to try to make it to the peak, so we didn't try.

Piling into Tim's vehicle, we headed up the canyon.  One nice feature about these later-season hikes is that there isn't as much competition for parking spots in the various lots:  This was certainly true of the one at the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon, and it was also true of the trailhead parking lot in Albion Basin:  On more than one occasion, the driver had to find a spot alongside the road as hike a few extra hundred feet back to the trailhead...

On starting up the trail, I noticed something peculiar:  The first six-tenths of a mile went by really fast!  Just at the parking lot, there is a standard-issue wooden sign announcing that Cecret Lake was 1.0 miles down the trail, yet, what seemed to be only a hundred or so feet further there was the nice, illustrated sign with maps and pictures that pronounced that Cecret Lake was now just 0.4 miles away and I was amazed at how quickly I'd covered the distance!  The remaining 0.4 miles to Cecret Lake were absolutely grueling by comparison...  (Note:  The actual distance from the parking lot to Cecret Lake is pretty close to 0.8 miles, so neither of them are right!)

Despite the extreme physical trials, we made it to Cecret Lake.  Being this late in the season, it was 6-8 feet lower than the summertime levels that I'd noted in years past.  Taking advantage of the low water level, I decided to go down to the shoreline and take a few pictures (none of which were very good...) from vantage points that would normally be underwater.  While doing this, I noticed something suddenly slither into the water:  A salamander.  A century or more ago, many of the early canyon explorers noted that "Dogfish" (the 19th century common name for Salamander) were very common in most of the lakes in Big and Little Cottonwood canyons.  These creatures were so common, in fact, that Big Cottonwood Canyon ended up with three lakes named after these things:  There are still two bodies of water called "Dog Lake" and the third lake was "Electric Lake" - named after "Electric Dogfish" (yet another name for Salamander) - but this lake is now known simply as "Lake Solitude."  Being that Little Cottonwood doesn't have its own "Dog Lake" we wondered if it might be appropriate that this lake be renamed.  The pronunciation of "Dog Lake" is easier for visitors to manage than "Cecret Lake" anyway...  When asked if the Salamander had said anything to me, all I could remember having heard were the words "And it came to pass...":  After all, it wasn't a white Salamander...  Note:  Salamanders are now fairly rare in the lakes along the Wasatch and like many amphibians are considered to be "marker" species indicating the relative health of their environment.

Continuing up the ridge, we noticed what appeared to be Red tail Hawks on patrol:  We didn't see exactly what it was that they were pursuing, but they did seem to be pretty intent.  Shortly after entering the cirque below Germania Pass, I noticed a very large bull moose a hundred or so feet off to the left, munching away and occasionally scraping his rack in the vegetation.  Since he seemed to be happy doing whatever it was that he was doing, we were content to allow him to keep doing it in peace.

We arrived at Germania Pass only a few minutes before official sunset.  Of course, the sun had long since set over the nearby hills - or we assumed it would have, had there been few enough clouds to have gotten any alpenglow.  Nevertheless, we loitered around for a few minutes at the pass, looking around, and briefly posing for the group photo before we decided to get off cold, windy ridge:  The measured temperature was about 48 degrees F.

On our way down we noticed that our bull moose was now flanked by what appeared to be two cows, but they (fortunately) paid more attention to their forage than to us.  By the time we got to Cecret Lake it was pretty dark, but that was perfect for the activities that went on over the next several minutes:  Dashing rocks on the ground.  As we'd noticed years ago, the rocks in this area tend to "spark" fairly readily when hit (see the 2004 page.)  On this occasion, there was a brief competition to see who could get a rock to spark the most number of times after it was thrown.  While there were a number of "two-sparkers" (where the rock sparked not only on the first impact, but also on the next bounce) it wasn't conclusive that anyone had managed a "three-sparker".  Perhaps this is a goal for next time.  On the way down the trail, I kept noticing out of the corner of my eye some occasional flashes of light just ahead of me.  Eventually, I grabbed a handful of gravel from the trail and threw it on the ground, observing numerous sparks and concluded that what I'd been seeing we sparks from the gravel kicked as we walked along.  As we descended, we noticed a glow in the clouds to the east:  We had to assume that the full moon during this time of year would have been spectacular - had we been able to see it...

Finally, we got back to the vehicle and made it safely back to the parking lot but alas, it was too late for pizza and there wasn't enough critical mass to go to TGI Friday's, either.  Maybe next time.

According to Keller, Cecret Lake gets its peculiar spelling from mining claims made in the area in 1905.  At that time, this body of water was known as "Flora Lake" - a name used on county maps at least until 1937 and even some local maps as late as 1980.  The "Flora" name (precise origin unknown) was one of several names for this lake:  In the 1860's, it was also known as "Mountain Lake" as well as "Little Cottonwood Lake" - not to mention "Lake Minnie" named by Lambourne and Culmer who had been wandering around the Wasatch naming things.  After about 1885, it was also known as "Cases Lake" after George Case, a long-time miner in the area.

The "Cecret" name comes from a number of claims filed in the area by the "Secret Mining and Milling Company."  Since many of those making the claims weren't particularly literate, it wasn't all that unusual that some of the names were "creatively spelled" - and since it was recorded in that way in the mining recorder's books, it was etched in stone, surviving much longer than the company that (almost) bore its name.

About Albion Basin:

The basin is named after the Albion Mining Company, incorporated in 1898 from other mining properties in the area left abandoned or little-used after being repeatedly wiped out by snowslides in the 1870's.  This company was extant until 1921 when its name disappeared, having been absorbed by the newly-formed Hecla Mines Company.

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.

The information about Cecret Lake and Albion Basin is from "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller.