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It was another hot day in the valley. It wasn't surprising, then, that we decided to see what the Brighton Bowl (at about 8700 feet) looked like. Even though this is a bit earlier than traditional hikes in the Brighton Bowl, we figured that with the light snowfall this past winter, things would be more "open" and snow-free than usual. We were right.
Another excuse for this particular hike was to, once again, seek out Lake Annette and see if, shortly after the winter snows had left and while there was still some chance of snowmelt runoff, it more-closely resembled a lake than the damp, marshy area that we had seen last fall. After this, if we had time we could attempt to dash up to Catherine Pass: I suppose that the latter may have been possible - had sunset been well past 10pm...
After arriving at the trailhead, we got our gear together and started forward on the trail - and stopped: There seemed to be a few extra signs on the board that had proclaimed the existence of the "New Lake Mary Trail" - but after reading about it, it was, in fact, the same one that had just been completed by the end of the summer of 2006. Trudging upwards, we soon reached the Lake Dog/Lake Mary junction and before too much longer, we found ourselves at the old cabin near the Lake Mary dam.
Pausing a few moments to take rehydrate, tell a few stories and take pictures, we continued onwards, following a trail - at least for a short while - until it petered out amongst the rocks (hence the question of the day...) Rather than backtrack, we simply decided to continue along the rocks - heading toward the south and west - until we intersected the trail (the one that connects Lake Mary to Twin Lakes) that we had somehow misplaced.
After another short distance, we descended onto the low, rock shelf that contains Lake Annette, immediately noticing that yes, there was, in fact, much more obvious open water than before, but no, it looked more like a small swamp than a lake, owing to the thickness of varied plant life scattered across much of the lake's surface. Along the north-facing slope amongst the trees, there were some still extant snowbanks, clearly one of the sources of water. Upon arrival, Mike noticed that there was a pair of ducks - probably a mating pair - that seemed to be going about their business in the swampy water. I also noticed that there were a few mosquitoes around, as the still, swampy waters of Lake Annette is likely an ideal breeding ground, but I also noticed that they didn't seem to be bothering me.
After exploring the lake a bit (which didn't take long, as the lake is very small...) we posed for a group picture. Because I wanted to take the picture from roughly the same spot as last year - plus I wanted to get some view of the lake - I perched the camera on the granite boulders that made up the north-east corner of the small lake basin. Being that the self-timer was just 10 seconds, it took some scrambling to get down quickly enough to stand amongst the others before the shutter snapped. In my haste, I slipped during the rapid descent, landing (mostly) on the palms of my hands as I slid down the granite, scratching them up - but I still managed to make it in time for the picture. The second attempt at the group photo (the one posted above) did not coincide with such excitement, fortunately - although I could see (after the fact) that the camera had focused itself on the granite in the foreground rather than on the people. (Comments were made that it was too bad that my slipping and falling wasn't caught on camera...)
Leaving Lake Annette, the group began a circumnavigation of Lake Mary in a counter-clockwise direction. This task was made a bit easier (and possibly a bit more interesting) by the fact that the water level in Lake Mary was quite low, exposing a lot of the rocks and leaving large areas in the southwest corner of the lake high and dry - or at least high and muddy. I was wondering, during this traverse, how much lower the water level in the reservoir would have to drop before the re-emergence of Lake Phoebe. (My guess would be at least another 10-15 feet...)
As we traversed the now-exposed bank and lakebottom, we noticed a lot of seeps - that is, water sources that seemed to be percolating up from the ground, rather than as runoff from a stream. In one particular instance, a small patch of mud just downstream from one of these seeps seemed to jiggle in a "quicksandy" fashion when stepped on: While most of the group went around it, several of us decided simply to step on mud patch while crossing the streamlet, causing it to move in a very un-mudlike way, without devouring any of our group in the process.
Getting to the south shore of the lake, the lay of the land and the water level in the lake caused us to move a bit higher and more southward, eventually arriving at the level of Lake Martha, a point at which we stopped for a while to regroup, empty the sand and boulders from our shoes, and just sit and talk. Eventually, we resumed our travel, meeting up with the trail that continues toward Catherine Pass, and headed downwards. Just passing the cascade below Lake Mary, I somehow managed to step wrongly on a rock in the trail and turned my ankle - but rather than injuring my ankle, I managed to bruise the outside of my left foot on a rock that I'd hit when my foot turned, resulting in my limping down the trail, as well as around the house for the next day or so.
The ride down the canyon was unremarkable - aside from seeing a moose lumbering about at the edge of the Brighton parking lot. Upon arriving at the parking lot at the base of the canyon, we noticed what appeared to be a news crew doing a remote, with the camera and on-air host across the right-of-way from each other. Interestingly, no-one seemed to be standing guard and it would have been very easy to have driven through the camera view and over the CCU cable while the interview was live on-the air. Not seeing any markings on the vehicle, I have no idea which TV station it was, or what the new item was about - although we suspect that it was bear-related. After this, the members of the group went their separate ways, foregoing a dime-lime...
"Lake Annette, a little-known body of water almost too small to be called a lake, doesn't even appear on the USGS map of the area. [Alfred] Lambourne called it a lakelet or a pool. It was named by Henry Culmer after his wife-to-be, Annette Wells, in 1875. Culmer wrote that he and Lambourne once spend a whole day in a vain search for this elusive body of water. It rests on a shelf below and to the north of Lake Mary, not far from the trail between Lake Mary and Twin Lakes. In recent years it has gathered a mass of downed trees and is filling with silt, giving it a rather cluttered and unkempt appearance. Not too many years ago, however, while those trees were still standing, the pool was a beautiful, clean, quiet haven from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, probably looking very much as it did when Culmer gave it its name."About the Lake Mary reservoir/dam:
For more information, see the page about our "discovery" of Lake Annette in 2006.
The Lake Mary dam was constructed in about 1914 and is owned by the City of Salt Lake and is part of its protected watershed with a capacity of approximately 600 acre-feet (about 196 million gallons) - about 2/3 that of Twin Lakes. Lake Mary is actually two lakes, but the smaller one (Lake Phoebe) is normally merged with Lake Mary and is only visible during very low water years.This information about Lakes Mary and Annette is from Charles Keller's book, The Lady in the Ore Bucket.
Comments:
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We "discovered" Lake Annette in 2006 -
click on the link to
read about that hike.
Go to the 2007
Wednesday Night Hike page, or main Wednesday
Night Hike index page.
This page maintained by Clint Turner, KA7OEI
and
was last updated on 20070709 (Copyright 2007 by Clint Turner. All
rights on images and text are reserved.)
