Signpost at the Broad's Fork trailhead.
Click on an image for a full-sized version.

Images (.JPG format):

• SDIM0864 - Getting ready at the trailhead  (Please excuse the lens flare...)
• SDIM0868 - From the a point near the "lower meadow" looking up toward the cirque below Twin/Sunrise/Dromedary/O'Sullivan Peaks.
• SDIM0870 - The gathering of the "fast" group near the pond in the "upper" meadow.
• SDIM0871 - Ron, enjoying a snack soon after arriving in the meadow.
• SDIM0876 - Looking back toward the trail and across to the north side of Big Cottonwood canyon.
• SDIM0877 - Mike M., telling a story while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.  #899 - Dale, after the rest of the group had arrived.
  
• SDIM0900 - Mike M. lounging lazily on a sun-warmed rock.
• SDIM0904 - The obligatory group picture, backgrounded by the Twin Peaks cirque, complete with snow and alpenglow.  L->R:  Gordon, Dale, Bryan, Ron, Mike C., Bruce, Tim, Mike M., and Clint.  (For a "memorable" group picture taken at this same place, look here - from June 21, 2006.)
  
• SDIM0906 - Some of the last of the gloaming in the cirque.
• SDIM0914 - Just as we were leaving, a small herd of deer wandered into sight, across the canyon and on the ridge.
• SDIM0917 - The last vestiges of light on the sun-dappled trees near the meadow.  Similar is #918.
  
• SDIM0926 - Making our way downhill through a grove of quaking aspen.
  

• Broad's Fork Pano - This wide-angle composite of 21 images was taken from the "upper meadow" and encompassing over 90 degrees of view.  (.JPG, 6.25 Meg)
  

• Several short clips taken during the hike have been edited together into a 1:46 video.  Note that you may have to download and save the file to disk rather than play it directly in the browser.
  
• Lower-quality MPEG-1 version (15.5 Meg)  (This should play on most computers)
  
• Near-DVD quality MPEG-2 version (53.6 Meg)  (This may require an extra codec to play on older computers.)
  

• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks, 782 kB)
  
• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail.  (Due to some data dropout, the "uphill" portion isn't as detailed as the "downhill" segment.)

Because of the heavy winter and the recently-cool weather, there is still quite a bit of snow in the mountains.  It was because of this that it wasn't until this hike - in the middle of June - that we made our first venture into one of the Cottonwood Canyons for our Wednesday Night Hike.  Up to this point, we'd kept fairly low - and occasionally finding ourselves in snow.  With recent temperatures being more "normal" (into the 90's) the snowmelt has been accelerating, gradually opening up higher-altitude possibilities:  Good thing, too, as these temperatures are beginning to make our low-altitude alternatives a bit unpleasant.

Because it has often been chosen for an early-season hike, we knew from past experience that the hike to the Broad's Fork meadow would likely be passable - even if there was a bit of snow present.  (This was verified during our 2005 Hike into Broad's Fork.)  Dale relayed reports that while there had been snow present in the past week or two, it was likely that with the recent warm weather, it was likely gone or easily passable.

After meeting in the parking lot, we wedged ourselves into several vehicles (with Bryan on his motorcycle) and headed up to the trailhead parking lot, located just below the "S" curve.  Shortly thereafter, we were on our way up the trail.  One of the first landmarks along the trail is the stream-crossing, over a stout, wooden bridge:  As we neared the bridge, paralleling the stream, we heard the loud roar of water and sure enough, we crossed over a frothing torrent.  Also along the trail we noticed that the wildflowers were starting to show themselves, as were numerous fungi - not only of the Caloscypha fulgens sort that we'd seen a few weeks ago along the Bowman Fork trail , but also of the larger, white bulbous (more "mushroom-like" in appearance) that were usually found half-buried in the dirt.

Dale, who had trekked ahead, reported that he was "in the meadow."  While we knew that Dale was ahead of us, we couldn't believe that he'd already arrived until he asked if the "upper meadow" was, in fact, the destination.  After a while, Dale reported back to us that he had, in fact, reached the meadow and was looking at the pond and the fairly-considerable amount of snow still on the slopes in the cirque above.

Slowly, the rest of us continued our climb and before too long, we joined the gathering in the meadow, looking at the various, transient waterfalls above us and enjoying the dramatic, deepening shadows and the warm alpenglow.  As expected, there were clouds of mosquitoes buzzing about, but a quick application of DEET warded them off.  Unlike in previous years - and probably because of the amount of snow still above us - we couldn't spot any of the mountain goats that we'd seen in years past.

Lounging on the still-warm rocks, we surveyed the landscape and were eventually joined by the rest of the group.  Surrounded by the majestic peaks in this circuit, this location is considered by Ron to be one of the most beautiful Wednesday Night Hike destinations - if not in the entire Wasatch.  As the shadows continued to lengthen, the light got warmer, still - probably due to some smoke from some California wildfires:  This, along with the bright blue sky, made the red and yellow colors of the surrounding rocks seem almost seem to be saturated in a surreal way.

Finally, as the sun was touching the tops of the nearby peaks - and after taking the obligatory group picture - we started down.  Fortunately, the steepest part was near the top and there was sufficient light to navigate these with little difficulty, leaving the more gradual and well-developed portions of the trail lower-down to be lit by flashlight.  Mike C., Bruce and Gordon were taking it easy coming down and the first group arrived in the parking lot several  minutes before them where we entertained ourselves by watching Tim flash his new, green laser pointer around on the surrounding mountain peaks and trees.

Eventually, the group re-united, squeezed into the cars, and made an uneventful return to the bottom of the canyon where we went our separate ways.

Relatively little mining or prospecting was done in Broads Fork:  It was a source of timber (a logging trail can be followed down to within a few hundred feet of the canyon bottom, generally paralleling the stream) and it's biggest historical note has to do with the fact that there was a short-lived hydroelectric power plant at its base:  The remains of its penstock can supposedly be seen near the bottom.

As for the name "Broads Fork" the origination is unknown.  In the 19th century, it was known by several similar names, such as "Broughts Fork," "Brocks Fork" and "Borck Fork" - and it wasn't until 1908 that the name "Broads Gulch" was applied to it.  It is suspected that the current "Broads Fork" is a perversion of one of the earlier names.

This information is from the book "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller.

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Comments about pictures taken by Clint:

• All images taken using a Sigma Digital SLR camera and were taken using the lens noted in the EXIF data.
• 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 images.
• 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 numbered 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.
• If you took some pictures of the hike and send them to me, I'll post them - and give you the blame!
• The video clips were shot using a Panasonic DMC FZ-8 digital camera.  The clips above have been recompressed and are of lower quality than the originals.
  

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