Images:

• SDIM2770 - A lovely view of the Solitude parking lot, showing the clouds and the evidence of recent rainfall.
  
• SDIM2771 - The verdant meadow near the bottom of Honeycomb Fork.
• SDIM2772 - Across the canyon, the dump near the portal of the Annie Tunnel.  (That's Mike near its base.)
  
• SDIM2779 - Mike, atop the mine dump, looking at the detritus of past mining activity.  The Annie Mine was connected to the Prince of Wales Mine via tunnels under the Honeycomb cliffs.
  
• SDIM2781 - From the vicinity of the Woodlawn Mine, looking down-canyon, from whence we came.  #2780 is a slightly wider view.
  
• SDIM2782 - Ron, trying to converse with Bruce via radio - just before he realized that his battery had gone dead.
  
• SDIM2783 - The self-leveling cabin just above the Woodlawn mine.  #2785 is another view of the cabin.
  
• SDIM2787 - Ron, looking at a brief appearance of sunlight on the Honeycomb cliffs.
  
• SDIM2790 - At the "stopping point" atop a mine dump, Ron and Mike having a conversation, surrounded by wildflowers.
• SDIM2791 - Another look down-canyon, from the "stopping point."
  
• SDIM2796 - Some dramatic lighting over the Honeycomb cliffs.  Similar are #2794 and #2795.
• SDIM2801 - Brett trying to fly his kite with Bruce looking on.
  
• SDIM2804 - The obligatory group picture with some people slightly blurred owing to the 8-second exposure in the dark.  L->R:  Brett, Ron, Dale, Mike, Bruce, Gary, Gordon and Clint.
  

Notes:

As I was driving closer to the mouth of the canyon, it didn't look good:  Lightning in the west, visibility reduced by dust, the occasional sprinkle of rain, and small buildings and children being lofted skyward by wind gusts.

Well, some of the last part of that wasn't true.

While confident that the heat-driven weather would dissipate soon, we felt it prudent to stick to a hike that didn't expose us to high ridges where we might become the top end of fulgarites, so we chose either Honeycomb Fork or Silver Fork.  While this sounds like a decision, it really isn't as it's not until after we leave the Solitude Parking lot that we actually have to make a choice:  Veer to the left and take the access road into Honeycomb Fork, or stay to the right to enter Silver Fork.  Actually, both routes enter Silver Fork, but the high route (Honeycomb) soon diverges into the side-canyon.

Arriving at Solitude, we parked outside the gate, on the main road, knowing that we'd not likely get back before they locked the gates - and we didn't!  As we crossed the blacktop, we could see that it was slightly damp, evidence of recent rainfall.  While there was a breeze with swirling clouds overhead, the electrical activity had stopped and it "looked" as though the weather was running out of its thermal energy.

Leaving the parking lot, we soon found ourselves on the access road, climbing toward the bottom of the ski lift that prominently marks the mouth of Honeycomb Fork.  Pausing there briefly, we noticed that the upside-down antenna (see the July 16, 2008 hike) was still there and we were wondering to what advantage there was mounting it that way.

As we entered Honeycomb Fork the two-track road (mostly) reverted to a single-track foot trail.  While the leaves were slightly wet with the recent rain, the combination of the width of the trail and the fact that they had mostly dried off prevented us from getting wet as we passed through.  Neither was the trail muddy, but the relatively high humidity seemed to make up for it:  At least we had the consolation that there didn't seem to be any bugs about in numbers.

The meadow just above the mouth of the canyon was awash with color - most of it green - but liberally sprinkled with wildflowers including a lot of still-blooming desert paintbrush.  One interesting thing about the paintbrush:  Near the bottom of the canyon it was quite red, but the farther up one went, the less-saturated its color seemed to be with the plants near our stopping point seeming to have only a rather pale reddish-orangish-pinkish color.  It would be interesting to know if those higher-elevation plants were not yet in full bloom or if there's something about the temperatures at the higher elevations that affects their color.

After passing through the meadow, the "road-ness" of the trail becomes more apparent again, as does the fact that it has seen better days.  While it was no doubt passable at some point it has, in parts, reverted to a boulder-hop, requiring careful attention by the hiker to assure good footing.  This, coupled with the fact that it becomes very steep, makes for interesting travel - especially after dark.  Before too long, the road exits the trees and becomes better, crossing through another broad meadow.  As in years past, we noted large piles of neatly-stacked cord wood, now rotting - likely evidence of brush-clearing for fire control and/or remains of when the ski run was cleared.

Other than the road, one of the first evidences of past mining activity is the appearance of mine dumps on both sides of the canyon.  As the road snakes off to the east-ish side, one passes the remains of the Woodlawn Mine and some of its building while a large pile on the west side marks the portal of the Annie Tunnel, to which Mike went to investigate.

Dale continued upwards while Ron, Gary and I took a quick side-trip to the remains of a slowly-collapsing cabin just up the hill from the road.  There, we paused for a moment to take pictures and grab a quick snack.  At about this time Dale appeared on the radio and having followed the trail (which had diverged from the old mining road) upwards, reporting that he was heading for an old mine dump slightly farther up the canyon.  After a few minutes near the old cabin Ron and I continued upwards with Bruce and Gary following several minutes behind.

Between the mining road and the cabin the well-worn hiking trail follows along the east side of the canyon, soon reaching the pile on which Mike (who had crossed the canyon after his investigation of the mine dump) and Dale were waiting.  Interestingly, amongst the rubble from the excavation, there was quite a variety of wildflowers to be seen rooted atop this seeming pile of gravel.  When Ron and I got there, Mike and Dale were examining some of the rocks found atop the pile, notably a green one which was probably Malachite.

After a few minutes Gary and Brett appeared, followed a short time later by Gordon.  As it was starting to get darker, the wind picked up and Brett wielded his kite.  One would think that with wind, one would have little trouble lofting a kite, but that was not the case here:  No sooner would Brett let out some string and the kite would go limp - even though we were still being buffeted by wind.  You would also think that, with wind, that the kit would tend to go up and outwards at an angle, but that was also not the case:  Often, the kite, during those moments when it was flying, would be doing so at an elevation below where we were sitting or, on one occasion, flying straight overhead in a very non kite-like way.  After several brief successes and even more failed attempts, Brett finally put the kite away.  (This explains the question of the day.)

While Brett was attempting his flying, Mike, Dale and Ron disappeared farther up the trail to see what was there.  After having been gone for a while, they reappeared on the radio, reporting that they'd found a vantage point through which they could see into the next canyon to the east - the one down which one travels from Twin Lakes pass, past Lake Solitude.

Reunited, the obligatory group picture was taken and we started back down the canyon in the gathering darkness with Ron, Gordon and I bringing down the rear.  Taking it slowly, the rugged road wasn't much of a problem but it meant that the rest of the group was well ahead of us:  When Bruce called us on the radio to report that he'd arrived at the mouth of the canyon, we had just exited the trees through which the worst part of the road passed.  When we arrived at the ski lift, we were momentarily "blound" by Bruce's flashlight:  The group, back together again, continued down the road in the dark.

By this time, the sky had mostly cleared up and as we got to the bottom, our way was being lit by the nearly-full moon once we had exited from the trees.  Crossing the parking lot and ducking under the now-locked gate, we scrunched ourselves back into the vehicles and made our way down the canyon where we parted company for the week.

(Bruce was reunited with his Petzl.)

• None this time

• None this time

Brett, trying to fly a kite (0:56):

• High-Quality version (DIVX) 10.7 MB file
• Lower-Quality version (MPEG-1) 4.5 MB file
  

• A detailed map with the GPS track of the hike (plus surrounding landmarks)

• The elevation profile of the hike - This shows the ups and downs of the trail.  There are drop-outs due to occasionally-poor GPS coverage into the canyon - plus, the battery died 10-15 minutes before reaching the vehicles on the return trip.
  

According to Keller, Honeycomb Fork, like Alta, is no stranger to disasters, with several people having been killed in avalanches that swept down, including a large one in January of 1875 that killed the Superintended of the Annie Tunnel, and at least one more avalanche in March of 1877.  Note:  The Annie Tunnel is, apparently, connected to the Prince of Wales Mine, and is likely the source of the dump pile across the canyon (toward the west) from the Woodlawn Mine.

While the big mining boom in the Solitude area occurred in the 1870's, the remnants seen up the Honeycomb Fork of Silver Fork (near the Solitude Ski resort) are mostly those of the Woodlawn mine.  Excavation of this mine began at around 1900 and continued intermittently until the 1940s.  In 1915, the Kentucky mine (the portal of which, from what I can tell, appears known as the "Alta Tunnel" - which is the mine that one passes not too far up Silver Fork and is a source of water) was begun to excavate minerals as well as to provide drainage to the Woodlawn and other nearby mines.

The primary minerals of the Woodlawn mine are lead ores, such as Galena and Cerussite, Pyrite, as well as other Manganese and Iron-based minerals.

A very interesting page concerning a court case relating to water rights to mine discharges may be read here.  This case contains a brief history of some of the relevant mines as well as some interesting insight into the geology of the area.

The Utah Mine Locations page of the Trainweb site give the location of many of the mines in the area.

Some of the above information was from the book "The Lady in the Ore Bucket" by Charles Keller.

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Comments about pictures/video/audio taken by Clint:

• All images taken using a Sigma Digital SLR camera and were taken using the lens noted in the EXIF data.  (Usually, an SD-14.)
  
• 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.  Additional suffixes of the image file name may include "sh" to indicate that some "de-blurring" was done, "mb" for correction of motion blur, and "crop" denoting that the image was cropped.
  
• 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, if any, were shot using a Panasonic DMC FZ-8 digital camera, have been re-compressed, and are of lower quality than the originals.
• Audio clips, if any, were recorded using a Zoom H-2 audio recorder.
  

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This page maintained by Clint Turner, KA7OEI and was last updated on 20090810 (Copyright 2009 by Clint Turner and those credited above.  All rights on images and text are reserved.)