September 1, 2010 - Germania Pass

Top: Elaine at the trailhead sign.
Bottom: An informational sign a few hundred feet away from the above sign and visible in the background of the top image.
Note that, according to the signs, there seems to be 0.6 miles between them!
Click on either image to humongify it.

Elaine at the mileage sign at the parking lot/trailhead

A more-detailed informational sign, a few hundred feet away from the trailhead/parking lot.

"I think the reason they are all rotated about 30 degrees anticlockwise is that the shutter release takes a fair amount of pressure to activate, and it is on the top right corner of the camera, so by the time he has put in enough 2-year-old force to fire it, the camera has rotated 30 degrees clockwise."

The descriptions for these pictures were provided by Gary.

Judging by how full the parking lot was this time, it must have been a nice day.

Fortunately, just enough places were found so that those who were not driving their own vehicles were able to park while the rest of the group piled into a small fleet of three and, for the second week in a row we headed up little Cottonwood Canyon: Tonight's destination? Germania Pass.

Working our way up the canyon, we finally made it to the end of the asphalt, wound our way along the gravel road toward the Albion Basin campground, seeing a large moose alongside the road - noting, along the way, the signs that said "Hunting allowed only on the left side of the road" and being glad that we would be on the right side - and parked in the (surprisingly) "not full" trailhead parking lot. Emerging from our vehicles, we donned our hiking gear and started out.

Much of Albion Basin was already in shadow, the sun having plenty of opportunity to set behind some of the larger monoliths in the neighborhood, bathing the area in reflected light from the still-lit higher peaks. With the clear sky, the "warmth" of that reflected light was offset by the cool, blue scattered light, causing some of the rocks and flowers to seem to have a slightly unreal, almost fluorescent glow.

A short distance up from the parking lot we got a chance to see some of the last vestiges of summer at that elevation: The current bushes had started to fruit, and the elderberries would not be too far behind. Large swaths of yellow and white flowers - still impressive from a distance - showed that they, too, were on the ragged edge of their summer display. The air was quite cool, but that made for very pleasant hiking - although bites of chill could set in if one stopped for more than a short time.

Wending our way up the trail and through the switchbacks, we soon found our way to Cecret Lake. Its water level was quite low, exposing a fairly large beachhead of normally-submerged rocks. It was onto a small peninsula that we sat down and waited for the rest of the group to catch up, looking for and seeing quite a few salamanders moving about along the bottom and occasionally surfacing for air.

After a few minutes, the rest of the party arrived - shortly followed by what seemed to be hoards of other people: No doubt we had made it to the parking lot just before one or more groups of young adults on their activity night outing. We continued to lounge lugubriously on the rock peninsula for a few more minutes while people rehydrated, "re-winded", and took pictures - including Kevin, expressing his budding photographic prowess (see pictures) - about which Gary writes:

"I think the reason they are all rotated about 30 degrees anticlockwise is that the shutter release takes a fair amount of pressure to activate, and it is on the top right corner of the camera, so by the time he has put in enough 2-year-old force to fire it, the camera has rotated 30 degrees clockwise."

Packing up our gear, we continued up, above Cecret lake to a pass that overlooked the basin and lead into the bowl below Germania Pass. Stopping here, some of us ate our snacks while, again, waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. After we reunited, we took this opportunity to pose for the "obligatory group picture", after which Gary and Kevin started back down while the rest of us continued up, toward Germania Pass.

Upon entering the bowl, we noticed obvious signs of recent construction. Most apparent was the fact that the main path into the bowl consisted of soft, disturbed earth - no doubt from some recent excavations. While quite flat, the softness of the ground made walking up the slope more strenuous than it otherwise would be - somewhat akin to walking on sand. A short distance up we noted large, straw mats that had very recently been laid out - no doubt to help stabilize the ground so that its plant cover could be re-established.

We soon reached the service road which also showed similar signs of excavation. While the rest of the group continued along the road, Bryan and I struck straight up the hill, following the approximate course of the Sugarloaf Lift. A bit more than halfway up the slope we intercepted an open trench and new, concrete vaults designed to allow access to new, underground workings. In one of the open trenches was a green pipe, welded and waterproofed at the seams: It was Bryan's opinion (with which I soon agreed) that this looked an awful lot like a natural gas pipe - although I suppose that it could be a water pipe to feed snow-making machines - although I shudder to think of how much water pressure it would have to contain near its origination point to be able to push water up to the pass!

Upon arriving at the terminus of the Germania lift we could see that works were in progress to establish another lift - either in addition to or to replace the existing Germania lift. Wandering down, along the pass, we came to the the end of the excavations and waited for the rest of the party to reach us via the road and there, we noticed a sign of particular interest to photographers (see above.) After a few minutes, we were reunited and in the gloaming, the temperature had dropped and, unsurprisingly, there was an occasionally-stiff breeze at the pass that demanded that I put on a jacket. Lingering for only a few minutes, a few pictures were taken and we all started back down along the service road, making some occasional detours to avoid some of the larger excavations that blocked our path.

Soon, we made it to the pas overlooking Albion basin and only a few minutes later, we found ourselves (sans the groups of young adults) at the shore of Cecret Lake where we settled down for a few minutes to allow the line of bobbing lights still making their way down the trail from the pass to reach us. There, on the lake shore, we started banging rocks together, amusing ourselves with the resulting sparks in the dark. When the rest of the group arrived, more flashes of light resulted as a brief contest ensued to see who could make skipping rocks spark the most.

Having satisfied ourselves with all of that, we resumed our trek down, navigating the switchbacks in the dark and making our way toward the trailhead. On the return trip it is pretty easy to take one of the many side-trails in the dark and not exactly follow the ascent route back. At about the time we realized that we'd made a minor turn somewhere, Ron appeared on the radio, having been delayed and separated from the group, unsure as to where he was. After one our two "sound offs" where we make a loud sound with the radio keyed, Ron was able to roughly judge his distance and direction from us, and was further re-assured when he spotted some familiar-looking headlamps a short distance along the trail.

Stumbling forward, we made it back to the cars, waiting a few minutes for Gordon's green light to bob toward us in the dark. After reuniting, we re-vehicled ourselves, dodged a few deer on the way down, and made it back to the parking lot where we went our separate ways.