Hike to Lake Blanche
October 2011 - 72 photos


October 21st, 2011, we did a hike to Lake Blanche. We wanted to get one more hike in before winter. There were four of us, me, Bill, Marlene, and Judy. We went down to Salt Lake City, driving up Big Cottonwood Canyon 4.4 miles to the big 'S' turn in the road, where a side canyon, Mill B Southfork is located. Mill B South trail runs up into the Twin Peaks Wilderness Area, leading to Lake Blanche and two other small lakes, Lake Florence, and Lake Lillian.

Rising above them is Sundial Peak at 10, 320 feet, and in the background are more peaks rising above 11,000 feet, to the left is Monte Cristo Peak at 11,132 feet, and off to the right are two dome shaped peaks. The closest is Dromedary Peak, at 11,107, the second Sunrise Peak at 11,275, but some call it O'Sullivan Peak. The true Twin Peaks for which the area is named, are hidden from view behind these mountains, they are at 11,330. The highest point along the ridge behind Sundial Peak is Mount Superior at 11,132 feet.


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Lake Blanch and Sundial Peak.


This is a fairly steep hike, rising 2,700 feet in 3 miles. It runs though many different kids of shrubs and trees, and being fall they were in all their splendor. I think this was the most colorful fall hike I have done yet. We really enjoyed this hike, though it was far different than the hikes we usually do up in the High Uinta Mountains, but every bit as beautiful. I was a little disappointed that the lakes didn't have as much water in them as in the spring, but the beautiful fall colors more than made up for it.

By the end of the day we had walked 8.02 miles, and climbed up and back down 2,702 feet.

CLICK for GPS map of our trek
 Map;

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Lake Florence and Sundial Peak.


Photo wise, we had a problem in that we had to take a lot of our pictures looking toward the sun and many in the shade. The lay of the land left us little choice. It was shady going up in the early morning, and by the time we came down, we were back in the shade again. Hard to get good photos with color in the shade. While up at the lakes we did a lot of hiking around, trying to get better sun angles, but many of my pictures had a washed out look.

Using my small Canon Powershot, SX210, I took more than 300 photos, and counting what the others took, we had almost a thousand pictures. Many of the pictures I planned to stitch into panoramas. I think there are 68 panorama pictures total, but I won't include all of them here.


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Lake Lillian and Sundial Peak.


   - 72 photos -
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Related Photos

We also hiked to Lake Blanche in 2004
Lake Blanche, 2004
 Lake Blanche, 2004




I used a small Canon Powershot, SX210, 14 Megapixel Camera which has Image Stabilazation and optical lens from wide angle to 14x zoom. Some of these photos were taken by Bill Joy with his Olympus E620 SLR and lens assortment. Also Judy took some of the photos with her Canon Digital Rebel Xti SLR, and assortment of lenses.

These photos are set to lower resolution and compressed 10:1 for faster loading. You are welcome to look at or download any of the photos. If you use them on any other webpage, please give credit and refer back to me.



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