Cecret Lake, July 11, 2014

At Cecret Lake

Our destination today was located in the mountains to the southeast of Salt Lake City, in the Alta ski area. This is a rugged area that is only 45 minutes from the city. The drive there took us through what must be a very pricey neighborhood of large homes perched up on the mountainside.

The hike to Cecret Lake is noted for its wildflowers, and it did not disappoint. Blue, purple, red, orange, pink and yellow flowers were massed pretty much everywhere. The trail itself was not difficult, and is very popular. Unfortunately, that popularity translated into groups of people on the trail. And many of those groups were very loud. On the ascent, one boy ran ahead of his family, and stood on a rock edge ahead of us, impatiently yelling to his mother, down on the trail below, trying to get her attention. Have you ever seen Family Guy when Stewie pesters Lois for her attention? "Mom, mum, MOM, MOM!" This was like that, only more obnoxious. When we reached the lake at the top of the trail, we were dismayed to hear kids yelling and see them running around as if they were at a playground. We continued on a path around the lake to a more quiet spot where we ate lunch.

As we descended the trail, we heard thunder, but it seemed that the storm was headed away from us, so we started down another trail. We hadn't gone far, when 3 girls came up the trail from the opposite direction. They told us that they had encountered 2 large moose on the trail a short distance away. They didn't want to continue on the path, coming close to the moose, and risk having the moose take exception to their approach. We thought that perhaps the moose had moved on, so we continued along the path. We did encounter the same moose, and unfortunately they were very close to the path. Even though we waited a while, they seemed to have no intention of moving from that spot. So we did the sane thing, and turned around and retraced our steps.

We followed the entrance road back to our parking spot, and enjoyed the quiet, the mountain views, and the fabulous display of wildflowers--beautiful.

Our third trail attempt was one described as a meadow walk. We started up the trail, and shortly realized that the walk was just on a road ūnder the ski lift. Nothing great, not a lot of flowers.

OK, we tried again. This again was a meadow walk with fewer flowers than the previous one.

Time for a beer!