Lake Catherine 2026

It's been a year or two since we've done our favorite summer hike. Four years, in fact, I see upon consulting my records! Goodness, where does the time go? We were in Quebec one of those years. In Oregon one of the others, I believe. Still, hard to believe that last time we went (for Daisy's birthday) she was only turning 13! A baby!

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Birthday Hike to Lake Catherine

I told you Daisy and I were laying plans to do another hike before the wildflowers were gone. And thanks to Sam, we managed something I've always wanted to do—hiking up one canyon and down the other! It was the perfect way to start Daisy's birthday morning (and even though both of us were sick with colds in the surrounding days, we both felt good during our hike, a tiny miracle!). 

We left the little ones home with Malachi during this hike (which made it go lots faster!). Junie came with us, and Sam hiked up too for the first half hour or so, then descended, got in the car, and drove around to the other end of the trail where he talked to Abe on the phone while waiting for us. It was great! Sam drew this on his iPad while he was waiting:

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Lakes and Wildflowers

Last year at this time, I was due to have a baby any moment! Well…that is, it didn't turn out to be as soon as I thought it might be—it never is—but, in any event, I did NOT feel up to hiking to see the wildflowers, even though I wanted to and even dreamed about it repeatedly during those weeks! So that means it's been TWO years since we last hiked my favorite wildflower hike, and last time we went the girls and Teddy looked like this:

Tiny!

This year we had to do all kinds of contortions as we tried to figure out HOW to fit the hike in. How could I leave Clementine early in the morning when she needs to nurse, who would be home with the little ones, who would drive the boys where they needed to go or how would we divide up the cars…it all seemed impossible until I realized that actually we did use to do this hike with ALL the children! Those days of taking all of them everywhere feel so far-off now, but in fact, I was quite capable of doing such a thing even by myself…once. Like this:

Oh! This picture gives me quite a pang. Those sweet little boys that used to love hiking with me!😥

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Brighton Lakes and Wildflowers

We've been hiking to Catherine Pass (up Little Cottonwood Canyon) every summer for years now, and from Sunset Peak you can look down and see Lakes Mary, Martha, and Catherine all lined up in a row. For years now I've been saying "Someday we'll do THAT hike from the other canyon, and see all three lakes"— but then I love the Catherine Pass hike so much that I can't bring myself to do anything different. 

But. This year was the year. We decided to start from Big Cottonwood and do the other end of the loop, hopefully ending at the same place: Lake Catherine. You're going to think this is weird, but I was actually quite nervous about it as I fell asleep the night before. Our time that week was really limited (we were getting ready to go out of town, along with a bunch of other things on the schedule) so we didn't have time to do both hikes, and I was feeling worried that we'd be disappointed and wish we'd done our same old favorite.

Well. I needn't have worried, of course. Our mountains never disappoint!

We left our house at 5:30 a.m. so we could get going early. It was worth it, because for most of the way up, we were the only ones on the trail! It gets really busy this time of year, so we were happy to have it to ourselves. The three girls came with me, as they always do, and Teddy wanted to come this year too! He was such a good hiker when we were at Snow Canyon, I knew he could do it, and he DID. He pretended that he had his imaginary bunny friend with him ("Buttercup"), and he was so cheery and brave, even when he fell and scraped his hand! Sweet good boy. 

I do sort of miss the times when ALL the kids used to hike this with me. But the older boys are too busy now (and honestly, they never cared about the wildflowers quite as much as I did…), and I have to confess it is really much easier NOT to have to bring a baby in the hiking backpack!

It was really pretty when the sun started to hit the tops of the peaks.

You start this hike at Brighton, and the trail winds up under the ski lifts for awhile. (Teddy was very interested in those.) Right away there are lots of wildflowers all over the meadows.

The bluebells were amazing this year! There were huge swaths of them growing all over the hillsides. It reminded me of England!

Pretty sure this is Single-head Sunflower here. There were huge fields of this.

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Lake Catherine Wildflowers

This year as I was trying to find a weekend to go hike and see the wildflowers, I saw that the calendar was filling up and there was only one free Saturday! And even that was not so VERY free, but free enough that we could slip away for a morning. Then when the day came, as we were driving up the canyon at 6 a.m., accompanied by many other cars, I realized that I always try to AVOID going on a Saturday! I don't know what I was thinking. Weekdays are much better! But, luckily, we went early enough in the morning that we found a parking spot at the trailhead, and the trail wasn't too crowded. Next year I'll plan better, though!

It's been just the girls and me on this hike for the last couple years, and we love that, but this time Abe wanted to come too, and we were happy to have him with us! He's great company, and a good driver, too. The road up the canyon was newly paved, so he had a great time driving around all those winding curves.

The sunrise was pretty!

It was good of Abe to come on this hike with us. He could have run the whole thing five times in the time it took us to do it once, but he stayed and talked with us most of the way up, and then ran down and waited for us a long time at the bottom! What a great guy. I like him.

I brought a different camera lens with me than I usually bring on this hike, just for variety's sake. I couldn't get the same sweeping vistas, but it was interesting trying to compose new pictures within the views I'm so used to seeing. Made me look at things a little differently.

And it was nice for close-up pictures of the wildflowers!

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Wildflower Hike 2017

Last year when I was waking everyone up to leave for our favorite late-summer hike in Albion Basin, the girls were the only ones I could persuade to get out of bed and go with me. And then this year, they were convinced that going with "just the girls" was our special tradition and it must be done that way again! So, although some of the boys would have been willing, we stuck with "tradition" and had a great girls-only hike! It's probably for the best, because the girls are MUCH more desirous of having their pictures taken with every little flower and every new view than the boys are! And, as we all know, taking those pictures is just what I LIKE to do. 

It was so nice and COOL up here early in the morning! The girls were shivering, but I just loved it.

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Wild and flowery

After seeing such great wildflowers in Yellowstone earlier this summer, I felt kind of sheepish bringing up the possibility of our traditional hike in the Albion Basin at the end of July. "I know we already saw so many beautiful flowers, and it's not that I don't appreciate them…," I began. Sam just laughed and said it wasn't like I had some sort of limit of flowers to see per year! (And a good thing too!)

But after doing so much traveling, Sam had a ton of work to do, so I decided to leave Teddy home with him and just take some of the kids with me on the hike. Then, bright and early in the morning when it was time to leave, none of the boys wanted to be roused, making the hike a girls-only affair: my little flower-girls and me. We missed our boys, but we had such a fun time (and it was so wonderfully EASY without a baby on my back)!

It always feels so good up in the mountains: cool and breezy, with the morning light on the trees. We loved being out in the air, and Goldie kept exclaiming, "LOOK at the BYEWtiful VIEW!" in awed tones. (Some ladies, as we were hiking down, asked Goldie if she'd seen the lake, and she said, "Yes, and we also saw the BYEWtiful VIEW!")

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Wildflower Hike

We've only been hiking the Albion Basin in summer for maybe four years now, and I already feel like I've run out of superlatives to describe it. I love the wildflowers so much I almost get overcome with it, tears coming to my eyes as we walk through those meadows and I keep saying, "Look at that! Look at that!" It was nice to come home from the beauty of Montreal to my own beloved mountains in all their summer finery. "Glory be to God for dappled things;" these comforting mountains; sun and shadow, sprinkles of color and oceans of rock; this place full of beauty that He made for us.

This is the first time Sam has gotten to go with us on this hike, and it was so nice! He carried Theo and all I had to do was hold Goldie's hand. She was a great little hiker, too—not a word of complaint, except when I tried to get her to stop picking up little rocks to carry. I finally let her get one to hold in her other hand, and she carried it happily most of the way up.

I'm not sure why I like pictures of my little people hiking together so much. I suppose because it makes me think sentimental thoughts of how They Must All Help Each Other Along on the Uphill Trails of Life, or some such drivel. Ha! It does seem so sweet, though. To watch them hike along next to each other, talking and laughing, or just plowing along together up the hills.

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Albion Basin Wildflowers

The children and I did this hike a couple times last year and it was one of the best things ever, so we were all really excited to get up to the canyon again. The wildflowers are so stunning! We are always talking about how lucky we are to live near these canyons. I will never get tired of them. I don't know if the Albion Basin is world-famous for wildflowers, but it should be!

The wildflowers are just packed into every little space between the rocks. It's almost indecent how profuse they are! :)

Marigold was quite pleased with her perch on my back. She certainly saw more of everything than she did last year!

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Lake Catherine Hike

The wildflowers in Little Cottonwood Canyon are just spectacular right now! We hiked up to Catherine Pass from the Little Cottonwood Side (you can also get up there via Big Cottonwood) on a gorgeous summer day---shifting clouds and a nice breeze kept us comfortable all the way up! It was a long hike, and we didn't set any speed records or anything (it took us about 4 hours to go 3 miles), but it was SO beautiful, and everyone except Marigold made it up on his or her own two feet!

I've never seen so many different colors of flowers all out at once. It was breathtaking! I don't think I've ever been on such a consistently beautiful trail. We hiked Cecret Lake last year around the same time of year, and while it was really pretty, the flowers were mostly just in one or two stretches of meadow. This hike was through flowers the whole way!

 Columbine, Bluebell, Penstemmon, Paintbrush

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