Monday, November 2, 2009

Forest Lake and Cascade Springs 10/31/09

On Halloween I headed out with a few individuals from one of the off-road communties that I belong too out to Forest Lake in American Fork Canyon. Myself and one other individual had never been to this area before so it was a little bit of an adventure. The other individaul who came along lead the run since he had been to the area before. Accompnay, him was two of his boys and his father.


I had an itching to get back out since it had been a little over a month and half since I was last out exploring. This would also be the first little bit of rock crawling that I've done since leaving Arizona earlier this year. Despite an earlier wake-up call and an hour drive too meet up with the group it was well worth it. We couldn't have picked a better day to head out. The weather was clear and cool. Very cool up at the lake around 8500' above sea level.


The road up to the trailhead was more or less a dirt road that would be passable by most vehicles. The trail head started out by crossing a flowing stream then up though a little rock garden. After that there were area patches of rocks to drive thru every so often but nothing really major. Once we reached the lake we greeted by the bitter cold until the sun peered over the mountains around 1015 am. The screney in the area was great and felt nice (despite the above mentioned cold). The lake had been coverd by a couple inches of ice and provided us with some entainment as we though/slid rocks across it's surface listening to the strange echo's they would proceed.


Eventually, we got our fill and decided to head back out to the main road. The way back down was a little more entaining as we slide down an icey patch or two that we had previous had no problems going up. A few more bangs and grinding sounds from under teh vehicles were heard. The rock garden that we had all gotten though at the beginning with no problems ended up claiming some of the paint off my vehicle. Lucky, it was to one of the fender flares on my vehicle attached to the bumper which can be easliy removed.


Once back out we headed over to Cascade Springs. The drive over prodvided some excellent views of the surrounding mountains and valleys and of the small towns down below. Cascade Springs is a natural spring coming up from the ground that produced some mini waterfalls as in flows a short way down the mountain.


The final stretch of the trip took us back down American Fork Canyon along the Alpine Loop. As we passed the montains we were dwarfed by their seer-size but at the same time we were in amazement of their beauty. Well, I was at least. I don't know about the others.


Enough of my rambling on the photos - my camera was having a bad day so some of the photo's didn't come out that great.



The view from the beginning and the last bit of asphalt we'd see until Cascade Springs.







Headin up to the lake.








Up at the Lake