Lake Blanche

"Lake Blanche Trail is a 6.9 mile moderately trafficked out and back trail located near Salt Lake City, UT that features a waterfall and is rated as difficult. The trail offers a number of activity options and is accessible from June until October."

Hiking Lake Blanche was a really neat experience.  I wasn't really dressed for the hike, as you can see in the pictures below:

After our group drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon, we walked up to the trail head and began hiking mid-day (It was around 2 p.m, the HOTTEST time of the day).  Because there was barely any shade the whole time, I felt a lot of heat exhaustion most of the way up.  (THANK GOODNESS FOR WATER AND GRANOLA BARS!)

As we made the last turn to the lake, I couldn't have been more relieved/happy to see the cool lake! :) Blue clear water reflected the trees and mountains surrounding us, and we spent some time skipping rocks and dipping our feet in the freezing glacier water.  

Unfortunately, we didn't realize that there were actually THREE lakes total up there.  There were two that we missed because we didn't look past the brick wall that you see in the second picture, but we did enjoy watching the waterfall and passing a resting moose on our way back down!

I would definitely hike this trail again, but I probably would go early in the morning, wear lighter clothes, and maybe bring a swimsuit to jump in the water at the top.  Hiking in my chacos wasn't too bad.  I'd probably just wear my new Nike tennis shoes if I were to do a hike more than 5 miles like this one, but I didn't come out with any blisters, and they held up quite nicely.  :)

Here are some photos from the hike (Most were taken by Claire, my best friend from elementary school):