The Silver Lining

Have you ever been to Silver Lake? I never had until last weekend. It’s located inside Big Cottonwood Canyon adjacent to Solitude Ski Town. It is the perfect place to be on a hot summer’s day. When it’s so hot on the valley floor, you can bet the temperature is perfect in the canyons.

Silver Lake has a quaint boardwalk around the lake. It also has a few little fishing docks. Here the girls had their first encounter with trout fishing.
We didn’t actually fish because…you know, grossness, but we saw some people who were and the girls got to touch the freshly caught (dead) fish.
I swear I am about one inch away from being a vegetarian.


It was a real thrill to get such an up close touch and feel with the trout.


Seriously…it was so beautiful. Why are mountains so lovely?

We also saw the precious mother duck and about 8 little ducklings following her around.

There were a few people even paddling around in the lake. One recreator pulled to dock while we were there in what I would love to be our next recreation purchase. Inflatable kayaks.
I’d love to buy the real kayak at Costco, but it costs more than my extra money, plus my garage…it’s too small for that kind of stuff. Inflatable takes up less space and money.

After we got done walking around the boardwalk and feeding the mosquitos, we went back to the van and got us some bug spray. Too little too late I am afraid. (If I have inspired you to visit Silver lake, and I think you should, put your bug spray on first thing. You’ll be glad you did.)


Our plan was to take the 1.2 mile hike to Lake Solitude. It was described by our hiking friend, our hiking book--60 Hikes in 60 Miles, to be a lovely family hike where you cross over and through the ski resort and even across one of the lifts. By random chance, we saw one of Steve’s friends from work, a family who also lives in Herriman, the Finlayson’s on the chair lift as we walked under them. All of a sudden from above we hear… “Is that the SOKOL’s?” I couldn’t tell who it was at first, but it was our friends. What are the chances of that happening we cross the trail at the exact moment they pass overhead. Crazy Universe…why do you do this stuff?

We set off on the trail.
It was Goldilocks, not too steep, not too flat, not too hot, not too cold, it was just right. Not only were the conditions lovely, but the scenery was bodaciously beautiful.
I don’t know if you can say bodacious anymore, but I just did, sorry.

The kids were in heaven.
Surrounded by both big and little trees and all kinds of flowers.

It was late afternoon, which is really like evening in the mountains. The trail was shady but the meadows surrounding the trail were absolutely flooded with beautiful sunlight.
They made for the prettiest pictures. Next year I am taking my family pictures here for realsies.
I may just blow this one up and hang it on the wall. It’s perfect. Special thanks to the Euro-guy, who happened to be passing by the other way, who took it for us.

After a short, but steep little rock scramble we found Lake Solitude.
Was it a Lake…I mean yes, but it was really more like a puddle or pond.
The kids were surprisingly uninterested in the lake.
What they really wanted to do was pick huge bouquet of wild flowers. I had told them no it was against the law to pick wildflowers the whole time, but the Euro-guy had a huge armful of them and they just couldn’t let it go.


So, I caved and let them pick to their heart’s content.


We had a crazy awesome time hiking together. This might have been our best hike yet especially because we ended the hike at the nearest KFC where we enjoyed our favorite meal there. Mashed Potatoes and biscuits. No chicken required, mainly because we can’t afford their chicken, plus…I only eat chicken from Costco. I don’t want to talk about meat anymore…I might turn into a vegetarian. Anyway as always biscuits and gravy were a perfect hot and refreshing meal.