Last year, on one of my first backpacking trips, we hiked to Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The hike was extremely hard for me and I thought I hated backpacking because of it. Luckily, after a few less strenuous backpacking trips, I have come to love it and keep planning more trips. On Memorial Day, we didn’t have any set plans so we talked to Kristin and Dan and decided on a hike. We scoped out some trails looking for the one with the least amount of snow. Much to my dismay, we chose Lake Blanche.

We met Dan, Kristin, and Skylee at the trail head around 9:00 and started hiking. The trail immediately starts uphill and doesn’t stop until the top. At the beginning of the trail, everything was green and bright, but as we trekked higher in elevation things were just barely blooming and still brown. It was interesting to see the difference that 1000 feet makes in the scenery and the greenery of it all. We really didn’t struggle getting up the trail and we hiked at a great pace helping us get to the top in about two hours. The trail really doesn’t even out much so it is seriously uphill the entire time; Leg workout!

It is about 7 miles round trip with a 2690 foot incline; Sundial Peak is definitely worth the hike. We spent about an hour eating, hammocking, and resting our legs. We all commented on our way down about how steep it really is. I felt so much better about the trail this time, probably because I wasn’t carrying an extra 20 pounds. While this hike is moderately strenuous, I recommend everyone should do it at least once. It is quite satisfying to get to the top and see the magnificent Sundial Peak reflecting in the lake.