Red Pine Lake, White Pine Lake, Almost White Baldy

[kballing]

I hiked up and over from Red Pine Lake to White Pine Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Still a lot of snow. My plan was to summit White Baldy. I left after work and got to the trailhead at 4:30. The trail was easy going untill about .5 miles from Red Pine lake where there is still a lot of snow in the basin. The hike is pretty popular so there is no problem with following the trail. I took a detour about 500 yards before the lake and hiked up the snow and scree toward the ridgeline. I got to the top of the ridge around 6:30 north of White Baldy. It probably would have been another 20 minutes to the summit, but the ridge line is tough terrain and still a lot of snow on the West slopes and I wanted to get back to the trail head before the sun set. I was planning on going back the way I came, but decided to see some new scenery and went down to White pine lake. I very carefully down climbed the cliffs on the East face of the ridge about 200 ft. and then slid down the glacier right all the way to White Pine lake. Judging by the tracks, nobody has been to the lake in about a week. The surrounding area is still entirely covered in snow. There were some tracks from the end of the trail lead up to Red Baldy from within the last day or two. I followed those tracks for about .5 miles before the snow lets up and the trail becomes identifiable. The rest of the trail down still had a lot of mud and snow for about 2 miles. I got back to the trailhead at 8:30. 8.3 miles total, not a bad pace.

[plutacratic77]

Kballing, thanks for the trip report. Was actually planning on hiking up to White Pine this Sunday. Would you say the snowy sections right before the lake are snowshoe worthy? Or is it sticky and packed enough that microspikes would do the trick?

[kballing]

No snowshoes required, everything is packed and/or slushy.