Hike To Lake Blanche

Let me tell you about the time where I ALMOST hiked to Lake Blanche, just outside of Salt Lake City.

It was the middle of July in 2021 and I was in Salt Lake City for a photography workshop. This marked the beginning of a two week solo trip also including a photography conference in North Carolina. If it wasn’t obvious, I am a seasoned wedding and portrait photographer who, in recent years, added travel photography to my repertoire. I had a free day (and I’m not much of a shopper and I had already visited the famed Salt Lake City Temple) so I thought “why not hop on yelp and see if there was a nearby hiking trail that would give me beautiful landscape pictures”.

Judging by the reviews and the photos from other hikers, I knew that Lake Blanche trail would be a very scenic hike. But for some reason, I ignored the 6.8 mile round-trip that was listed as the distance. I also ignored that the hike was rated as moderate/hard. At this point in time, I did not understand trail ratings. Needless to say, I needed something easier, especially in the middle of summer. Not to mention that I was coming from an elevation of 341 feet above sea level, whereas the majority of Salt Lake City sits at 4,226 feet. Let’s not forget the tiny detail that I was wearing your average sneaker and not hiking boots. Hiking boots are important.

So here is how I got started and I want you to pick out what went wrong: I awoke that morning around 8 AM and had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. I left the hotel around 9 AM and drove approximately 30 minutes to the trailhead. Parking was difficult as there was a crowd already formed. Cars lined the road both before the trailhead parking lot and after. The winding highway up to the trailhead should have given me a red flag of the potential difficulty of this trail, but, moving on. I was proud of myself for bringing a full large water bottle and applying sunscreen before getting out of the car. The walk to the trailhead wasn’t bad, but the sun was already intense, and I immediately became thankful that to the majority of the trail itself is shaded by Aspen and pine trees. Finding the official start to the trail, took me longer than necessary as I did notice to the left people were climbing up a very steep Hill. I decided to follow. That is wrong. Do not go to the left. The trailhead is to the right.

Remember when I said that Salt Lake City sits at an average of 4,226 feet above sea level? Well, an easy Google search will tell you that lake Blanche sits at 8,920 feet above sea level. Let that sink in. I was getting ready to hike close to double of where I was starting and at that point in time had only been at the starting sea level for two days. Going from 341 to 4226 is problematic enough. Has anyone heard of elevation sickness? I hadn’t until that day.

To summarize the one and a half hour hike that I did accomplish, I likely made it one and a half miles up before making the tough decision to call it quits and head back down the mountain. Here is what that 90 minute period of time looked like for me:

• Not too much sweating, thankfully, because humidity almost doesn’t exist in Utah and coming from Western Kentucky, I was doing pretty well with the heat.
• Having several people (who were sporting hiking backpacks on their back) point out that my one large water bottle was not enough, and I quickly started rationing my water intake because at that point I was planning on doing the full hike and returning back down.
• Burning in my thighs because the hikes I had done previously were at practically no elevation increase. We’re talking hikes around land between the lakes national Forest. Definitely nothing like hiking in the mountains of Utah.
• Shortness of breath. And this was new to me because I’m a fairly active person and I definitely was not running up this mountain. Very much slow pace walking. At this point in time I had no idea why I was so short of breath.
• Developing a intense headache. I attributed it to dehydration and breathing so heavily.

I remember arriving at a point in the trail that had three or four large boulders on the right side – a few people were already sitting on them, resting. Exhausted and rapidly breathing, I attempted a conversation with them and after about 10 minutes and my breathing not calming down I decided I would give myself five more minutes of rest time before making a decision. I had drank approximately half of my water and one of the other hikers had just told me that the next little bit was the toughest part of the trail and then it got easy until you reached the lake. The easy part of the trail before the lake sounded tempting, but it was time to be honest with myself.

The quarter of a mile that was ahead of me was going to be too difficult for the level of hiker I was at that point and I barely had anything left in me. And what amount of time would I have to enjoy the lake before I needed to hike back down the mountain and safely get to my car in time for sunset? Not going to lie – I knew around mile 1 that I needed to turn around but I was stubborn. After that five additional minutes sitting on the boulder, I pushed my pride aside, picked up my half empty water bottle, and turned left onto the trail instead of right. Heading back down the mountain was much easier and much faster.

During the drive back to my hotel in downtown Salt Lake City, I made a promise to myself. I would purchase legitimate hiking boots and backpack and the next hike I went on I would complete it! In fact, I would purposefully start planning more hikes and make up for that day’s lost time. That summer planted the seed of what would later grow into the summer of 2022 and our adventures in hiking.