Silver Lake Hike (American Fork Canyon) - Aug 1, 2009

Distance: 4.4 miles

Elevation Gain: 1400+

Difficulty: 7 of 10. It's pretty steep and rocky. The hike is short enough that it's not too bad, but its a pretty difficult hike for only being 2.2 miles up. (I may be thinking it's worse than it is because I carried Adam most of the way.)

Cliff Exposure: 3 of 10. There are a few drop-offs on the switch backs, but they aren't bad and the trail is plenty wide.

Trail Rating: 6 of 10. It's a pretty good hike, but not my favorite. The drive to the trail-head included over 3 miles of lousy, bumpy, rocky, narrow dirt road that dropped my opinion of the hike.

If you like a rocky trail you will love this trail, if you dislike rocky trails, you will hate this trail. (We had a lot of fun playing on the rocks on the trail - jumping off, scrambling up, etc.) You are hiking up a couple of really steep ridges, so it's a lot of fairly steep switchbacks with a lot of exposure to the sun. There are some areas where you are going through really pretty tress, but for a lot of the trail you are out in the desert with no shade. You also get to see a couple of waterfalls that are along the creek coming from Silver Lake, but the trail doesn't get close to the waterfals, so you just get a view from the distance.

Payoff Rating: 8 of 10. The lake at the top is in great. The lake water is crystal clear. The boulders are fun to jump off of into the lake (although it was only 6-8 feet deep so you have to be careful.) It's also fun to look down the ridge and see Silver Lake Flat below. (Of course it makes you wonder, why you didn't just stay down at Silver Lake Flat which is also a beautiful lake but without the hike.) The trail was heavily used on a Saturday, so if you are looking for privacy this isn't the best option. The lake is stocked for fishing - the people we talked to that were up there fishing that day didn't have much luck.

Best Part: Jumping off the boulders into the lake.

Worst Part: The drive there. The dirt road was really pretty miserable to drive on with a minivan.

Getting There: Head up American Fork Canyon until you get to the fork in the road. Take the left fork heading to Tibble Fork Reservoir. Once at Tibble Fork take the paved road headed north. You'll know your on the right road as it winds up high in the canyon with several switch backs. This road will take you to Sliver Flat Lake. Drive around Silver Flat Lake you will find a small parking area with outhouses. The trail head is to the north of the parking lot.

The Hike:
We started at Silver Lake Flat. The drive to Silver Lake Flat was pretty rough. The 3+ mile dirt road from Tibble Fork was really rough and rocky. Michelle didn't like driving next to those cliffs at all! We had our 9 year old neighbor, Winson, with us and he tossed his cookies during the drive up.

The trail started out super smooth and gradual. What a deception! It's just saving up so that it can be extra steep and rocky later. The first half mile is shaded and smooth with occasional patches of rock.

Of course we knew we needed to climb 1400 feet so that meant it had to get harder later. And it did. After crossing a bridge over a stream about 3/4 of a mile in the trail started getting quite rocky and steep. We came out of the forest, and we saw a ridge where we assumed the lake was above. This was true - sort of. Actually once you get over the first ridge, the lake is over a second ridge.

Eventually 2nd stream crossing where you could see a ridge above and it seemed like we were almost there. Not so - someone said they had read that the stream was the 1/2 way point - that sounds about right. However, it's probably only about 1/4 of the elevation gain - the hard part of the hike is coming up.

Next it's lots of switchbacks to get over the ridge. This part is pretty steep with very little shade. After you get over the first ridge, it gets really rocky until you get over the 2nd ridge and to the lake. At the top we were a little unsure of where to go - the trail splits all over the place. We decided to head across the front(left) and it was a good choice. The trail goes over a dam holding the water in the lake and we could hear but no see the waterfall below. This led us to a boulder that we had fun jumping off of.

Pictures of our hike:

	Todd, Scott & Adam hike near the beginning of the trail.
	Todd & Adam taking a break at the first creek crossing.
	Krista & Winson cross the first creek.
	Winson, Scott & Todd pose with Aspens in the background.
	Todd on the trail. You can see a hint of the type of rocks you encounter on the trail in the background.
	Krista at the 2nd creek crossing showing us her discovery of how to get across without getting wet using the rocks just above the tail. (This second crossing is about halfway to Silver Lake in distance, but the hard part of the trail is yet to come.)
	Michelle at the 2nd creek crossing.
	A look back of where we came from on the lower switchbacks.
	Krista & Brian with Adam poaching a free ride on Brian's back coming up the lower switchbacks.
	Winson & Scott near the top of the first ridge. (Winson put suncreen on his arms and face twice, "just to sure" before the hike. Then when it got steep he took his shirt off because he was hot and spent the rest of the time with no shirt. (Lucky for him, he never had to worry much about a sunburn.)
	Finally at the top, time to swim in the cold lake (I'm guessing 55 degrees.) Krista waded in first following by Scott then Brian. At this point Brian & Scott have gone all the way in but Krista has decided it is to cold to put her head under.
	Brian & Scott help to convince Krista to get all the way in.
	Adam hops in and poses with Scott. By this point Krista is swimming around. Todd & Winson join in shortly after. Michelle uses the excuse (lame) that she is the camera person and doesn't get in.
	Next we head over to the rocks to jump in. It was only 6-8 feet deep so we had to be a little careful. After he initial hesitation getting wet, Krista was the first to jump off the rock into the water. Scott prepares to jump in while the rest look on.
	Todd jumping in while Brian watches and Winson & Scott scramble up for another jump. Scott probably jumped off more than everyone else put together. Brian was the only one to dive in the shallow waters (including a little swim one time to rescue Scott's flip-flop that had come off during a jump and was out in the lake). Krista, Scott, Todd, Brian & Winson all took turns jumping in.

The whole family at the edge of Silver Lake just before heading back down the trail. (Winson is the photographer on this one.)

At one point on the way down, Adam decided he'd had enough of the current hiking stretch and was ready to ride in the backpack again. He and I were a bit behind the others because, of course, Adam was going at a slower pace than the rest. So it was time to go fast to make up time. While I was going along hopping off the many rocks on the trail to make it fun for him, he told me I was a duck. So I made a quacking noise which made him laugh hysterically. Then I jumped off a rock and he told me I was a jumping duck. So we spent the next 1/2 mile with me jumping off every rock and ledge making goofy quacking noises and with Adam laughing his head off the whole way. We finally caught up with the group at the first creek crossing. I quickly showed them the jumping duck thing with Adam laughing his head off. Pretty soon all the kids were right behind me jumping and quacking off every rock and root. A bit later we passed a family hiking up the trail while we were hiking down the trail quacking and jumping along. I'm sure they think we are insane, and they are probably right...