Honeycomb Cliffs

We started at the Alta parking lot (8640') actually East of what we later found to be the trailhead and climbed a steep drainage that intersected the main trail. From here we started hiking into the small canyon that is Grizzley Gulch. The trail was rocky and had water running down it in several places. Some wildflowers were starting to bloom and the vegetation was starting to leaf out after being covered in snow since the fall. Soon we arrived at an area that had obviously been excavated and had remains of mining activity from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

We dropped slightly in elevation, took a right turn from where the trail had led us, entered snow and continued up the drainage. It now seemed that we were walking up an old mining service road. We stopped to look around a bit as things had now opened up. The views of Mt. Superior, Flagstaff Mountain, Pfiefferhorn, Baldy, Wolverine and Millicent were terrific. We kept hiking on mostly hard consolidated snow until we arrived at Twin Lakes Pass (9993'). We stopped here for pics and a drink and to take in the awsome views. We have hiked about 2.1 miles at this point and attained an elevation gain of 1353'. If you continued East from here and followed the trail on the North side of Twin Lakes for about 1.75 miles you would end up at Brighton.

We found a faint trail free of snow that climbed steeply up the ridge 486' to the peak, Honeycomb Cliffs (10479'). Here the views changed again and we could see peaks we had climbed in Big Cottonwood Canyon. There were remains of a corness and the ridge was snow capped. The rocky summit itself was dry and there were small beautiful yellow wildflowers growing in a few clusters amongst the sparkley white clean airy looking rock, hence the name Honeycomb. This is a very scenic half-day hike that will give you a different perspective of familiar summits. We continued West along the ridge for about .75 mile to the saddle East of Davenport Hill and picked up the Silver Fork trail that we followed to the Michigan-Utah Mine back in Grizzley Gulch. We saw an old mining truck that was lieing on its side that had probably been there for decades rusting away. It made for some interesting photos. From here we joined the Alta-Brighton Trail (Grizzley Gulch Trail segment) and returned to the car.