Alta Mountain — Saturday, Jul. 6, 2019

Arrived at the TH at 8 o’clock and took the last spot in the actual lot. First few miles are a breeze with some easy stream crossings. Once you hit mile 3 the real work starts..steep, Rocky, rooty and muddy. Luckily it doesn’t last forever and you break out to rachel lake. It looked like it was a busy night last night as there was a ton of camps set up. I bypassed the lake and hit the “trail” to the right and made my way up to rampart ridge. Made quick work of the Rocky trail and hit the intersection. Left leading to rampart and right leading to Lila/Alta. Having been to rampart before I was excited to explore the other side. Trail gets a bit brushy but it’s clear as day where the trail is heading. I then hit the intersection with Alta/Lila. It was about 930 and the clouds were covering the entire area so I figured I’d buy myself some time and head to Lila before heading up to Alta. In my opinion it is a much prettier area than rampart lakes. I hung out for a bit and then back tracked to the junction and headed up to Alta in hopes that the weather would clear. Just like the description states, it starts of steep and then mellows out. At this point it’s a beautiful ridge walk to the summit. One tough part just a couple hundred feet before the summit where I struggled with my dog. You are on an extremely skinny section where the fall to the right is deadly and you have to jump down about 4 feet. Easy for a human, tough for the 4 legged friend. Other than that the trail is beautiful. Weather didn’t end up clearing by my turn around time so I ended up taking off. Still a wonderful way to get 12 miles in!