Cardiff Pass is a great hike in what was once a significant mining area across Little Cottonwood Canyon from Alta, Utah.
Parking is available along the side of the road by the Alta Lodge. I parked a little higher, above the Albion Grill parking area. This provides a bit more distance and a nice walk through some beautiful aspen trees. Either way, you take the old mining road called Michigan City Rd. to the Cardiff Pass Trail. Click HERE for a map.
The trail starts out as old, rocky mining road and goes up through an area that has amazing wildflowers in early and mid-summer. After hiking about ¾ of a mile the trail splits. To the right is the trail to Toledo Bowl, which is great for back country skiing in the winter. The trail that goes left continues up to Cardiff Pass. After a little over another half mile you will reach the pass.
The trail is pretty steep in places. I use Alltrails.com and a Garmin tracker for distance and vertical gain. My hike bounced off on and off some side trail, but the best I can figure the from the app and the tracker is the average grade to the pass is almost 19%.
Continuing higher you can do an easy scramble to the top of 10,277 foot Cardiff Peak. The ridge from the pass to the summit is rocky and a bit steep and both the ridge and summit provide amazing views. You can look across Little Cottonwood Canyon at the world class ski resorts of Alta and Snowbird and some amazing mountain peaks. Back down the canyon is a fantastic view of the Pfeifferhorn and the ridge that goes north from this amazing mountain peak.
For more adventurous hikers/scramblers, you can continue over to Mt. Superior and even to Monte Cristo, but these are not for the casual hiker.
The hike to Cardiff Pass and to Cardiff Peak isn’t that long. Even going off trail and on side trails I recorded just a little over 5 miles and a cumulative gain of almost 2,500 vertical feet. This included dropping over the pass and going down into the canyon on the north side before heading back. The scenery on this side is also incredible and this part of the trail doesn’t appear to get very much foot traffic.
Want to check out the trail to Cardiff Pass and Cardiff Peak? Click HERE for a map
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