Abe's Lake, August 2007

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Nick

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Aug 9, 2007
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August 2007

I've been wanting to visit Abe's Lake for some time now. Last June I made a solo attempt at it that didn't work out. You can read about that trip here if you're interested.

  • trip date: 8/3 thru 8/4/07
  • distance: 9 Miles Round Trip
  • trailhead: Middle Fork Weber, Holiday Park Trailhead(Map)
  • peak elevation: 9,820 at Abe's Lake
This time the plan was to leave Park City by 4PM, make it to the trailhead by about 5PM and hike in a couple of miles to the Abe's cutoff trail where we would spend the night. The next day we planned on hiking the rest of the way to Abe's to spend another night. But naturally nothing goes as planned. We made it to the Abe's Lake junction at about 7:20 and I thought we could hurry the rest of the way to the lake. It sounded nice, sleep in, no hiking the next day. Not quite. The pictures should tell the rest.

The Middle Fork Weber trail was nice. It had rained hard an hour earlier so it was damp and humid. Very green for August.
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Audra walking on water. There are three river crossings on this hike. The last time I was here was June of 2006 so I thought the water would be much lower. Not the case, we were clever though and managed to stay dry for the most part.
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Ahh.. decisions, decisions. Go forward and camp the first night by the river or take a left and ascend more than 1000' in less than a mile to camp at Abe's. Hmmmm....
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The trail to Abe's was probably the steepest actual trail I have ever hiked.
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The hike up to Abe's took a little longer than we expected. This is the view we had of the lake upon our arrival. The bigger problem is that we spent the next hour hiking around the lake looking for ANY spot to pitch a tent. It was miserable. We were a little wet, very tired, and we were stumbling over downed trees and boulders in the dark. Add to that the altitude sickness that came with our sudden ascent combined with the heavy exertion.
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We were able to find this semi-rock-free spot to pitch the tent for the night.
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A view of the area around camp. There was literally not one other tent spot nearby. Rocks, rocks and more rocks.
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We even had rocks in our vestibules
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A panoramic of Abe's Lake. Click to view full size.
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We decided to cut the trip short due to the lack of suitable camp spots. The departing shot of Abe's. Notice the rocks and downed trees in the foreground. Very typical of the rest of the area. I did find out later that there is one nice campsite on the east side of the lake.
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Hiking down the super steep Abe's trail. The End.
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