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- Aug 9, 2007
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July 2007
We had originally planned a long 30+ mile 5-day trip but about a week before we found out Taylor couldn't come and we thought it would just be Audra and I. Then the day before we left Taylor informed us that he had invited Robyn and she had taken the time off work. Robyn was Taylor's roommate for the winter and I skied with her once but otherwise did not know her. Robyn was great to hike with. She spent a lot of time guiding youth trips in the desert so she was good and ready for the Uintas. This was her first trip to the area. As for me this goes down as one of my all-time favorite areas in the Uintas. The only comparable area would have to be Rock Creek that I visited on a solo trip back in 2005.
The first 2.5 miles of the Christmas Meadows Trail is nicely maintained. Most of that traffic ends up in Amethyst Basin.
3 miles in, the trail crosses Ostler Creek. The traffic decreases a lot a this point because of the Amethyst Basin traffic.
A couple of miles before Ryder, the trail goes from gradual uphill to very steep.
Nikita checking out a squirrel as the trail rises quickly above the valley below.
After the steep section.
We setup camp at the unnamed lake right next to Ryder. I can't remember if it was BR-17 or BR-27 at the moment. Nice like though.
Hayden Peak from camp
Nikita getting a drink as the sun sets.
Day two brought with it sunshine and beautiful blue skies. As usual in The Uintas, this wouldn't last through the afternoon.
We decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and dayhike into the upper reaches of the basin. This is a shot of our unnamed lake from the other side. Our camp is on the distant right side of this shot.
As we climbed higher we gained a new perspective of Ryder Lake.
I didn't think this picture was particularly blog-worthy at first until I saw Audra standing on the right had side. It really gives some scale of the rocks.
This shot shows how close we were to the other lakes. Our lake is on the right and Ryder is on the left. There are several more unnamed lakes just beyond our lake.
Hiking through the basin well above timberline.
This is the ridge that divides this basin from the Mirror Lake Highway area. It was so close we wanted to hike up for a look but there were some threatening clouds rolling in. Apparently this is a pretty popular route to shortcut in here from the Highline Trailhead but I haven't tried it.
Family portrait, Nikita, Nick and Audra.
Admiring the view from 11,098 at the top of the basin.
Nikita, as usual, gravitates towards any available patches of snow.
McPheter's Lake. I really wanted to stop and fish this but we were really far from camp and there was a storm rolling in. It looks like a very deep lake.
We made it back to camp just before the rain became heavy. I'd like to think we were the first, if not amongst the first to sit in a tent above 10,000 feet and watch a video on an iPhone. It has just been released a few days earlier.
After the storm I was determined to catch some fish. I wasn't having much luck at our lake so I walked over to Ryder to try my luck. The fishing was GREAT! I couldn't keep them off my line, notice all of the ripples in this picture. So I'm bring in a fish when I hear Audra yell my name. I look up and see Nikita chasing this Moose into the lake (distant background of this picture). It was crazy! I yelled at her to come back but she was hell bent on the moose.
Nikita wasn't listening to me so the Moose decided to take things into her own hands. This shot is as as the moose is heading out of the water towards Nikita.
After about a minute in the lake the moose had had enough and came out of the water and charged Nikita. She was literally inches from being trampled by the moose. It scared me to death. The only thing that saved her was the huge pile of rocks to the left. Nikita dived into them but the moose couldn't follow. You can see Nikita scrambling away in this shot.
Nikita came back to us but the moose didn't leave. It slowly kept moving towards us so we went back to camp. It walked right past our camp and grazed about 50 yards away for a good 20 minutes.
I kept just enough brookies to fill the pan. Deeeeelicious!
This is our camp and Robyn laying in her bivy. About 7am that same moose from the day before wondered into camp and woke up Robyn by sniffing at her head. It was literally 2 feet away from her while she was lying on the ground. Robyn moved a bit and the moose got scared and ran away. Freaky stuff. Needless to say she didn't make it back to sleep.
Today was 7/7/07 and also my birthday so I thought I'd try to catch one more fish but it just wasn't happening. Photo by Audra.
We packed up camp and made the hike back out to the Christmas Meadows Trailhead. The bad thing about losing all of the elevation so close to the lake was that it was super hot for most of the way back. So after four and half hours of fast hiking we were back to the car and enjoying a cold one.
Group shot at the trailhead. From left: Audra, Nick, Robyn.
Featured image for slideshow:
We had originally planned a long 30+ mile 5-day trip but about a week before we found out Taylor couldn't come and we thought it would just be Audra and I. Then the day before we left Taylor informed us that he had invited Robyn and she had taken the time off work. Robyn was Taylor's roommate for the winter and I skied with her once but otherwise did not know her. Robyn was great to hike with. She spent a lot of time guiding youth trips in the desert so she was good and ready for the Uintas. This was her first trip to the area. As for me this goes down as one of my all-time favorite areas in the Uintas. The only comparable area would have to be Rock Creek that I visited on a solo trip back in 2005.
The first 2.5 miles of the Christmas Meadows Trail is nicely maintained. Most of that traffic ends up in Amethyst Basin.
3 miles in, the trail crosses Ostler Creek. The traffic decreases a lot a this point because of the Amethyst Basin traffic.
A couple of miles before Ryder, the trail goes from gradual uphill to very steep.
Nikita checking out a squirrel as the trail rises quickly above the valley below.
After the steep section.
We setup camp at the unnamed lake right next to Ryder. I can't remember if it was BR-17 or BR-27 at the moment. Nice like though.
Hayden Peak from camp
Nikita getting a drink as the sun sets.
Day two brought with it sunshine and beautiful blue skies. As usual in The Uintas, this wouldn't last through the afternoon.
We decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and dayhike into the upper reaches of the basin. This is a shot of our unnamed lake from the other side. Our camp is on the distant right side of this shot.
As we climbed higher we gained a new perspective of Ryder Lake.
I didn't think this picture was particularly blog-worthy at first until I saw Audra standing on the right had side. It really gives some scale of the rocks.
This shot shows how close we were to the other lakes. Our lake is on the right and Ryder is on the left. There are several more unnamed lakes just beyond our lake.
Hiking through the basin well above timberline.
This is the ridge that divides this basin from the Mirror Lake Highway area. It was so close we wanted to hike up for a look but there were some threatening clouds rolling in. Apparently this is a pretty popular route to shortcut in here from the Highline Trailhead but I haven't tried it.
Family portrait, Nikita, Nick and Audra.
Admiring the view from 11,098 at the top of the basin.
Nikita, as usual, gravitates towards any available patches of snow.
McPheter's Lake. I really wanted to stop and fish this but we were really far from camp and there was a storm rolling in. It looks like a very deep lake.
We made it back to camp just before the rain became heavy. I'd like to think we were the first, if not amongst the first to sit in a tent above 10,000 feet and watch a video on an iPhone. It has just been released a few days earlier.
After the storm I was determined to catch some fish. I wasn't having much luck at our lake so I walked over to Ryder to try my luck. The fishing was GREAT! I couldn't keep them off my line, notice all of the ripples in this picture. So I'm bring in a fish when I hear Audra yell my name. I look up and see Nikita chasing this Moose into the lake (distant background of this picture). It was crazy! I yelled at her to come back but she was hell bent on the moose.
Nikita wasn't listening to me so the Moose decided to take things into her own hands. This shot is as as the moose is heading out of the water towards Nikita.
After about a minute in the lake the moose had had enough and came out of the water and charged Nikita. She was literally inches from being trampled by the moose. It scared me to death. The only thing that saved her was the huge pile of rocks to the left. Nikita dived into them but the moose couldn't follow. You can see Nikita scrambling away in this shot.
Nikita came back to us but the moose didn't leave. It slowly kept moving towards us so we went back to camp. It walked right past our camp and grazed about 50 yards away for a good 20 minutes.
I kept just enough brookies to fill the pan. Deeeeelicious!
This is our camp and Robyn laying in her bivy. About 7am that same moose from the day before wondered into camp and woke up Robyn by sniffing at her head. It was literally 2 feet away from her while she was lying on the ground. Robyn moved a bit and the moose got scared and ran away. Freaky stuff. Needless to say she didn't make it back to sleep.
Today was 7/7/07 and also my birthday so I thought I'd try to catch one more fish but it just wasn't happening. Photo by Audra.
We packed up camp and made the hike back out to the Christmas Meadows Trailhead. The bad thing about losing all of the elevation so close to the lake was that it was super hot for most of the way back. So after four and half hours of fast hiking we were back to the car and enjoying a cold one.
Group shot at the trailhead. From left: Audra, Nick, Robyn.
Featured image for slideshow:
