uintas

June 2007 Arrgh! This trip was brutal! It was supposed to be a short, easy one. We had planned on 5 miles in and out for a total 10 mile round trip. The USGS map shows a road going all the way to the wilderness boundary but the Trails Illustrated map shows it several miles back. I called the...

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...

August 2010 I took a little solo hike to Whiskey Island Lake in the Uintas on Friday. I was planning on a larger backpacking trip but the arch of my foot was hurting pretty bad so I opted for something shorter. I was thinking this was going to be just under 3 miles round trip but I ended up...

September 2010 I spent a couple of nights in the Cuberant Basin over the Labor Day weekend with some new friends. I hadn't met any of them before but it was a fun trip and always very interesting to backpack with new people. I planned on staying two nights and coming back on Sunday while they...

I'm going to start digging deep into my trip report archives this weekend. This is the first trip I ever took a digital camera on. :) June 2005 This trip started out with a completely different itinerary then it ended up with. The original plan was for a nice trip to the desert. Early June can...

June 2011 Here it is almost the end of June and I'm backpacking Shingle Creek. Not good! Don't get me wrong, I like it, but by June 26th I should be able to get into some lakes, even if there is still a bit of snow around. But for years like this, or if you have an itch to get out before the...

July 2010 Today was my birthday so I thought I'd take the day off and get a quick trip in. It was a short trip on short notice so it ended up just being me and my oldest dog, Nikita. Since I was alone I wanted to do something pretty short and fairly well traveled in case I had any trouble. I...

October 2010 I had a last minute invite to go backpacking with some friends over the weekend. I thought I'd be out of the Uintas until next year but the freakishly warm weather made it feel an awful lot like August up there. Fishing was good and they were fatties by Uinta standards, getting...

June 2011 What a crazy spring it's been for the weather in Utah. Here it is almost the middle of June and the Uintas are still buried in snow. It will be weeks at best before its clear enough for some good backpacking at the higher elevations. But after all the epic desert trips last month I...

August 2011 Kermsuh Lake. It doesn't have all that much going for it when you compare it to the other two basins accessed from Christmas Meadows. The others have have better campsites, more lakes, less rugged terrain and faster fishing. But Kermsuh just has a special character that I...

September 2011 The first post-Labor day trip into the Uintas for the year is in the books and boy was it nice. It's absolutely amazing the difference in the crowds after one simple holiday. The destination for this trip was Four Lakes Basin and Allen Lake in the High Uintas Wilderness. I've...

August 2011 It seems like Priord Lake will elude me this year, at least for the month of August. Once again I planned a 3-day trip up there and once again complications stopped me. On last weekend's trip to Kermsuh Lake I came down with a really nasty summer cold that held on through the week...

July 2011 I was fortunate to get out on a short backpacking trip with Bill and his son, Lanik, over the weekend. For those that don't know, I've been picking away at a college degree over the last 5 years. And finally, after countless night and online classes I'm almost DONE (last class ever on...

It's been a long time since I've been out and doing anything. Football season started a bit earlier for me because I'm part of the board for our league, which means more time spent getting things ready for 200+ kids to play football (lots of paper work, fundraising, follow up, etc.) My brother...

July 2011 2011 may be one of the craziest years of late season snowfall that Utah has ever seen. The Mirror Lake Highway, often open by Memorial Day weekend had just barely opened on June 30th. Snow was sticking around like it was late May. But I was determined to not let it stop me from...

08-07-08 to 08-10-08 This was my first trip ever to the Unitas! We had decided to go to Gilbert Lake as we had heard the fishing is good. It's just north of Gilbert peak (3rd highest peak in UT at 13,442'), which is just north of Kings peak (highest point in UT at 13,528'). We didn't leave...

July 2011 My first backpacking trip to the Uintas was a 3-day trip into Amethyst Basin way back in 2003. I was SO hooked. On that trip we camped at Toomset Lake and day hiked up through Ostler Lake and BR-24. We had planned on day hiking up to Amethyst Lake as well but we spent so much time...

This is my first trip report. A little background, I grew up on the east coast. All through middle school and high school I was heavily involved in the scouting programs and I loved camping and exploring the outdoors. When I moved to Utah my first impression was, "this is a desert!". But then...

August 2010 I went on a backpacking trip to Allsop Lake over the weekend. We car camped nearby Thursday night and started the hike on Friday morning giving us two nights at the lake. The hike from the trailhead to our spot halfway up the east side of the lake was almost exactly 9 miles. I had...

August 2009 We spent 5 days and 4 nights on this trip and logged 32 unique miles of trail on the big loop, one of the nights was car camping near the trailhead. We started and ended at the Swift Creek Trailhead in the Yellowstone drainage. We made a big loop by heading up through Swift Creek...