Aldaron
Member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,487
The first, and last, time I went to Brown Duck Basin was about seven years ago on a solo overnighter. Since I had lived in Utah less than a year at that time, and I've been to a LOT of places since then, I couldn't remember much about the hike. I vaguely recalled that it was kind of steep and kind of rocky, but that was about it. So this weekend, as I was trying to decide where to go for this unusually early summer, I decided to take my wife up to Brown Duck so she could see it.
Since the trailhead is at the end of a paved road at Moon Lake, north of Duchesne, we made the drive in my wife's sedan...it was nice to save money on gas. The campground at the end of the road was crowded, but there wasn't a single car parked at the trailhead when we arrived. Just a few yards from the parking lot, there is a trail intersection. A sign says that the trail straight ahead goes to Brown Duck, and the right-hand trail goes to Lake Fork. We took the right trail, though, which intersects with a branch of the Brown Duck trail about 3/4 of a mile down the trail. This route looked a little shorter on the map, so we gave it a shot. After walking behind the campground, we took a left onto the signed Brown Duck fork.
And thus began the ascent.
I can summarize the next six miles pretty easily: up, rocky, forested. About 5 of the next 6 miles gain almost continuous elevation. And about 3 miles of that are completely covered in basketball to softball sized rocks. And the trail is completely forested, so there are virtually no views.
Sound fun?
Really, it wasn't. The hike up was not very much fun. But it had a good side: we saw exactly the same number of deer tracks as we did other boot prints, and we saw absolutely no other people. Once we arrived at Brown Duck Lake, the wind was blowing pretty good off the mountains, but we found a decent site in the trees on the east side of the lake. After dinner, we took a short walk over to Island Lake, and then settled in for the night.
The next day, we had some great views of the calm lake, and watched lots and lots of trout surfacing on the lake, before heading back home.
While the hike up to Brown Duck was unpleasant, the solitude was great, and the lakes were really pretty. The rocks along the trail were really confounding. For miles I kept wondering why they hadn't cleared the rocks when they built the trail, but I eventually decided that the rocks had probably just been exposed from erosion of the sand on the trail. I briefly considered organizing a trail crew on here to go up there and clear three miles of rocks off the trails, but I decided that was probably a pretty crazy idea! I probably won't go back here, just because the hike up was that unpleasant. But I do think the basin is worth doing at least once. It was a good hike to shake out the winter cobwebs and remind the body that summer is here and it's time to get back down to business.
Since the trailhead is at the end of a paved road at Moon Lake, north of Duchesne, we made the drive in my wife's sedan...it was nice to save money on gas. The campground at the end of the road was crowded, but there wasn't a single car parked at the trailhead when we arrived. Just a few yards from the parking lot, there is a trail intersection. A sign says that the trail straight ahead goes to Brown Duck, and the right-hand trail goes to Lake Fork. We took the right trail, though, which intersects with a branch of the Brown Duck trail about 3/4 of a mile down the trail. This route looked a little shorter on the map, so we gave it a shot. After walking behind the campground, we took a left onto the signed Brown Duck fork.
And thus began the ascent.
I can summarize the next six miles pretty easily: up, rocky, forested. About 5 of the next 6 miles gain almost continuous elevation. And about 3 miles of that are completely covered in basketball to softball sized rocks. And the trail is completely forested, so there are virtually no views.
Sound fun?
Really, it wasn't. The hike up was not very much fun. But it had a good side: we saw exactly the same number of deer tracks as we did other boot prints, and we saw absolutely no other people. Once we arrived at Brown Duck Lake, the wind was blowing pretty good off the mountains, but we found a decent site in the trees on the east side of the lake. After dinner, we took a short walk over to Island Lake, and then settled in for the night.
The next day, we had some great views of the calm lake, and watched lots and lots of trout surfacing on the lake, before heading back home.
While the hike up to Brown Duck was unpleasant, the solitude was great, and the lakes were really pretty. The rocks along the trail were really confounding. For miles I kept wondering why they hadn't cleared the rocks when they built the trail, but I eventually decided that the rocks had probably just been exposed from erosion of the sand on the trail. I briefly considered organizing a trail crew on here to go up there and clear three miles of rocks off the trails, but I decided that was probably a pretty crazy idea! I probably won't go back here, just because the hike up was that unpleasant. But I do think the basin is worth doing at least once. It was a good hike to shake out the winter cobwebs and remind the body that summer is here and it's time to get back down to business.
There's a few lakes in the range that have them, but for the most part Golden Trout are not found in the Uintas. The Winds on the other hand...
take Brown Duck off of to-do list.