regehr
Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2012
- Messages
- 2,323
A few days ago I posted about getting driven out of the Winds by mosquitoes:
https://backcountrypost.com/threads/wind-river-mountains-conditions-2018.7691/page-3#post-99544
Following that experience my son and I still had plenty of backpacking food and clear space in the calendar, so we decided to head to the Uintas where hopefully the bugs would be fewer. We needed a rest day so drove home to SLC, then headed up to Priord lake Thursday AM, getting there in about 6 hours hiking time (something like 10 miles and 1500' elevation gain). We had the lake totally to ourselves and in fact didn't see any people until the return trip close to the Bear River E Fork trailhead this afternoon. It seems like the bulk of the traffic there heads to Allsop? Priord is quite a slog so I can sort of see why people would give it a miss, but I think that due to the larger, more complex cirque it's a more interesting backpacking destination. The big rock glacier that ends near Priord Lake is spectacular.
Norice Lake doesn't seem that interesting. Is it pronounced "no rice" like someone spilled their rice while cooking out one time? Or is it pronounced similarly to the name "Nora"?
Open street map (which I use via Osmand on my phone) showed a trail exiting the Priord cirque to the south, so we explored that yesterday. It is well cairned but has some very steep, loose sections. I would not be happy exiting Priord basin while carrying a heavy pack. We gained the ridge overlooking Rock Creek and intended to summit Yard Peak, but it turns out that after a fairly easy climb to Peak 12486 (a half mile SW of Yard) the remaining route looked very difficult. Perhaps not technical climbing but extremely sketchy. So we called it a day. It was kind of cold up there, and 12486 feet represented a new maximum elevation for my kid!
The cowed up situation around Priord is bad. Did the forest service screw up and give some rancher a 99 year permit or something? It seems like there must be a better way to balance land usage than putting cows in the heavily-used NW Uintas. But whatever. Anyhow, in the evening we had cows browsing around our camp at 10,500'. I exited the tent and yelled at them until they left. But one of the cows actually seemed interested by my behavior and tried to stick around. I'm guessing some idiot camper fed her one time. But after my antics they departed and we didn't see them again. Of course cow shit was everywhere. My son was kind and did not take pictures of me in my long johns cursing at livestock. Nor did he take pictures of me taking a quick swim in the lake.
Regarding mosquitoes: there were a fair number of them in the evening and a few in the morning, but it was heaven compared to the Winds. I didn't even get a bite but my kid forgot to put on his bug-proof jacket while pumping water and got a few bites through his shirt. But no problem overall. I bet they're gone for good in a couple weeks.
You know what's weird, I think the mosquitoes in the Uintas and a distinct sub-species from those in the Winds. In the Uintas they hum really loudly and are mostly active in the morning/evening, basically just gone a couple hours after sunrise. The ones in the Winds were almost completely silent and were roughly equally active during all daylight hours. Anyone else observed this kind of thing? I sure would hate to start becoming a mosquito connoisseur, wow.
https://backcountrypost.com/threads/wind-river-mountains-conditions-2018.7691/page-3#post-99544
Following that experience my son and I still had plenty of backpacking food and clear space in the calendar, so we decided to head to the Uintas where hopefully the bugs would be fewer. We needed a rest day so drove home to SLC, then headed up to Priord lake Thursday AM, getting there in about 6 hours hiking time (something like 10 miles and 1500' elevation gain). We had the lake totally to ourselves and in fact didn't see any people until the return trip close to the Bear River E Fork trailhead this afternoon. It seems like the bulk of the traffic there heads to Allsop? Priord is quite a slog so I can sort of see why people would give it a miss, but I think that due to the larger, more complex cirque it's a more interesting backpacking destination. The big rock glacier that ends near Priord Lake is spectacular.
Norice Lake doesn't seem that interesting. Is it pronounced "no rice" like someone spilled their rice while cooking out one time? Or is it pronounced similarly to the name "Nora"?
Open street map (which I use via Osmand on my phone) showed a trail exiting the Priord cirque to the south, so we explored that yesterday. It is well cairned but has some very steep, loose sections. I would not be happy exiting Priord basin while carrying a heavy pack. We gained the ridge overlooking Rock Creek and intended to summit Yard Peak, but it turns out that after a fairly easy climb to Peak 12486 (a half mile SW of Yard) the remaining route looked very difficult. Perhaps not technical climbing but extremely sketchy. So we called it a day. It was kind of cold up there, and 12486 feet represented a new maximum elevation for my kid!
The cowed up situation around Priord is bad. Did the forest service screw up and give some rancher a 99 year permit or something? It seems like there must be a better way to balance land usage than putting cows in the heavily-used NW Uintas. But whatever. Anyhow, in the evening we had cows browsing around our camp at 10,500'. I exited the tent and yelled at them until they left. But one of the cows actually seemed interested by my behavior and tried to stick around. I'm guessing some idiot camper fed her one time. But after my antics they departed and we didn't see them again. Of course cow shit was everywhere. My son was kind and did not take pictures of me in my long johns cursing at livestock. Nor did he take pictures of me taking a quick swim in the lake.
Regarding mosquitoes: there were a fair number of them in the evening and a few in the morning, but it was heaven compared to the Winds. I didn't even get a bite but my kid forgot to put on his bug-proof jacket while pumping water and got a few bites through his shirt. But no problem overall. I bet they're gone for good in a couple weeks.
You know what's weird, I think the mosquitoes in the Uintas and a distinct sub-species from those in the Winds. In the Uintas they hum really loudly and are mostly active in the morning/evening, basically just gone a couple hours after sunrise. The ones in the Winds were almost completely silent and were roughly equally active during all daylight hours. Anyone else observed this kind of thing? I sure would hate to start becoming a mosquito connoisseur, wow.
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