DAA
Member
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2012
- Messages
- 715
Seeing the Uintas conditions and trip reports here the last few weeks has had me jonesing bad for some Uintas backpacking. Been just too busy with too much other stuff though. But, finally, over this past weekend I had a few days open. My Son was up for it too, so I left work a bit early on Thur. (6/27) and went home to get him and we were on our way to the Highline TH.
I forgot that my Parks Pass had expired, and I didn’t see a self-serve pass kiosk at the TH, so we had to waste some precious time driving back to Mirror Lake just to buy a recreation pass. And because this was Thur. and we wouldn’t be coming back out until Sun., a 3 day pass wouldn’t do, I had to buy the $12, 7 day pass. What a PITA… What I get for forgetting to buy a new annual pass though.
Anyway… Finally, at about 3:00, we donned our packs and got started down the trail. Between the trail head and Pigeon Milk spring, we only saw two horsemen and two separate, solo hikers on their way out. After kicking it for awhile at Pigeon Milk, we decided to press on over Rocky Sea Pass and camp somewhere on the east side of the pass for the night.
The snow was mostly all gone from Rocky Sea, but there were still a few sections of trail covered in snow, a couple of which were snow fields I deemed unsafe for us to cross, so we easily navigated around them.
Couple pics of me and Logan from the top of Rocky Sea looking into Rock Creek.
Heading down on the east side of the pass, the trail was crossed and lined by dozens of big spider webs complete with big spiders in them.
Spiders really creep me out. They bother me more than any predatory mammal. Actually, I’m not bothered at all by mammalian predators at least not the ones we have in Utah, but spiders, uggghhh, they do bother me. Apparently, I’ve passed this on to my Son, he gets freaked out by them too. So, it was with far more than normal caution and awareness that we descended the east side of the pass, but we managed to completely avoid all the dozens of big spiders encountered along the way.
From the bottom of the east side of the pass, we left the trail and started north cross country towards Uintah lake. We only hiked about another half hour though. It was getting kind of late and I wasn’t sure what kind of terrain, snow or boulder hopping might lie between our position and Uintah lake, so we decided to make camp in a beautiful little meadow for the night and complete our journey in the morning.
A picture of camp the next morning.
Friday morning we got up and continued on to Uintah lake without any drama – the route finding was easy and no obstacles worth mentioning were encountered. At Uintah lake we got out the fishing poles and started catching little brookies on just about every cast. Logan caught fish on his first 7 casts!
After catching about 40 fish and lounging around for awhile, we put our packs back on to go look at the other two nearby lakes – Margie and Rosalie – and look for a place to camp the next two nights. We ended up camped close to Margie, but only had to take a few steps out of camp to see Rosalie.
Campsite at Margie
View of Rosalie from just a few yards out of camp
The fishing at Margie was just as fast as Uintah, but the fish were even smaller. So after lunch and more lounging around, we made the short walk to go try the fishing at Rosalie.
The fishing at Rosalie was just stupid good. We walked around the whole lake, stopping to catch a few whenever we felt like it. We started competing to see who could catch and release fish on the most casts in a row. I caught and released 9 brookies in 9 casts early on and although we both had multiple runs with 5 or 6 in a row, we had made it almost all the way around the lake and it was looking like my 9 in a row was going to hold up. Then Logan ripped off a streak of 12 casts in a row catching and releasing brookies. We didn’t even try to keep count, but I think we caught fish on about 70% of our casts altogether and at least had bites on like 95% of them. Easily caught over 100 fish just walking once around the lake. Like I said, the fishing was just stupid good…
Eventually we started walking back towards camp. Halfway through an open meadow, a small bird jumped up in front of me, doing the fake broken wing act – fluttering along the ground but not going very far. So I knew there must be a nest nearby and it only took about ten seconds to find it.
After a quick picture we moved away to let her get back on her clutch – which she immediately did.
Spent the rest of the day just laying around camp. Logan drank a lot of hot chocolate. I smoked a very nice Fuente Hemmingway and drank some High West.
Next day we slept in as long as we could stand, then took our time getting going. I drank lots of coffee, Logan had lots of hot C. When we finally got going we decided to walk up to Gladys lake and check out the fishing there.
The fishing there was good too – big surprise huh?
Gladys is an especially beautiful spot. The falls beneath the lake were awesome.
I got bored catching small brookies on every cast and decided to take a swim.
It was brisk!
Then it was tea time for Logan, time for something a bit stronger for me.
Later that evening, we decided to head back over to Uintah since it seemed like a few of the brookies there might have been a tiny bit bigger than the ones at Rosalie, and catch a mess of them to grill for dinner. I don’t think they actually were any bigger, but we caught about three dozen before keeping six to eat.
I skinned them and put them in a big ziplock with 7 Seasons Italian dressing for about an hour before drizzling them with olive oil and putting them on the grill.
Very tasty, but honestly more work than it was worth! Seeing as how the little buggers only took about 20 seconds each to get eaten after all that effort.
The next morning we just got up, broke camp and headed out. Back up and over Rocky Sea and west on the Highline. One nice thing, the spiders were mostly (and mysteriiously....) gone from the trail going up Rocky Sea. We didn’t see anyone on the way out until after the Naturalist Basin turnoff, but from there on we saw quite a few people, with the closer we got to the trail head the more people we saw. Logan was drinking a cold Dr. Pepper and I was pounding a Tecate in the parking lot at the TH by 3pm.
Not sure I’ll get in another BP trip this summer. Just too much going on. I sure hope I do though!
- DAA
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I forgot that my Parks Pass had expired, and I didn’t see a self-serve pass kiosk at the TH, so we had to waste some precious time driving back to Mirror Lake just to buy a recreation pass. And because this was Thur. and we wouldn’t be coming back out until Sun., a 3 day pass wouldn’t do, I had to buy the $12, 7 day pass. What a PITA… What I get for forgetting to buy a new annual pass though.
Anyway… Finally, at about 3:00, we donned our packs and got started down the trail. Between the trail head and Pigeon Milk spring, we only saw two horsemen and two separate, solo hikers on their way out. After kicking it for awhile at Pigeon Milk, we decided to press on over Rocky Sea Pass and camp somewhere on the east side of the pass for the night.
The snow was mostly all gone from Rocky Sea, but there were still a few sections of trail covered in snow, a couple of which were snow fields I deemed unsafe for us to cross, so we easily navigated around them.
Couple pics of me and Logan from the top of Rocky Sea looking into Rock Creek.
Heading down on the east side of the pass, the trail was crossed and lined by dozens of big spider webs complete with big spiders in them.
Spiders really creep me out. They bother me more than any predatory mammal. Actually, I’m not bothered at all by mammalian predators at least not the ones we have in Utah, but spiders, uggghhh, they do bother me. Apparently, I’ve passed this on to my Son, he gets freaked out by them too. So, it was with far more than normal caution and awareness that we descended the east side of the pass, but we managed to completely avoid all the dozens of big spiders encountered along the way.
From the bottom of the east side of the pass, we left the trail and started north cross country towards Uintah lake. We only hiked about another half hour though. It was getting kind of late and I wasn’t sure what kind of terrain, snow or boulder hopping might lie between our position and Uintah lake, so we decided to make camp in a beautiful little meadow for the night and complete our journey in the morning.
A picture of camp the next morning.
Friday morning we got up and continued on to Uintah lake without any drama – the route finding was easy and no obstacles worth mentioning were encountered. At Uintah lake we got out the fishing poles and started catching little brookies on just about every cast. Logan caught fish on his first 7 casts!
After catching about 40 fish and lounging around for awhile, we put our packs back on to go look at the other two nearby lakes – Margie and Rosalie – and look for a place to camp the next two nights. We ended up camped close to Margie, but only had to take a few steps out of camp to see Rosalie.
Campsite at Margie
View of Rosalie from just a few yards out of camp
The fishing at Margie was just as fast as Uintah, but the fish were even smaller. So after lunch and more lounging around, we made the short walk to go try the fishing at Rosalie.
The fishing at Rosalie was just stupid good. We walked around the whole lake, stopping to catch a few whenever we felt like it. We started competing to see who could catch and release fish on the most casts in a row. I caught and released 9 brookies in 9 casts early on and although we both had multiple runs with 5 or 6 in a row, we had made it almost all the way around the lake and it was looking like my 9 in a row was going to hold up. Then Logan ripped off a streak of 12 casts in a row catching and releasing brookies. We didn’t even try to keep count, but I think we caught fish on about 70% of our casts altogether and at least had bites on like 95% of them. Easily caught over 100 fish just walking once around the lake. Like I said, the fishing was just stupid good…
Eventually we started walking back towards camp. Halfway through an open meadow, a small bird jumped up in front of me, doing the fake broken wing act – fluttering along the ground but not going very far. So I knew there must be a nest nearby and it only took about ten seconds to find it.
After a quick picture we moved away to let her get back on her clutch – which she immediately did.
Spent the rest of the day just laying around camp. Logan drank a lot of hot chocolate. I smoked a very nice Fuente Hemmingway and drank some High West.
Next day we slept in as long as we could stand, then took our time getting going. I drank lots of coffee, Logan had lots of hot C. When we finally got going we decided to walk up to Gladys lake and check out the fishing there.
The fishing there was good too – big surprise huh?
Gladys is an especially beautiful spot. The falls beneath the lake were awesome.
I got bored catching small brookies on every cast and decided to take a swim.
It was brisk!
Then it was tea time for Logan, time for something a bit stronger for me.
Later that evening, we decided to head back over to Uintah since it seemed like a few of the brookies there might have been a tiny bit bigger than the ones at Rosalie, and catch a mess of them to grill for dinner. I don’t think they actually were any bigger, but we caught about three dozen before keeping six to eat.
I skinned them and put them in a big ziplock with 7 Seasons Italian dressing for about an hour before drizzling them with olive oil and putting them on the grill.
Very tasty, but honestly more work than it was worth! Seeing as how the little buggers only took about 20 seconds each to get eaten after all that effort.
The next morning we just got up, broke camp and headed out. Back up and over Rocky Sea and west on the Highline. One nice thing, the spiders were mostly (and mysteriiously....) gone from the trail going up Rocky Sea. We didn’t see anyone on the way out until after the Naturalist Basin turnoff, but from there on we saw quite a few people, with the closer we got to the trail head the more people we saw. Logan was drinking a cold Dr. Pepper and I was pounding a Tecate in the parking lot at the TH by 3pm.
Not sure I’ll get in another BP trip this summer. Just too much going on. I sure hope I do though!
- DAA
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