Wilder Lake July 6 - July 8

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Jan 23, 2012
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This last weekend a few friends, rockiemtn42 and I decided to go backpacking in the Uinta's. Our plan was to hike into Naturalist Basin. We left about 1:30 on Friday and got to the Highline Trailhead around 3:30. On our way up the Mirror Lake Highway it was very overcast with a few sprinkles. When we got to the trailhead we had just missed a storm that rolled through dumping heavy rain and hail. It must have been one hell of a downpour as there was little streams running down the trail and small piles of hail 2" deep scattered about. Before we went on our way we registered at the trailhead and noticed that there were a lot of people headed to or already in Naturalist Basin so we decided to head towards Packard Lake.

One of the meadows on the way in.
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The first part of the Highline trail for those that don’t know is all downhill until the wilderness boundary. Then it’s up and down until you reach the Packard, Wyman and Wilder Lake Junction.

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The trail from this point goes down and can be a foot catcher if you’re not careful as I found out. The first lake on this spur trail is Wilder Lake. When we got to Wilder we saw that there was not a soul around so we looked for a campsite, found an awesome one and decided to stay there

The Gang: Steve, Kevin (rockiemtn42), Jayson and the puppies Grace & Haley.
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When we got to the lake the fish were rising all over the place so we pulled out the poles. The fishing was fast and furious we could not keep them off our lines.
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Mt. Agassiz with Wilder Lake in the foreground.

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A beautiful sunset that first night.
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A selfie the next morning with one of the plethora of small brookies we caught.
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A different shot of Agassiz with morning sun rays before the clouds took over

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Waking up to frost and fog on Sunday morning.
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Overall this was only a 5 mile round trip hike, but it was fun,the fishing was great and we had the place to ourselves. The campsite was excellent, but the trash left by others was not! We packed some trash out with us. The skeeters were not that bad maybe a 4 out of 10.
Great little lake if you catch it with nobody there and only want to go on a short backpack.
The weather for the most part was great with some showers and thunder, but not a full on monsoon. :D

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Very nice! Glad to hear the mosquitoes weren't too bad, that means it should be quite tolerable for me on the big hike later this month. :)
 
Thanks for the report and the pics! Looks like you got some great skies. Is the sunset pic from Friday night or Saturday? I was on the other side of Agassiz @ Ryder Lake Saturday night and MAN that was one lovely sunset. Good to see the monsoon-ish weather finally arrive.
 
Kind of off-subject, but I keep thinking about it with all this talk of monsoons. I recently read The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs. In it, he talks about how the term 'monsoon' is kind of a misnomer for what we actually get here in the summer months. A monsoon lasts for weeks or months in asia, meanwhile we get these bursts of heavy rain. He called them 'Chubascos' and I really liked that. So how about this Chubasco season we're having? :D

Definitions...

Chubasco
A chubasco is a violent squall with thunder and lightning, encountered during the rainy season along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Central America and South America.

Monsoon:
mon·soon
noun /mänˈso͞on/  /ˈmänˌso͞on/ 
monsoons, plural

A seasonal prevailing wind in the region of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, blowing from the southwest between May and September and bringing rain (the wet monsoon), or from the northeast between October and April (the dry monsoon)

The rainy season accompanying the wet monsoon
 
So how about this Chubasco season we're having? :D

Yeah, I like it!

Howeva. If we're gonna get real technical here, a Chubasco is only encountered along the pacific coast of Central and South America, at least according to the definition o_O. So what does that leave us with?

I submit that we come up with our own term for our Monsoonal Chubasco's that we experience here.
 
Well, if you get into meteorological talk, we don't actually hear much about northern Utah having monsoons proper. What we do hear is that summer storms that are the result of monsoonal flow coming inland from the Pacific. Most people are lazy and don't make this distinction though, so they just end up calling them monsoons.

The American "monsoons" are a real phenomenon though in the south, especially around Arizona and New Mexico. They're just not as intense as textbook monsoons on the other side of the ocean.

Back on topic, nice trip report. That's cool you found isolation so close to the MLH.
 
Thanks for the report and the pics! Looks like you got some great skies. Is the sunset pic from Friday night or Saturday? I was on the other side of Agassiz @ Ryder Lake Saturday night and MAN that was one lovely sunset. Good to see the monsoon-ish weather finally arrive.
The sunset pic was from Friday night, but Saturday night was equally as good. A little less clouds Saturday evening though.
 
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