We slept in vernal and left at 6am for the trailhead. After 1/2 hour of driving we started hiking from the Uinta Canyon trial head (8000 feet). while driving we saw elk, deer, antelope and rabbits. We started out hiking with a bagel-stealing-dad (paul). Here we are at the sheep bridge in Uinta Canyon 4 miles from the TH (trailhead).
Paul, bloodsugar 180 here after eating the bagel
Paul turned around to go help Joyce with the girls at mile 6 (elevation 9000). We were almost to the chain lakes basin.
the trail was really rocky which made it really uncomfortable to hike. It was rocky like this most of the first day.
Richard wanted to document this muddy creek. Krebs Creek. We saw some Elk about here.
Richard is making fun of Paul here. I guess he's a woosie on footbridges.
We ate a snack of swiss cheese and rosemary crackers at the first chain lake. I took my shoes off and sat back and enjoyed watching a bald eagle fly over the lake. Then we kept hiking. This picture is of Fourth Chain Lake (probably 9 miles in and 10,500 elevation).
Another view of Fourth chain lake going up Roberts Pass. You can see richard on the left in Red. He wasn't feeling too good and I wasn't as compassionate as I should have been and I went a ways a head of him.
This is Roberts Pass (elevation 11,200 about 10 miles).
Coming down the pass, a lot of boulders. I took a lot of pictures of cool lichen here. But i will spare you and future generations and time uploading pictures.
After getting down the pass (about 10,500 feet) we saw this pretty pond.
Then it started to storm so we hunkered down in some trees and ate some italian trail couscous wrapped in sundried tomato tortillas. It was goooooood. I ate a lot. Rich did not.
So then it kept raining and raining and raining as we continued to hike and hike. Here we are in a meadow in Atwood Basin. It snowed on us a little here. Not enough to stick, it was like sleety snow for a little bit. But still beautiful.
Still happy. Maybe richard is faking a smile here. Probably at mile 14 and back up to 11,000 elevation.
We wanted to camp at Atwood lake but it was a tree trunk/root graveyard because they have been "stabilizing" the lakes - aka minimizing the dams usage - so we kept on going. Here are the Little George Beard Lakes as we are hiking up Trailrider Pass. We are probably at mile 16 and about 11,500 elevation.
This lake is unnamed on the map.
Whew we made it to the top of trailrider pass (11,700 feet we guess). I was again impatient and not compassionate and got there before richard. I got scared that he died or something and hiked back to find him. He was fine. But tired. So we started down trailrider pass into painter basin. As we were hiking along a red balloon floated out of the sky and landed right in front of richard. how cool is that?
We made our first camp in painter basin (mile 18 about 11,200 elevation). Richard was feeling sick. So he just sat and watched me set up the tent, filter the water, get all the stuff out of the packs and get organized. He did blow up the air mattresses though, and put this pot of Outdoor Pesto Tortellini on the campstove. It was good as usual. I think the pic looks nasty and slimy though.
We slept near a creek (at least 200 feet away for all your forest nazi's out there). Neither of us like the sound of gurgling water we found out - and we stayed awake most of the night. We thought we heard animals at one point and richard poked his head out of the tent. Then the worst thing happened and I had to pee in the night so I went outside. Man was I glad I didn't hold that pee. The starts were spectacular. I could even see the milky way. I didn't remember that many stars existed!
So I was excited to get hiking and we got up at 4:30 and started out hiking in the dark. I couldn't get a picture of the stars.
The sun starting peak out.
Ponds in Painter Basin with the sunrise. Probably a mile from camp. We had a slow start after several bathroom breaks, losing the trail, looking for river crossings and finding a new pair of sunglasses.
We saw a moose and her baby in this area. Here is richard heading towards gunsight pass (right above his head) we came in that way last time we hiked kings peak.
I went crazy with the reflection pictures from this point onward.
Here we are hiking up Anderson Pass (the pass that takes you up to Kings Peak). Its sort of long and dreary. Richard is pointing to trail rider pass (the last pass we hiked the day before). We started clear behind those mountains.
We made it to the top of Anderson Pass eventually (mile 21, elevation 12,500). See the mountains way in the distance? We hiked over to those. Kings peak is to the left at 13,528 feet - we were worried about making it to our camp spot so we didn't hike it. thank goodness - we were tired by the end of this day.
Going down anderson pass is a little scary at first for those afraid of heights. We made it down though. There were horse tracks on the trail. I don't know how you could ride a horse up that!
Here were are a while later at the junction of high line trail and smith fork pass trail. I am pointing to where we came from in Anderson pass. and I forgot to put on sunscreen so am getting really sun burnt at this point. This is mile 26 and elevation 11,100.
This is a while later on the top of Tungsten Pass 11,400. It felt like more of a gain than 300 feet. Mile we dont know. Probably a mile later. Richard is pointing to King's Peak.
I started to feel lousy about here and needed a break. This is Superior lake. I'm sad I didn't take a pic of Tungsten lake as it was beautiful.
We finally took a nap at Spider Lake mile 32 elevation 10,876 (the map tells us). We heard a lot of fish jumping here but it was sunday so rich was a good man and didn't fish. As if we hadn't already broken the Sabbath by hiking 14 miles. But I did sing "how great thou art" several times in my head.
After an hour nap we kept on going (who knows why) we climbed up to Swasey's Hole (you drop down from spiders lake and then go back up) (elevation 10,700). We were TIRED. It was mile 18 for the day, total 36.
I saw some yellow aspen leaves. It smelled a bit like fall up there. Then we decided to camp in Swasey's hole so richard could look for goats on the mountains there. He didn't see any, but we did have a great camp spot and I slept all night (thank you benadryl)
We ate dinner at the lake (turkey chili with tomatoes and peppers from our garden!).
richard got us water across the lake while I cooked and cleaned up.
It rained that night and we woke to a dreary harry potter wonderland. It was still pretty. We lost the trail but found a pretty meadow looking for it. We eventually found the trail around this footbridge.
Some hikers caught up with us here. An older man and his two sons. He was a fisherman and had a memory of all his hiking trips that he liked to share. He said things like "back in 1984 we hiked blah blah canyona nd camped at blah blah lake and caught fish...then he would describe the fish in fine detail" it was funny. This is mile 38 and 10,300 feet about.
To get out at Center Park we climbed over this mountain. Here I am enjoying my last few hours in the mountains.
We got cell reception about here and found out that our ride was going to be later than we expected. So I started to get real artsy with the pictures. There were a ton of wild raspberries going up this trail. It was a tough climb, but easy because it was the last one.
Rich on top. It was lone and dreary up there. Mile 39, 11,000 feet elevation.
Pretty lake. We are almost out.
Leaving the wilderness boundary. sad.
We hiked through center park (aka big meadow) to get out. It was lovely and easy on the feet.
While waiting for paul and joyce and the girls to come get us a butterfly landed by me. I put my hand down and it climbed up on me!! HOw cool is that?
So our wonderful babysitters finally came. Richards dad was driving really fast up the trail (as we saw it anyways) and his tailgate was open.....and there wasn't a dog carrier in the back of his truck....or a dog.....but there should have been! So we drove down the trail fast and found her. Here is richard rescuing Josie. Luckily she was fine. Paul wanted her to ride in the cab with us but Joyce and I said NO WAY! (;
It made my heart swell to see my babies again. Anna, when given the choice of staying at grandmas watching a movie or going to get mom chose.....you guessed it.....watching a movie. that's love.
I especially missed this little lovie! Julia is such a cutie. Thanks for planning the trip for us richard. And thanks the most to Paul and Joyce to watching our crazies while we went (and picking us up/dropping us off).
