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| Backpack | 12.50 Miles |
2,790 AEG |
| | Backpack | 12.50 Miles | 3 Days | | |
| 2,790 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | It was good to get back to the Uintas after too many years of being away. The mountains, water and of course fish, were all as great as ever. Sadly, the trees were not as beautiful as before, because there were many dead standing trees mixed in with healthy ones. I wonder if they've been hit by a bark beetle or something.
The Grandaddy Lake Trail was in good condition but the many horses coming through have made the trail quite sandy in sections. There are several long sections of flat rock on this trail. The lower part of the trail has been re-routed slightly (compared to most maps), to reduce erosion. The number of horse flies on the main trail was surprising but there were less mosquitos. It's been a dry year. Still, we got hit by a rainstorm the first evening (typical Uintas) but otherwise the weather was warmer and drier than usual.
We camped on the northeast side of Grandaddy, which is always windy, but that gave us less bugs. It looks like over time the camps around the lake have been cleaned up and people are doing a good job of leaving no trace in most places.
I swear Bigfoot was near our camp during that wind and rainstorm. We heard a pounding sound repeatedly, and in the morning two medium sized but healthy pine trees were broken in half. I looked but there was no sign of bear tracks or scratches, no footprints, and no axe marks. The only other people in the area were on the other side of the lake...
Day two was our big fishing day, and we started off by catching a small but pretty brown trout in Grandaddy before heading out for nearby lakes. Every year is different, but this time the fast fishing was at Lodgepole Lake. It was more beautiful than ever: the lily pads were all gone from the south side and the water was clear. My son started catching fish left and right, which were mostly Brook/cutthroat trout hybrids. Later we hit another nearby lake, but someone had beaten us to the big fish. My son still managed to catch a couple of big ones, while I fished the lily pads but got only nibbles. Meanwhile the sky got hazy with forest fire smoke and it made the ground look orange. A nearby canyon was filling with smoke too, and we wondered how close the fires actually were. Dinner that night was two trout each, and some had that excellent orange salmon-like meat.
Our return route was around the south side of Grandaddy and we decided that was a terrible route to take even though it is shorter. There is a small trail at both ends, but in the middle there is no trail and it gets boggy, even in a dry year, with lots of fallen trees to negotiate. (side note: we found that the shorter your legs, the tougher it is to step across wet areas and to get over logs.) Anyway, there were some good camping spots near both ends, that I made a mental note of. On the south side it looked like the fishing would be good near the rock slides.
Overall it was a great trip and our two sons got a perfect introduction to the Uintas. |
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If you don't run, you rust.
-T. Petty |
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