22 July 2015 - The High Uintas

I have been home-bound for quite a while. I decided a road trip was in order and headed for the Uinta Mountains. For those who don't live in Utah, the Uinta Mountains are the only mountain range in the United States that run east to west.  There are over a thousand natural lakes in this range as well as 400 miles of streams. Fishing is a very big deal. There are ten, maybe more, mountains over 13,000 feet in the Uintas, in fact, all of Utah's peaks over 13,000 are in this area.  Utah's highest mountain, King's Peak is in the high Uintas and tops out at 13,528 feet.  More than half of Utah's peaks over 12,000 feet are in this area as well. 

My photos are varied. In the Uintas it can rain every day, and in the high elevations it has been known to snow in July. I got rained on several times during my trip. Not a lot of rain, just enough clouds and blow-over to make some of my pictures darker than I would have liked, not to mention making me run for my car for the five minutes or so of heavy rain.

Growing up, my family would camp at Lilly Lake. We would set up the tipi and break out the canoe. It was great fun. Lilly Lake has hardly changed from my childhood recollections, other than it has more lilies than I remembered. We used to catch tiger salamanders around the edges of the lake. I took a cursory look but didn't see any. A fisherman I was talking with said that he had read that acid rain had changed the chemistry of the lakes making them unfriendly for salamanders. That is rather alarming. 


Lilly Lake is next to a small pond, then another 50 yards to Teapot Lake and across the road is Lost Creek Lake. 

This is Lilly Lake

 And Lilly Lake from the far side

 Here is Teapot Lake

 And the no-name lily pond in between Teapot and Lilly

Across the street is Lost Creek, elevation 9,900 feet.

Most of the exposed rock you see is in vertical layers, often like stairs. We are talking Precambrian rock which makes it six million years old, not to mention breath-takingly beautiful.  Just before the previous favorite haunts are the Provo River Falls. You can see three sections of these falls. I am pretty sure there are more upstream. But you can really see the water falling over the vertical layers. Impressive.  And it had just rained again when I arrived. The water in the lakes and streams here is crystal clear and cold. 

This is the uppermost set of falls that you can see from the viewing area. And a closer look at the vertical rock layers.

The middle section. Look closely at the left hand side and you can see a small waterfall on the bank. 

And the lowest. This is looking at it from the top as it prepares to drop about 50 feet. 

The surrounding landscape is dotted with huge boulders covered in bright chartreuse (is that an oxymoron?) lichens. 

More examples of the magnificent vertical rocks. If only I could get rock walls like this in my yard!

In many places along the road there are huge rock slides. I wonder if these layers have loosened and slid down the slope or if it is another kind of rock altogether. Behind the trees is a cliff face that these could have tumbled from hundreds of years ago, then stabilized enough for trees to grow.

Bald Mountain is one of the most popular hikes in the Uintas and has the distinction of having a maintained trail to the top. The peak is 11,942 feet, but the trail head starts at 10,800 and you only are two miles from the top. Not bad!

Bald Mountain from across Trial Lake. 

The wildflowers were spectacular. It really took me back to all the hiking with my mother and sister. While our hikes usually had a destination at the top of some peak, we also stopped to identify all the flowers we saw. Our mother collected and pressed samples for the Garrett Herbarium at the University of Utah. Robin continued to identify all the flowers she saw during her forays across America. 

I was tickled to see so many of this little flower. It is one of my favorites which I haven't seen in years. 

Elephantella. If you look closely you can see that each floret looks like a tiny elephant head including ears and trunk. It likes boggy wetland areas. 

Seriously, how fun is this?  Unless it is having a flower looking back at you.  This entire flower was about the size of a 50 cent piece. 

Monkshood was also abundant. Poisonous, but lovely. Also purple Penstemon, Hellebore, Indian Paintbrush, Mertensia and many others. 

Ear-popping elevation!

On the downhill side of this pass is Moosehorn Lake followed by Mirror Lake. 

 
And not for the faint-hearted. I found a Clark's Nutcracker. When I downloaded the photo I discovered he was eating an embryonic bird. Probably snatched it right out of an egg. 

On the way home I hit yet another 10 minute rainstorm in Parley's Canyon. I had to pull over on the freeway and gawk at a beautiful double rainbow. In the left hand corner you can barely see part of the second arc.

It was quite a glorious day.  And I managed to only insert 26 of the 551 photos from this trip. Whew!