All year I've been preparing to do a long multi-day hike in the Uintas. I didn't have any idea where I'd go, who I'd go with, or when, but I knew I wanted to go out for a couple nights and hike a long distance. After a lot of research and mind-changing I finally decided on Four Lakes Basin from the Highline Trailhead near Mirror Lake in the Uintas.
I invited brother-in-law Shawn along and last Friday we took the day off work and headed to the mountains. The weather forecast a week ago said that the storminess we had been having would be gone Thursday, so I figured we'd be fine to go Friday - Sunday morning. The storminess persisted a lot longer than anyone thought, however, and we ended up running into some rain.
We drove through heavy rain to get to the trailhead, but it cleared out and blue skies appeared as we began our hike. We were each carrying a bit more gear than we normally would to be extra prepared for the rainy weather. We were also carrying enough food for two nights rather than the one night we'd normally do. I weighed my pack full the night before and it came in at 33 pounds with food and water. I tossed in a couple things last minute so it could have been a bit heavier than that.
About a half mile (I honestly can't remember how far) into the hike we entered the High Uintas Wilderness. I guess we'd been in the Low Uintas Wilderness up to that point. Or maybe we were just in the mountains. Either way, we were now officially hiking in the High Uintas.
The hike was pretty uneventful at first. We were able to see a few views down into the valley. We couldn't see any of the mountain peaks with the clouds so low, but we tried to imagine what the mountains looked like. I believe the blue sky in the picture below is the last blue we saw.
A storm had just hit the trail before we started so the trail was soaked. Where ever there wasn't a rock there was mud. Some of the puddles were so big we had to find paths through the trees to get around. That definitely slowed us down a bit.
The trail starts at about 10,350 feet, and drops over a mile or so to 9,900 feet. From there it goes up and down, staying between 9,900 and 10,100 feet for 4 or 5 miles. On the way in we didn't mind the ups and downs too much. On the way back the ups were much more difficult than they had been the day before.
About 2 miles in there's a turn off to Scudder Lake. It was close enough to the trail that we could see it through the trees. It looked pretty inviting, and we actually considered staying there the second night.
There were a few big open meadows along the trail. It looked like they were probably full of water and might actually be lakes earlier in the season. It was nice to occasionally get a view through the trees, though.
About four miles in we saw the turn off to Naturalist Basin. It marked the approximate midpoint of our hike, so it was exciting to see the sign. Our original plan had been to stay in Naturalist Basin the second night, but we ended up changing our plans when the storm rolled in.
The trail seemed much better maintained up to the Naturalist Basin turn off. From there we started seeing more and more trees blocking the trail. They weren't ever hard to get by, but all the trees had been cut and removed from the trail prior to the Naturalist Basin turn off.
About 5.5 miles into the hike the rain started. It started out pretty light, and we briefly thought we could just wait it out, but as it got heavier we realized we'd just have to tough it out. We pulled out the ponchos and the garbage bags and tried to protect ourselves against the rain as best we could. Another mile in the rain got much heavier. It was at this point that our feet got wet. I've always believed that as long as your feet stay dry while you're hiking you can still be happy, but that once your feet get wet it's hard to be happy. That certainly seemed to be the case.
When we reached the turn off for Rocky Sea Pass the rain turned ugly. We hid under a tree for a bit trying to decide what to do. We were more than 6.5 miles in--about two miles from our intended destination, or 6.5 miles from the car. We decided to keep going and hope for 30 minutes of no rain to get camp set up when we arrived.
To get to Four Lakes Basin you have to go up over a small pass and then drop down into the basin. Well, the "small pass" takes you up to 10,940 feet or so. We had about 1000 feet to climb over the last 3ish miles. In the rain. On a muddy trail.
Once we got over the pass we could see two of the four lakes. The picture above is Jean Lake. We camped near the southern edge of the lake (really the first adequate camp site we could find).
Fortunately the rain stopped as we started setting up camp. We got our tents set up and got dinner cooking before the rain started again. Shawn had the bigger tent (mine barely holds me) so we both sat in his tent to eat dinner.
Then we waited for the rain to stop. We had planned to hike around the lakes without our packs as soon as the rain stopped. The next picture is the view we had from the tent through the rain. You can't see them in this picture, but there were 5 mountain goats up on the cliff between the trees. We watched them for hours waiting for the rain to stop.
Here's a self-portrait sitting in the tent. With two jackets on. I would have been wearing a hat, but it was completely soaked. In fact it's still wet a day after getting home.
At around 8:00 I ventured over to my own tent and climbed inside. I left my soaked shoes in the vestibule hoping they'd be able to dry a little by morning. At least they wouldn't get rained on.
I pulled out some dry socks, long pants, and a warm cap and climbed into my sleeping bag. My feet were still freezing from the hike through the rain and mud. It took more than an hour before they felt warm enough to allow me to comfortably sleep.
When I sleep out in the mountains I like to wear ear plugs. Otherwise every noise seems so loud and even the slightest noise will wake me up. Apparently after we went to bed another group with horses set up camp a couple hundred feet from us. I didn't hear them at all. In the morning I looked out toward the lake and saw their horses and tents and was utterly confused.
We survived the night and discussed our plans for the rest of the trip. As I said, our original plan was to hike back 4 miles to the Naturalist Basin turn off and head a couple miles up to one of the lakes there. That would have been a 6-6.5 mile day, and left us about the same distance to get back to the car the next day. We also considered hiking to Scudder Lake which would have been 6-6.5 miles, but leaving us only 2 miles back to the car the next day.
We packed up camp still not sure what to do. We didn't want to spend another night out in the rain, soaked and unable to even see anything. We determined that if the skies cleared and we were able to dry out by the time we hit Scudder Lake we'd stay there, saving the Naturalist Basin for another trip.
The farther we hiked the harder the rain fell until about a mile before Scudder Lake. The rain stopped, but the skies still looked threatening. It wasn't enough to convince us to stay another night. By this point the idea of having dry feet was too tempting, so we continued past Scudder Lake and headed for the car.
The last couple miles were difficult. We had to gain about 400 feet to get back to the car, and we had already hiked over 15 miles in less than 24 hours. We were exhausted and still had heavy packs (we still had that extra day of food in them). About a half mile from the car we could hear cars driving on the road. That gave us the extra little push we needed to climb the last little bit.
We got in the car just as the rain worsened (it started up again about the time we heard the cars). We drove through multiple storms back to civilization and surprised our wives with an early return. I think they were happy we didn't push it another day.
In all, we hiked 17.25 miles in just over 24 hours with nearly 3300 feet of climbing. We saw numerous lakes, the lower half of a lot of mountains, 5 mountain goats, and tons of clouds. At least it wasn't buggy, and we didn't get sunburned. Now I'm just waiting for my prunes to turn back into toes.
