Danny Boy had been telling me about how cool his other brothers-in-law were for some time already. Adventure, action, adrenaline were descriptors that were frequently thrown around to describe this group of extended family. Coyote Gulch, Wind Rivers, Uintahs were all places that they told me about frequently. Richard and Brett, both of whom Danny knew already for some time and who are great outdoorsmen in their own right, already felt like people I knew well based on all their stories. And since I was also considered extended, I was excited to get the invitation to this year's highly-anticipated and highly-vaunted "Guys Trip". I was hoping I would and could and should make "the cut."
Chipeta Lake lies above 10,000 feet on the eastern end of the South Slope of the High Uintah's. We were to explore the entire basin over 3 days of backpacking. The route was relatively flat and covered 14-16 miles, depending on how many side trips we wanted to take off the main trail for lake exploring and peak bagging. Danny and I arrived late at night for a first night of car camping. The fire was already lit and inviting, which was a nice touch. We woke the next morning, dissembled camp, and had everything from chocolate donuts and mountain dew to granola and oat mush for breakfast.
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| The Guys: Richard, me, Danny, Bret |
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| Danny gathering strength for the journey, after his morning stretches. |
We headed out into one of several beautiful high meadows, briefly following an alpine creek, off into the woods, towards one of several bald mountains (those peaks at or above the tree line).
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| One of many "Bald Mountains" in the High Uintah's. |
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| Teaming with Brookies? |
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| High mountain meadows abounded |
Our first destination was White Rocks Reservoir. There were no real fish in that lake to speak of, at least not without a boat. As the afternoon wore on, we decided to explore other nearby lakes on Richard's GPS map: Sand Lake and Dollar Lake. Both of them seemed unappealing and shallow. At this point, we still had not seen another soul while up here. We did see lots of squirrels and ospreys however. By later afternoon and following a small shower, we began looking for a good campsite. We chose Ted's Lake, a few more miles downstream.
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| Perfect reflection amid total calm at Teddy's Lake |
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| Home Away From Home... |
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| A bathing moose to keep us company at Teds: one of many we saw. |
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| Scoping out her new neighbors... |
The next morning we decided to work our way over to Workman Lake. On the way down, we received some intriguing intel that Wooley Lake was the place to be for fish. It was a 1.5 mile scramble upstream from Workman, tucked away into a beautiful alpine cirque. The water color here was a bit more stale and murky since this lake was mainly snow melt and a few intermittent springs from the surrounding area, and therefore lacked a consistent inlet and consistent outlet to refresh the water volume.
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| Danny and I enjoying a moment. |
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| Ricardo and Danny reading the good word |
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| Brett in deep thought over hearing the good word |
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| Our home away from home. Perfect spot except for the dreaded rock in the lower back during bedtime. |
We cruised up to Wooley Lake that afternoon to really get some good playing in. Backpacking is a delicate balance between motion and rest, pain and pleasure, action and inaction, survival and relaxation. You essentially have to do a lot of work in to get to the play, like most outdoor activities. First, we all took a dip in the ice cold waters. Bathing off the toxic layers of fire smoke, blood, sweat, tears, dust, mud, and BO was much appreciated. It was a full body cleansing that was desperately needed...
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| Nice and easy into the ice melt - taking "refreshment" to a whole new level. |
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| Danny taking on the first man challenge at Wooley. Gulp! |
Danny and I then decided we needed to hike another 4 miles because we "needed an additional challenge." In our youthful hubris, we thought we could summit a nearby ridge and get back to camp in 2 hours, at the most. It looked close to us and it felt like a good idea at the time.
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| The saddle looked so close at the time...the high altitude was clearly impairing our vision and judgement... |
The rock field was seemingly eternal. We scrambled and hopped and leaped and balanced through it all until we came to this view.
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| We felt like tiny ants working our way through that boulder field. |
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| Taking it all in from 11,000 feet (estimated) |
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| Very cool to have a parallel view with the tree line. |
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| The Reward: The View |
We had cell reception for the first time in 2 days, and I immediately received 72 emails in 10 seconds on my IPhone. Aarrgh!!!! We left it on long enough to take a brotherly selfie to text our wives, and then shut it off again. Cursed be the electronic tether in the High Country...
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| The Stinky Selfie |
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| Lime green lichen on purple rocks. Cool stuff. |
We finally got back to the lake and finished off the day with some fishing. Ricardo had already caught 5 while we were gone. I tried my hand on fly fishing the lake, but to no avail...
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| Lots of casting, little catching, at least on the fly rod... |
We did manage to finally catch 3 on the spinning rod that we brought home for dinner that night. While they were only a whopping 6 inches, they fought hard and made for some nice excitement. Fresh trout always tastes better up at 10,500'.
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| Cooked up on the open fire |
The next day we packed up and headed home. We fished the North Fork of the White Rocks River one final time on the way home with flies. We finally found some willing and hungry trout who enjoyed eating caddis, grasshoppers, and stimulators. Richard and Brett caught a couple as well, which really livened things up. All in all, an amazing backpacking adventure with an amazing group of guys.
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| Homeward Bound... |
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| Happy Trails |
P.S. Richard had been salivating the entire trip over how tastey a double bacon cheeseburger was going to taste after we got back to civilization. Whenever the pack got heavy, or he got homesick, or the legs started aching, we started hearing about this vaunted gut bomb of a meal from Richard. Clearly, the calories lost on this trip would all be made up in one greasy meal for Richard in the form of a nice hamburger. I began to subscribe to his thinking that a good burger really would hit the spot after roughing it for 3 days living on backpacking food. So when we got to the first available diner in Roosevelt, UT on the way home, one would think that I would have ordered what we had been talking about for the past 72 hours: a bacon double cheeseburger. So what did I order in my tired stupor? Some bizarre creation called a chiliburger. And how did it taste? Just about as nasty as it looked...
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| Lesson learned: stick with a meal plan you know and love so you don't gross yourself out. |
