I fell in love with Uintas Wilderness.
I had never heard of Uintas Wilderness in Utah, but 2022 summer I had an opportunity to backpack there for four days. If you are a (hardcore) reader of my blog, you might think that we were backpacking in Idaho in 2022 summer. Yes, you are correct. The reason we headed for Utah for the last four days was that the wildfire that started during our Idaho hiking was getting severe. Another reason was that all the itinerary we planned in Idaho was finished ahead of schedule. Due to those reasons, we decided to go somewhere else free of wildfires. We anyway had to go to Utah to fly back to Boston, we searched trails in Utah area, preferably near Salt Lake City where we were going to fly. Uintas Wilderness caught my eye and suggested to Mr.N. There is the highest point of Utah in the wilderness and he liked the "highest in Utah" phrase. Then within an hour of finding it, we already on the road. The first one hour of Idaho section was really really smokey. It was kind of yellow world, because sunlight came through thick smoke in the sky. After an hour and half, we got out of the smoke and it was clear.
We camped at the campground at the China Meadow trailhead. It was past Labor day, so it was free!
The first day we hiked around 10 miles. All the way was really pretty. I really enjoyed meadow and mountain scenery. One of the spots we took a bread was like this below picture.
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What a view
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3 moose
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Colors of mountains are quite different from Idaho. Each has unique beauty and enjoyed the varieties of places. We continued hiking on the meadow toward the first pass. Our plan was camping the first night somewhere not too close to the pass so that we could hike up the pass in the early morning. When we reached Henry's Fork Lake, the time was a little early like 4 p.m. for concluding a day. We usually hike until 5 or 6, sometimes until 7 p.m. However, we got a reason to stop. Many moose in the lake!!!!! In the left picture you can see three moose. On the grass across the lake is a mother and a child. One moose I was able to see a good picture by standing not too far.
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eating a lot
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She ate a lot for a long time. There must be their favorite plants in the lake. We saw total 5-6 moose in the lake and the shore. Interestingly, they are all females and a kid.
We set up a camp and observed moose. It was precious time. After we enjoyed seeing therm, we saw a couple of backpackers came from opposite way we were hiking. They shouted and and talked super loud at the lake (yahoo). The moose were scared and they ran away. Especially mother and a calf were cautious and they had to swim.
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Swimming hard
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The baby was not yet able to swim as fast as adult, so she had a little hard time catching up her mother (left picture).
Not good to be such loud in wild, especially near the wildlife!!!
I was sad to see them gone, but after we had dinner and tea, they came back including the mother and baby. They drank water from lake and I was happy again too.
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From Kings Peak
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Next morning we hiked up to the pass, then did some off-trail not to do down and up again. Then we reached to the junction to go to Kings Peak, which is the highest point of Utah state. It is not an official trail to go there. It was basically scrambling and hopping the rocks. It was tough, but not technical, just it requires stamina.
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Kings Peak sign
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Although there is no official trail, the summit has a plate of King's Peak. The view was incredible at any direction 360! Unintas' unique color of beauty is amazing. I would say Uintas color is warm color: warm brown, green with red rocks. High peaks and basin below is unbelievably beautiful. I'm really happy being there at peaks and in the basin.
The only group we saw on that day was at the King's Peak. They were doing a very long (~14 hours) day hike from a different trail we started. They are from Salt Lake City and they had to drive back on that day: loooong day for them. They, 4 guys were very fast: they called each wife at the top since there was cell reception (often very high peak has cell phone signal). It was funny that we learn the "normal world's news" at top of Utah: one of their wives said Queen Elizabeth passed away. We overheard it and Mr.N asked if it was true. The other guy said, "Yeah his wife is reliable, so seems true LOL", then other guy said, "Finally Charles is king and now anytime he could die at his age", interesting and unique memory for us.
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Other side of Kings Peak
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Lake and Kings Peak
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Then we came down to the basin. The basin was incredible. The above picture, the highest point you see on the right is Kings Peak. The rock color has golden yellow, brown, red, dark brown. The lightning is dramatic. With combination of clouds, the scene is the beauty of a moment. This scene was so strong and I felt like the beauty went through my heart, as knife pierce directly to my center of heart. We hiked through this vast basin to the next pass. The entire basin was only us. (those 4 guys went down to the other side). As we walked, there were some small lakes on the basin. It was quite pretty.
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2nd campsite
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We again hiked up to the pass and went down to the lake and camped there.
After the pass, the rock color is really red and the region is called Red Castle. On the third day we hiked around Red Castle. The main Red Castle area is a perfect distance for overnighter, and it happened to be weekend, so we saw a lot of people there. I was glad we camped at the different place where nobody around. I love peace and solitude in the wilderness.
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Red Castle
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Red castle is in the left picture. It explains why the area is called Red castle (good I don't need to write up). We did some cross country around red castle where there is no trail so that we enjoyed quite area with lake as you see in the picture. Overall I really loved Uintas and I'm glad we explored there.
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