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Tag: trail rider pass

The Maroon – Snowmass Trail to Snowmass Lake

Maroon Bells – Snowmass Wilderness | Saturday & Sunday, July 26-27, 2025

Back in February I took a little time out from exploring the Petrified Forest so I could grab a camping permit for Snowmass Lake in the Maroon Bells – Snowmass Wilderness for this final weekend in July. Up until this past week I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to go on this overnight backpacking trip because Diane recently had surgery, but she got the OK earlier in the week and was looking forward to her first real hiking trip in a few weeks. We left home early on Saturday morning and made our way over to the Maroon – Snowmass Trailhead along Snowmass Creek, but ended up having to park a little further down the road at the East Snowmass Trailhead because the small parking area was full. We shouldered our packs and left the trailhead around 8:30am and then took our time hiking up to Snowmass Lake.

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Top of Utah: Kings Peak via Henrys Fork

Labor Day Weekend | Thursday – Sunday, August 30 – September 2, 2018

Last August when Diane and I were driving home through the eastern edge of the Uinta Mountains from our first backpacking trip in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, I mentioned that we needed to go on a backpacking trip into the High Uintas Wilderness in 2018, so I put it on our calendar for Labor Day weekend when I got back home. Fast forward a few months and it was time to start figuring out more specific plans for the trip. After looking at maps and our options, I figured that we might as well go all out and hike to the summit of Kings Peak which is the highest point in Utah. There are a couple of ways to get there, but Henrys Fork looked like the easiest and most popular way to go, so we thought it would be a good introduction to hiking in the High Uintas. Since I knew this was going to be a popular spot, especially during a holiday weekend, we took off Friday from work in hopes of getting a little bit of a head start. We left right after work on Thursday and drove over Douglas Pass and through the Book Cliffs to Vernal, where we stopped for a quick dinner. We almost hit a deer as we were driving through Manila, but other than that the drive was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the Henrys Fork Trailhead in the dark around 10:00pm and found a great spot to camp nearby. We quickly setup our tent and went right to bed. The sky was very clear and the stars and milky way were bright tonight!

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