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Tag: wildlife

Chepeta Lake: Eccentric Benchmark & Daggett PeakChepeta Lake: Eccentric Benchmark & Daggett Peak

Chepeta Lake: Eccentric Benchmark & Daggett Peak

Headwaters of the Whiterocks River | Friday – Sunday, August 9-11, 2024

After last week’s backpacking trip to the Red Castle Lakes in the High Uintas Wilderness I didn’t have any plans on returning to the Uinta Mountains anytime soon. However, after keeping an eye on the weather forecast around Colorado for the upcoming weekend, I couldn’t find a mountain range within a couple hundred miles of home that didn’t show stormy weather all day and night. It was going to be a wet and stormy weekend in the mountains of Colorado! I was originally hoping to spend the weekend hiking along the Continental Divide in the San Juan Mountains, but on Friday afternoon I made a last-minute decision to head up to the eastern end of the Uinta Mountains with hopes that I would be able to get some hiking in since the weather forecast for this area looked like the best around with only the typical afternoon storms. So for the second time in as many weeks I left from work and drove over Douglas Pass on my way to the Uinta Mountains. After a quick stop for fuel in Vernal I headed out across the Uinta Basin and then followed the Whiterocks River up to it’s headwaters at Chepeta Lake.

CONTINUE READINGChepeta Lake: Eccentric Benchmark & Daggett Peak
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Red Castle Lakes via the East Fork of Smiths ForkRed Castle Lakes via the East Fork of Smiths Fork

Red Castle Lakes via the East Fork of Smiths Fork

High Uintas Wilderness | Thursday – Sunday, August 1-4, 2024

After Diane and I backpacked into Henrys Fork and then hiked to the summit of Kings Peak in the Uinta Mountains back in 2018, we had talked about returning to the High Uintas Wilderness every other year for a new backpacking trip. Unfortunately, we did not keep up with that idea and have not returned since that trip, but this year I was determined to finally get back and planned for us to spend a couple nights near the Red Castle in the East Fork of Smiths Fork, which is a location I have wanted to visit for quite a long time. Although I would have preferred to do this trip much later in August, Diane was pretty busy at that time and the only weekend that work for both of us was the first weekend in August, so that’s when we would have to go. We left from home after Diane got out of work on Thursday evening and drove up to the Red Canyon Campground within the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area and arrived shortly after dark. We quickly got our tent set up and were in our sleeping bags by 10:00pm.

CONTINUE READINGRed Castle Lakes via the East Fork of Smiths Fork
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The Elk Mountains: Geneva Lake to Siberia LakeElk Mountains: Geneva Lake to Siberia Lake

The Elk Mountains: Geneva Lake to Siberia Lake

Maroon Bells – Snowmass Wilderness | Saturday & Sunday, July 27-28, 2024

Last year Diane and I had a permit and planned to spend a weekend camping at Geneva Lake in the Maroon Bells – Snowmass Wilderness, but after we had driven most of the way to the trailhead we were turned around by a very slick and muddy road and the weather forecast for the rest of the weekend wasn’t looking too good, so we decided to call it a weekend and headed back home instead. I decided to give the same trip a try this summer and grabbed another camping permit for Geneva Lake, but this time Diane was out of town so I invited my friend Jackson to come along with me. I picked up Jackson early on Saturday morning and we drove around the Grand Mesa, over McClure Pass and then followed the Crystal River up to the trailhead in Lead King Basin where we shouldered our packs and started hiking up the trail to Geneva Lake.

CONTINUE READINGThe Elk Mountains: Geneva Lake to Siberia Lake
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Unknown Mountains: Return to the Henry MountainsUnknown Mountains: Return to the Henry Mountains

Unknown Mountains: Return to the Henry Mountains

Laccoliths in the Desert | Friday – Saturday, June 21-22, 2024

The Henry Mountains are a laccolithic mountain range that stand high above a sea of sandstone cut by deep canyons on the Colorado Plateau and were one of the last-surveyed and last-named mountain ranges in the contiguous United States. In 1869 John Wesley Powell made note of the range during his initial voyage down the Colorado River and called them the Unknown Mountains at the time. Then in 1871 he returned to the area on his second trip down the Colorado and renamed them to the Henry Mountains after Joseph Henry, a close friend who was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Last year I was planning to head back up into the Henry Mountains after Jared and I had spent a nice weekend there in 2022, but other trips came up and I never made it. This year I was determined to get back early in the summer to hike a couple new peaks and highpoints and chose to go this weekend. I left from work on Friday afternoon and made my way to Hanksville, and even though there were a lot of storms throughout the area this afternoon, some which caused flash flooding around Moab and the San Juan River, I managed to miss them all- aside from the wind. It seems that it’s frequently very windy out when I stop in Hanksville, and today was no exception!

CONTINUE READINGUnknown Mountains: Return to the Henry Mountains
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The Colorado River: Tibbetts to ParachuteThe Colorado River: Tibbetts to Parachute

The Colorado River: Tibbetts to Parachute

Saturday & Sunday, June 15 & 16, 2024

After our recent rafting trip through Cataract Canyon and with an upcoming trip into Westwater Canyon planned for July, Jackson and I are both getting closer to having floated all of the Colorado River from Glenwood Canyon to Lake Powell, but we were still missing a large segment of the river from New Castle to De Beque Canyon. We figured it was about time to start working on this section, especially while the water is still high and moving fast, so this weekend we made plans to float the Colorado River from Tibbetts, which is just upstream of New Castle, to Parachute, a length of just under 40 miles. Since this area is an easy drive from home for us, we decided to split it up into two sections and do each one as a short day trip.

CONTINUE READINGThe Colorado River: Tibbetts to Parachute
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