The High Uintas in Utah

The High Uintas Jen and I first went into the High Uintas together in 1999! Back then, we were rained and thunderstormed out from summitting King's Peak. Our hope this year was to see some new territory of the Uintas while also being able to summit King's Peak. I arrived to Moosehorn campground on the western edge of the Uintas at 0830 the morning of Friday August 5, 2022. There are 33 no reservation campsites at this location in the Uintas. I got one of the last 3 remaining camp sites at that time. We had a great spot, decent level location for the tent, decent spot to hang a tarp in preparation for the rain. Jen arrived that night, so I was able to settle into camp and take the occasional refuge from the rain. I also drove back to town at one point due to forgetting to pack a camp chair, found some GF snacks, and also some cider. We had a great little dinner and drinks at camp after another bout of rain. On Saturday August 6th, we did a long dayhike of 12 miles reaching up to 11,000 ft to begin our acclimation. This year I felt much better and did not experience any altitude sickness that was obvious. On Sunday August 7th, we did a much shorter hike of 2.6 miles with much more vertical, reaching just shy of 12,000 ft to further our acclimation. We had already packed up our camp and prepared to shuttle over to the TH area. We did find a greasy burger along the way to our new location and it tasted great! Once we got to the China Meadows Campground, we set up camp for one night and readied our backpacks for the upcoming adventure. On Monday August 8th, it was DAY ONE! We hiked from the China Meadows TH to Lower Red Castle Lake Backpack weighed 46.3# at the start of the day. Got on the trail at 910am. Saw few people and some trail crew personnel. Trail was mostly gradual uphill with switches prior to our turn of for lower red castle lake. Trail was very rocky in areas and white beaten up from all the recent rain and horse traffic. Hard to avoid the mud. A couple nice bridges and decently spaced rocks for a smaller stream crossing. Got to camp at 3pm. Enjoyed a bath and laundry and later ate dinner with some duress. On Tuesday August 9th, DAY TWO We hiked from Lower Red Castle Lake to Yellowstone Creek Got on the trail at 910am by going cross country with Gaia assistance to the main trail. We really started to slow and feel the altitude when climbing at 11,200ft. The pass at 11987 was a broad one with good view from both sides. The wind was strong. We were also benefitting from the rock cairns to navigate easily. We soon reached the junction with the Uintas Highland Trail and turned. Not much further and we were at Yellowstone creek and set up our camp. We got into camp 230pm and enjoyed a bath in the creek followed by a fire to limit the numerous mosquitoes. On Wednesday August 10th, DAY THREE We hiked from Yellowstone Creek, up Anderson Pass and dropped our packs, then after a small partial lunch headed up scrambling to the peak. We summitted King's Peak at approximately 1230 without any rain or start of thunder. We slowly bouldered back down to our packs and had more of a snack, then took the goat trail down to Gunsight Pass and eventually the trail down to Henry's Fork Lake. Woke early with no hopes of sun on our site for a while due to the sunrise on the other side of Kings Peak. We ended up getting an earlier start at 835am and started our climb. We made good time up Anderson Pass reaching it at 11am. After a snack to refuel and dropping our packs we grabbed a liter of water and started our ascent up Kings peak. It was slow and at times dizzying and the thin air was a bit of a factor. We summited at 1247pm and took our turn after a bit with the summit sign. The descent wasn’t much better often having to turn around for our 4 points of contact. When we returned to the saddle we topped off our lunch and decided to go for the shortcut to Gunsight pass. This was not the best decision due to the never ending boulder field that we had to traverse and later descend to the pass. Once on Gunsight the trail was a dream with switching trails. We had a little thunder spark our speed and a few random raindrops. We finally reaching a camp site at Henry’s Fork Lake and set up camp, had some non cooked dinner and then went into the shelter early due to some rain. On Thursday August 11th, DAY FOUR We hiked from Henry's Fork Lake out to the TH via a route that shows like a good option on gaia, but is NOT a good option. We ended up with a socked in weather day preventing good views for navigation and therefore used gaia to navigate through a huge area of blow down that kept us zig zagging for what felt like forever. After exiting the mountains, we decided to find the nearest restaurant and boarding. We located both in Mountain View, Wyoming. I had a great steak dinner and then we went to the cabins down the road and booked a double queen cabin with a jetted tub for the night! We also found some wine to enjoy and celebrate our accomplishments! Upon waking on Friday August 12th, Jen and I decided that it would do great for our legs to have another day of recovery before sitting in our cars for hours (or days in Jen's case), so we booked the cabin for another night. We also went over to Evanston to look at the FS center there, and boy did the weather deteriorate! We were so grateful to be out of the mountains and really couldn't investigate Evanston fully due to the thunderstorms. We parted ways on the Saturday morning and returned to our usual routines, planning on hitting the trails in Wyoming in 2023!