high uintas camping, pt. 1

Shady spot for the tent

We had planned to go south to go camping last weekend, to Diamond Fork, a campground near Spanish Fork that a co-worker recommended to H.  But in light of the fact that it's been so dang hot and that campground is only at about 5,300 ft., meaning it wouldn't be much cooler than the Salt Lake Valley, plus smoke from the 46,000 acre Woods Hollow wildfire was making its way into the area, we cancelled our reservation at Diamond Fork and decided to take our chances finding a place along the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway.  So we dropped B at the kennel, tossed our car camping stuff in the truck - including our brand new tent and brand new Coleman camp stove - and off we went, past Park City, through Kamas and Samak, and up into the Wasatch National Forest.

Provo River behind our campsite

We got there early enough to claim a very nice campsite in the Cobblerest campground, right on the banks of the Provo River at mile marker 19.  This is one of the smaller campgrounds with eighteen sites; no ATVs are allowed; and while there is no culinary water available, there's a faucet a mile or so back at the Shady Dell campground where the host in charge of Cobblerest resides.  Because we opted for a pay site (as opposed to just picking a good spot off in the woods somewhere), we were allowed to have a campfire despite the state-wide fire restrictions, as long as it was in the poured-cement fire pit, the flames got no more than knee-high and the coals were drowned and cold when we were done.  We cracked some beers, put up our new tent and headed off for a short hike.

Unnamed alpine pond (that we thought was Shepard Lake)

We drove up to mile marker 31, to the Fehr Lake trail to find three alpine lakes: Fehr, Shepard and Hoover.  This is a short, easy, rocky-ish trail, meandering through the pine trees for a 3 mile out-and-back if you go to all three lakes.  It was fairly busy at Fehr Lake, but once we moved past that we saw very few people.  We thought we'd made it to Hoover but in fact only went to Shepard because we thought a tiny alpine pond was lake #2 and didn't notice the trail continuing on.  Didn't matter: it was a pretty walk - and since it was uphill all the way back, we felt like we'd gotten our legs moving a little.  We had noticed whilst unpacking the camp kitchen that we were a little short on matches (poor planning on my part), so we took a run back out of the forest to the friendly Samak Smoke House & General Store, where they've got everything you need and nothing you don't want: cold drinks and ice, fishing gear, locally smoked trout and cheese, ice cream, chocolate, firewood, beer. We got matches, firewood and I tried a Dry Lavender Soda - light, delicious and very unusual.

The actual Shepard Lake

Back at camp, H pulled out his fishing pole to cast into the pool in the river behind our site.  Within two casts, he'd landed a pretty little trout.  Within another two casts, he'd landed a bigger one!  He kept switching out the lures he was using and the fish kept striking at them, for the most fish action he's had since we moved here.  Fun!  As the sun started to move behind the mountains, we made our dinner of chicken and broccoli alfredo over farfelle pasta (for the record: H is our camp chef and all-around kitchen guy), and built a reasonable campfire.  The famous Uinta mosquitoes came out as dusk fell (as did the temperature - it would end up being in the 40s at night!) but I found them to be bigger, slower and less vicious than the Maine ones.  We enjoyed our little fire, sipping PBRs and rum and tonics, watching the stars come out and the moon come up, listening to the Provo River chuckle to itself.  All this, just about an hour from home.

Catchin', not just fishin'!