Weekend Excursions and other Adventures

This was my first solo backpacking trip! I had wanted to backpack to a lake in the Middle Basin for some time. I am part of a facebook group called High Uinta Lovers, and we share pictures and trip reports of excursions into the Uintas. A few of the other members had shared reports of coming up from Christmas Meadows and camping near Ryder Lake. I wanted to try something more direct and completely different. West side of the basin overlooking McPheters Lake Thursday I left Provo about 4pm and arrived at the Highline Trail head at around 5pm. I parked there and hiked directly up Hayden's Pass. Driving over Bald Mtn. Pass, looking at my route. There is no official marked trail up Hayden's Pass. Parked at the Highline Trail parking area, head northeast across the open meadows, then wander through the trees until you come to the base of the scree slope. Alternatively, follow the trail just to the South of the cabin and it wraps around the cabin and heads North and w...

This weekends adventure was longer than my usual, stretching from Thursday night until Sunday afternoon. We covered a good amount of ground and had an amazing time. Thursday evening we met up and loaded up my little VW Jetta, roof rack and all, and took off. We drove past sundown and arrived at our planned campsite around 10:30pm. We camped about 9 miles up UT 313 down the Lone Mesa Group Campground road on the BLM land. Woke up Friday morning,  ate breakfast, packed up, and headed to our first destination.... my favorite climb in Moab. The Spear of Destiny (5.9) up UT 128. The Spear of Destiny is a good sized flake of red rock that sheared off the canyon wall, fell straight down, and embedded into the slope next to the cliff. The whole climb is 90 feet or so of stemming. The width of the stemming ranges from 2 feet up to maybe 4 feet at certain points and makes for a spectacular, adrenaline filled climb. At the top of the climb, the views are spectacular and standing on the...

This trip was a blast! Me and my brother and sister in law took off Thursday night from Provo and got into Torrey about 9pm. We found this great camping spot just East of town on some open land (link here...    https://www.google.com/maps/@38.2981774,-111.3894519,118m/data=!3m1!1e3 ). Got some great shots of the stars and milky way that night. Friday morning we met up with some of my brothers work friend who were down int he area. We went off and did the Burro Wash Slot canyon which exceeded my expectations. Iron deposits on the sides of the slot canyon.  Sitting atop a choke stone. Setting up for a nice shot. The end of the slot.  After making it back to the cars, we did one or two of the other classic Capitol Reef hikes then separated with the work friends. Later that night my roomate had planned to meet up with us so we had some time to kill. We went up to Factory Butte and checked things out then stopped by th...