A friend and I hiked a section of the Uinta Highline Trail on August 5-7, totaling 26 miles in about 48 hours. This was my first backpacking trip, and I was nervous about covering so many miles. We met in Duchesne at 8:00AM on Friday then set up a car shuttle. We dropped his car off at Chepeta Lake, then drove my truck around to the start of the hike. Although we were starting 13 air miles east of Chepeta Lake, it was about 90 road miles to get there, so we didn't start hiking until about 1:30PM.
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The hiking was fairly easy for the first day. We hiked through both old and new timber, as the area had been logged sometime in the past, and the trail was fairly easy to follow. It was cairned in places, with trees blazed in others. We made about five miles and gained just over 1,000 feet of elevation before setting up camp just below the treeline east of Leidy Peak. We could have made a few more miles, but we wanted to camp where there was water and shelter from the wind.
The start of the hike
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Following cairns
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Blazed trail through the trees
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Marshy ground along an old logging road
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The trail is indiscernible through this meadow
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Trail meets road near Hacking Lake
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A stream from which we pumped and filtered our drinking/cooking water
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Makin' dinner
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Camp between Hacking Lake and Leidy Peak
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Clouds at sunset
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View east from camp after sunset
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Saturday was a tough day. We made 13 miles, mostly above the treeline, with a lot of elevation gain. After cooking breakfast and packing up camp, we filled up our water and started hiking at about 9:00AM. We skirted around a 3/4-mile long snow drift on the northeast side of Leidy Peak, then took the east ridge up to the peak. From Leidy Peak we continued west and stopped for lunch in the saddle between Leidy Peak and Mt. Untermann. Somewhere in the saddle we saw a group of backpackers ahead of us working their way up to Gabbro Pass. Just below the pass was a huge snow drift covering the trail, and we watched as the group dropped down several hundred feet to Lake Wilde, then climbed back up and crossed the drift in its thickest spot. :crazycobasa: We stuck to the trail, and when we reached the snow drift we scrambled up the steep hillside above the trail, just on the edge of the drift, then crossed at its thinnest point by kicking in some footholds. We stopped for another break near Gabbro Pass, and by that time I was beat. I was content to hike until we were just below the treeline again near Whiterocks Lake, but after thinking it over for a while, I talked myself into pushing myself pretty hard and trying to make it to Chepeta Lake, even if it meant hiking in the dark.
Early morning after the first night's camp
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Making breakfast
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Almost above the treeline on the way to Leidy Peak
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Hiking up Leidy Peak
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Chris and Torrey
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Leidy Peak
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King's Peak way off in the distance
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Heading down the western slope of Leidy Peak
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Flat area on the way to Mt. Untermann
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Almost to the saddle between Leidy Peak and Mt. Untermann
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From here, the trail leads straight up to the large snow drift
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Another group of backpackers crossing the snow field below Gabbro Pass
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Mountain goats
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Approaching the snow drift
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Climbing up the edge of the drift
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Cutting a trail across the snow drift
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Lightning Park
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Dry Fork in Lightning Park
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View east to Gabbro Pass
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View into the Whiterocks Lake drainage
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Whiterocks Lake
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Creek crossing near Whiterocks Lake
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Along Whiterocks Lake
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Stream crossing
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Elk
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More elk
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Trail across a meadow
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Time to use the headlamps
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Approaching Chepeta Lake
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We eventually did make it to Chepeta Lake at around 10:00PM and hastily set up camp, ate dinner, then crashed. The following morning, Sunday, we were on the trail by 9:00 on our way to bag Eccentric Peak. The first mile and a half was easy and pretty level, but rounding the north end of Papoose Lake we had to do some boulder hopping and bushwhacking. After that we had some pretty steady elevation gain for the rest of the hike to Eccentric, gaining 1,600 feet over the course of two miles. I was still dragging ass from the previous day's death march and it took over three hours to make it to Eccentric Peak, and my knee was hurting on the way down. While doing the boulder hop around the north end of Papoose Lake again, I had muddy shoes and slipped and fell, scraping and bruising my forearm. We got back to camp about five hours after setting out that morning, ending our backpacking trip after 48 hours. We still had to drive the 90 miles again to retrieve my truck, but it felt great to have completed the trip.
Chepeta Lake
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Boulder hopping at the north end of Papoose Lake
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Papoose Lake
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The beginning of the steep part to Eccentric Peak
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Hiking up to Eccentric Peak
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Chepeta Lake
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Loooong boulder field going up to Eccentric Peak
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Daggett Peak
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Hikers on Daggett Peak
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View west from Eccentric
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Nearing the high point on Eccentric Peak
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The high point on Eccentric Peak
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Summit register and survey marker on Eccentric Peak
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Finally back at camp at Chepeta Lake, after 26.1 miles
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More photos here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1154790...HighlineTrail#
Blog entry:
http://udink.org/2011/08/12/uinta-highline-trail/
