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Thread: Anyone know if Mirror Lake Highway is open yet?

  1. #1

    Anyone know if Mirror Lake Highway is open yet?

    I heard on the news on Wednesday that it wasn't, but I remember driving up to Trial Lake area even in December once upon a time. That's where I need to get to--so any idea if I can?

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  3. #2
    The road officially will open - according to UDOT - on June 13th. There is a gate at Soapstone - I am not sure if it is open to try to venture further up.
    Biking, Hiking, and Fishing are life. Everything else is just fluff.

  4. #3
    I heard that it's mostly open and people have reported that all the lakes still have ice.

    That was a few days ago though...Maybe there's some open water up there by now. Have fun with the 6ft of snow around them though.

    MELT!

  5. #4
    Well, I'm not going up there to fish--only to pin down our camping spot for mid-July. Then again, maybe the snow will still be there by July 7th, which is the start of our Scout camp.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by jimflint1
    Well, I'm not going up there to fish--only to pin down our camping spot for mid-July. Then again, maybe the snow will still be there by July 7th, which is the start of our Scout camp.
    If you were to give me some more info I could prolly narrow your shit right down to a few choice spots with out you ever setting foot outside your front room.

    Back packing or car camping? a camp ground or unimproved site? how far you want to walk? how steep ya willing to walk up with the kids? how important is fishing?
    Fill me in on some details and I bet I can give you some really kick ass suggestions and Id bet many other people once they know what the bill is that needs to be fit, can give you some favorite destinations as well.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Ih8grvty
    Quote Originally Posted by jimflint1
    Well, I'm not going up there to fish--only to pin down our camping spot for mid-July. Then again, maybe the snow will still be there by July 7th, which is the start of our Scout camp.
    If you were to give me some more info I could prolly narrow your shit right down to a few choice spots with out you ever setting foot outside your front room.

    Back packing or car camping? a camp ground or unimproved site? how far you want to walk? how steep ya willing to walk up with the kids? how important is fishing?
    Fill me in on some details and I bet I can give you some really kick ass suggestions and Id bet many other people once they know what the bill is that needs to be fit, can give you some favorite destinations as well.
    Well, okay. I actually already did this thread in the camping section a couple of weeks ago, but if you have some ideas I'll be glad to look at them.

    First of all, we are considering the Trial Lake area because we want to camp in a place that my Honda Accord will get to, but not in the Trial Lake improved campground. There is a dirt road that goes back southwest from Trial Lake itself and roughly follows Highway 150. A short distance down this road, another dirt road takes off to the north and winds up somewhere between Trial and Washington Lakes. Without having traveled up this road, just looking at my map, I'm thinking this might be the place to go. Fishing is important, as is proximity to the road. We don't want to pack stuff into a camp (well, maybe fifty feet or so), just drive there. Also, we are going to take an overnighter hike away from this base camp, up to another lake, and then hike back the next day. We may do this a couple of times during our stay. Again, just looking at the map, this looks like a good place, but do you know anything about it, or have any further suggestions? I plan on taking a drive up there to check it out, probably a week from Wednesday.

  8. #7
    First off, go buy a book!
    I will look back at my pictures and memories, and my maps and the book Im going to tell you to buy, and see what I can come up with for ya. But in the mean time go buy a book!
    I get into some serious packing, but this book lists my type of pack trips and day hikes as well.
    gives details and a users guide to each lake, all in a nice little format.
    IT was written by 2 brothers, jeff and brad probst.
    THey since have done a newer book, but i have yet to pick it up. I keep this one in my pack when I go and in the bathroom so I can be entertained when I am in there and maybe plan some new trips while Im on the throne as well.
    Dont buy it from amazon, even though Im going to give you the link to it there. ITs 35 bucks! I have had mine for, I dunno how long, over 10 years and I am damned near sure it shouldnt be that much. THink I got mine at either REI or Kirkhams,maybe even barnes and noble. about 20 bucks seems right, but its been atleast 10 years so who knows?
    Ill go look into pics and talk to my wife, figure out some recommendations for ya, let ya know later. Till then, go grab the damned book already!

    Book LINK

    If you went later in the year, I would highly recommend staying some place close to Mirror lake if your not into a pack trip, and taking a day hike up to Gem, Joan, and pyramid. You could drive to pyramid from the dirt road back down the other side in murdock basin.
    Last time I was on that road you could take a small car to say Echo lake, camp there, and hike into the other 3. You can not get a small car to pyramid though. Nearly! but you got maybe 300 yards of carry camp to the lake from where you can get a car to.
    THe road to pyramid is over grown and hard to find, Iv been there each year a few times since I was born, and still got a hard time finding it. but echo is easy. NOt sure about its access road though, have not driven to it in several years and it was just starting to get a bit shitty the last time I did.

    a 12 second google search gave me this to share with you. Also gem and joan it seems to me are listed in that book, more details and maps and all included.

    Click me for pics!

  9. #8
    If you went later in the year, I would highly recommend staying some place close to Mirror lake if your not into a pack trip, and taking a day hike up to Gem, Joan, and pyramid. You could drive to pyramid from the dirt road back down the other side in murdock basin.
    Last time I was on that road you could take a small car to say Echo lake, camp there, and hike into the other 3. You can not get a small car to pyramid though. Nearly! but you got maybe 300 yards of carry camp to the lake from where you can get a car to.
    THe road to pyramid is over grown and hard to find, Iv been there each year a few times since I was born, and still got a hard time finding it. but echo is easy. NOt sure about its access road though, have not driven to it in several years and it was just starting to get a bit shitty the last time I did.
    The echo lake road is a rough son of a b. I have seen cars, but it is EXTREMELY rocky - I used 4 wheel drive the last time I was in there, which was last year. The road is somewhat good to the ATV trails in the murdock basin area. It is about 4 miles off the highway before the road gets bad. It is a good place to camp and there is a lake that you have to bushwack to called Broadhead Lake. The hike to Pyramid, Echo, Joan from that area wouldn't be too long. Keep in mind this area is very, very busy with the ATVers. The mirror lake area is the worst area to visit in the Uintas due to all the crowds, and most people don't know or seem to forget that the mountains stretch out for over 90 miles East of the Highway.

    The place where you are looking at near Trial Lake is Heavily used and you won't find solitude. The better bet would be to go over to the North side to the Whitney Res. area. It will be busy, but will be easier to find dispersed camping - same with the North Slope road. The Evanston ranger district is a lot more liberal with the dispersed camping than the Kamas district.
    Biking, Hiking, and Fishing are life. Everything else is just fluff.

  10. #9
    The road to echo is that bad?
    I have pics someplace at my dads house in washington of our 27 foot trailer sitting not 200 yards off of the lake back around 76! I did find an old pic of me standing by the echo lake sign, the fact I had no beard and hair nearly to my waist dates taht picture to about 1998-99 as Iv had a beard since fall of 99. That trip was with my dad, parked at pyramid, and hiked to and fished all the others that day.
    We used to leave at 4 am to go hit the rivers and fish the morning and drive home.
    He couldnt sleep, was retired, and would call me at 1 am when I got home from work. ask me if I wanted to go, and grab a shower and a nap and be ready by 4, sleep in the car on the way up, and fish till noon or so, and head home. That trip we stopped in kamas for breakfast, grabbed some stuff for a lunch and took a day pack with drinks.
    we didnt finish at noon either, took us till about 4 to hit the truck and head to park city for a beer and a burger at Wasatch brewers.
    Spent 2 or 3 hours on each lake, none of the walks between them are bad, pretty easy and not long at all.
    The old man is in his mid 70's now and too far away to make a trip once or twice a week to fish the rivers and hike from lake to lake.
    Good times though, great times. Now I got a wife that started fishing when I started taking her a few years ago thats always up for a trip and camping and hiking.
    If I could talk her into a pack trip she would be the perfect companion!

    Mirror is damned busy, the one real complaint I got about it is that I cant even go there for a walk with my son with out hearing fu+*ing mariachi music cranked from across the damned lake. Never have fished it, always to crowded.
    Last few years we have spent alot of time in lost creek campground, easy walk to the lake, fairly private on the back stretch of that campground. Im biding my time for the nearly 5 year old to be in good enough shape and old enough to start packing with me, maybe then I can talk his momma into going back in the woods and far from the roads.
    I do however have an 18 year old step son and 15 year old son that are desperately trying to talk me into taking them on a trip this summer.
    We are going! I just have not told them that as I use that trip to bribe them.
    You want to go? you dont even mow the lawn or get the garbage out and you beg me to buy you packs and bags and lead your asses 14 miles up the mountains for a 3 day trip?
    We are going, already started planning and sneakily buying the gear they need, just neither of them know it yet



    To the OP:

    You dead set on that area? if ya want to open up more choices I bet between me and the others on this site we could lay out one hell of a trip for ya with more solitude and bit more adventure than what you would get going to trial.
    I will still consult my maps and brain and let ya know about the trial area but it is a crowded place with not alot of unimproved campground camping.
    If your happy with rivers I could suggest many places to fish where crowds are fewer, but if ya HAVE to have a lake and your not packing in, its a bit harder to find one that you can have any privacy.
    Iv been able to spend some time nearly alone, atleast noone breathing down my neck on the far side of teapot, just up the road from trial. Course the last time I did that (last summer) we watched 2 black bear walk out on the lake not 100 yards from us.
    No time for pics, just get the hell out of town! Rangers were all over them soon after and shut down the camp grounds nearby.
    still,I wish I had pictures.

  11. #10
    [quote="brookiekiller"]
    The place where you are looking at near Trial Lake is Heavily used and you won't find solitude. The better bet would be to go over to the North side to the Whitney Res. area. It will be busy, but will be easier to find dispersed camping - same with the North Slope road. The Evanston ranger district is a lot more liberal with the dispersed camping than the Kamas district.
    How do I get to the Whitney Res. area? And where is the North Slope Road? Are we talking somewhere near the Henry's Fork area, near the King's Peak Trailhead?

  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Ih8grvty
    You dead set on that area? if ya want to open up more choices I bet between me and the others on this site we could lay out one hell of a trip for ya with more solitude and bit more adventure than what you would get going to trial.
    I will still consult my maps and brain and let ya know about the trial area but it is a crowded place with not alot of unimproved campground camping.
    No--but I need to decide within the next week or so. And distance from Salt Lake is certainly an issue with the gas prices the way they are. I like rivers, but last year when we took the scouts, they got tangled lines all over the place in a lake and rivers are harder to fish. I don't want to be spending all my time unhooking line from bushes, trees, etc, to say nothing of bird's nests in the reels! Really if you have some suggestions that meet the criteria already outlined---able to drive to, fairly close to Salt Lake, with lakes to hike to for an overnighter, I'd love to read and consider them.

  13. #12
    how old are the kids and how many are going?

    originally that road was to be opened the 13th of june, I have not heard if it is still on schedule or not. if it is, or even if it isnt, you could drive around to wyoming and cut back in.
    I lived in murray for a few years, from my door to the trail head was exactly 104 miles. that was through parleys, and kamas and over bald mountain.
    Look up Christmas meadows.
    I promise you will see moose. there are areas you can camp in (right off the road) that are unimproved. you have a whole river to fish. You said overnight trip, the still water trail is right there. just a few miles up it splits, first trail goes right to kermsuh lake, the left continues and splits again later on, teh middle goes to Ryder and McPheters, the trail that continues goes to amethyst, as well as an unnamed lake that has the best fishing Iv found in the entire drainage the map for the area is easy to find, in fact I found a waterproof one of that area at barnes and nobles a few years ago.
    Most those hikes are long ones, like Ryder says its 11 miles, but Iv walked up teh bottom to it and over the top from the highline trail head to get to it. It might be 11 miles straight azimuth but actual walking on the trail is more like 13, and the bad part of it comes after your tired, right before the meadow that sits on the side of the lake is a long ass hill, thats the killer part.
    You could always turn up the murdock basin, its paved for a good ways. Right at the end of the pavement is a big area, some trees and a creek. camp there, fish the creek, walk down to the duschene tunnel and fish there as well.
    Most of the hike from there would be road, pyramid,gem,joan,all those we talked about earlier.
    You could also stay lower, closer to the city of kamas. just past the pay station to get a permit, there is a bathroom on the side of the road, jsut after that a road turns off to the right. Iv spent many nights in those tall pines down there, bathroom close by, good firewood, large areas for camps, river just down the hill from there its not too far to the trailhead to hike into crystal lake.
    If your doing that lake, watch your ass. its not a bad hike but people underestimate it. see the following article:


    Lost in the Uintas--LINK

    Then to offer some help and not try to push ya away from doing that hike, please see the following web page:



    Crystal Lake Loop---LINK

  14. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Ih8grvty
    how old are the kids and how many are going?

    originally that road was to be opened the 13th of june, I have not heard if it is still on schedule or not. if it is, or even if it isnt, you could drive around to wyoming and cut back in.
    I lived in murray for a few years, from my door to the trail head was exactly 104 miles. that was through parleys, and kamas and over bald mountain.
    Look up Christmas meadows.
    I promise you will see moose. there are areas you can camp in (right off the road) that are unimproved. you have a whole river to fish. You said overnight trip, the still water trail is right there. just a few miles up it splits, first trail goes right to kermsuh lake, the left continues and splits again later on, teh middle goes to Ryder and McPheters, the trail that continues goes to amethyst, as well as an unnamed lake that has the best fishing Iv found in the entire drainage the map for the area is easy to find, in fact I found a waterproof one of that area at barnes and nobles a few years ago.
    Most those hikes are long ones, like Ryder says its 11 miles, but Iv walked up teh bottom to it and over the top from the highline trail head to get to it. It might be 11 miles straight azimuth but actual walking on the trail is more like 13, and the bad part of it comes after your tired, right before the meadow that sits on the side of the lake is a long ass hill, thats the killer part.
    You could always turn up the murdock basin, its paved for a good ways. Right at the end of the pavement is a big area, some trees and a creek. camp there, fish the creek, walk down to the duschene tunnel and fish there as well.
    Most of the hike from there would be road, pyramid,gem,joan,all those we talked about earlier.
    You could also stay lower, closer to the city of kamas. just past the pay station to get a permit, there is a bathroom on the side of the road, jsut after that a road turns off to the right. Iv spent many nights in those tall pines down there, bathroom close by, good firewood, large areas for camps, river just down the hill from there its not too far to the trailhead to hike into crystal lake.
    If your doing that lake, watch your ass. its not a bad hike but people underestimate it. see the following article:


    Lost in the Uintas--LINK

    Then to offer some help and not try to push ya away from doing that hike, please see the following web page:



    Crystal Lake Loop---LINK
    The kids are 12-13, and there are going to be about 9 of them. I've camped at the meadow just below Amethyst Lake many years ago--and you're right--tough hike right at the end. Christmas Meadows is a beautiful area though, you're so right about that.

  15. #14
    About the book High Uintas Backcountry by the Probst brothers---I'm good at finding books and I can't find this one for less than $38.95. It's no longer in print. I did find a few sites that listed it as much cheaper, but when I tried to buy it from those sites, the message not in stock at this time came up. I also checked the county library and they don't have it either. That does sound like a great book to have though. I'm going to keep hunting.

  16. #15
    Without having traveled up this road, just looking at my map, I'm thinking this might be the place to go. Fishing is important, as is proximity to the road. We don't want to pack stuff into a camp (well, maybe fifty feet or so), just drive there. Also, we are going to take an overnighter hike away from this base camp, up to another lake, and then hike back the next day. We may do this a couple of times during our stay. Again, just looking at the map, this looks like a good place, but do you know anything about it, or have any further suggestions?
    If interested, all those places you metion are covered in the book below (covers all the area west of the Mirror Lake Highway):

    http://www.rei.com/product/665706

    Some parts are somewhat out of date, but the info should still be good.

    Edit, I just noticed that the other book you are looking for is also at REI:

    http://www.rei.com/product/751227

    Same book by Probst and it's still in print; it's just under Falcon Publishing now.

  17. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Scott P

    Edit, I just noticed that the other book you are looking for is also at REI:

    http://www.rei.com/product/751227

    Same book by Probst and it's still in print; it's just under Falcon Publishing now.
    So that's the same book?

  18. #17

  19. #18
    Whitney Reservoir is located off the Mirror Lake Highway on the North side. There is a dirt road that takes off going West about 10 miles South of the Bear River Ranger Station.

    The North Slope Road begins between the Bear River Service Station and Bear River Ranger Station and goes all the way to Flaming Gorge. The immediate area would only meet your needs if you wanted to camp near a river - or go all the way to Lyman Lake. The road becomes a little rough at Elizabeth Pass. There is great Dispersed camping on the East Fork of Bear River. It is right before the boy scout camp. The further East you go the less the crowds get.
    Biking, Hiking, and Fishing are life. Everything else is just fluff.

  20. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by jimflint1
    Quote Originally Posted by Scott P

    Edit, I just noticed that the other book you are looking for is also at REI:

    http://www.rei.com/product/751227

    Same book by Probst and it's still in print; it's just under Falcon Publishing now.
    So that's the same book?

    NO!
    that book is actually better!
    the version I have and have had for years had nothing to do with GPS coord's
    Its the same book, with teh bonus for people that have a GPS.
    Id buy it, hell Im gonna go buy it!

  21. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by brookiekiller
    Whitney Reservoir is located off the Mirror Lake Highway on the North side. There is a dirt road that takes off going West about 10 miles South of the Bear River Ranger Station.

    The North Slope Road begins between the Bear River Service Station and Bear River Ranger Station and goes all the way to Flaming Gorge. The immediate area would only meet your needs if you wanted to camp near a river - or go all the way to Lyman Lake. The road becomes a little rough at Elizabeth Pass. There is great Dispersed camping on the East Fork of Bear River. It is right before the boy scout camp. The further East you go the less the crowds get.
    The Whitney Reservoir area sounds intriguing. Do you think I can get in there by the middle of next week to check it out? I actually know the North Slope a little bit, now that it's described. We've been up to that East Fork of the Bear Scout Camp a few times in the past.

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