Eastern Uintas (Browne Lake Area)

[eCheese]

Hey all, we just got back from a shorter than planned backpacking trip into Lamb Lakes in the eastern Uintas.

This area is is great condition, however above 9000 feet or so, there is still a ton of fresh melt and standing water. The result is the following two hazards:

Not all trails are accessible. We made it to the split from trail #025 to trail #018 to go down to the Lamb Lakes, and we could not make it to trail #018. The creek that drains that basin is flowing EXTREMELY swift and deep. Expect most of the creeks above 9000 ft to be very full, possibly cutting off your route.

The large abundance of standing water has made everything above 9000ft the perfect mosquito hatchery. We saw no other irritating insects, but the mosquitoes were worse than i have seen backpacking EVER. At NO point were there less than 40-50 hovering around myself, my wife, or my dogs. Thats 40-50 each. This was after we had doused every inch of our bodies with Jungle Juice 100 (98%Deet).

Other than these two problems, the area is beautiful. The mosquitoes died off heavily below 9000 ft.

[ibenick]

@eCheese, I'm about to embark on a similar journey. Did you mean you couldn't make it from trail 17 to 18? 25 connects to 18 on the south side of the high ridge south of Lamb Lakes. Right? What trailhead did you start from?

[ibenick]

Okay, so I get my confusion now. It appears the signage on the trail sign indicates 25 while the Trails Illustrated map calls it 17. I went up Saturday morning, river looked bad...



Then it looked really bad! Or maybe not...


Ha, she just fell, sure makes it look like an epic river crossing though. it was actually not bad at all. Even my two water hating puppies made it through no problem. Gotta say though, the bugs were really bad this morning with the overcast skies, huge swarms. Not bad at all hiking in the first day though and just moderate all day yesterday.