I had the great honor of taking my family into the Uintas over the holiday weekend. It was my son's first time to the Uintas so we were all excited! We packed up the Jeep and headed into Kamas. A quick stop at the corner Cheveron in Kamas for the best homemade doughnuts you've ever had. Once we were doughnut ready we made our way up the Mirror Lake Highway. Its beautiful this year. We made our way up over the pass and to our road for the Elizabeth Mountain area. I am not going to divulge road numbers, I want to keep my spots off the radar. But from all of my expolring out there, you really can't go wrong from taking a side road here or there. We made the rough ride out on the main road, then we arrived to the area I had been looking at on Google Earth. It was a rough start in there, but short lived as this road mellows out after you do the first climb. We drove all the roads in the area, took some pictures and then looked around for our camp site.
Down a few spur roads, then we ended up in one of the most beautiful camp sites for car camping that I have ever seen. We settled on our site and proceeded to set up camp. A thunder rumbler with a pretty decent down pour started up right as we got our new 6 Man Long Lake Tent by Mountain Smith sold at Scheels. This tent is well designed and easy to set up. Lay it flat on the footprint, slide the poles in, connect the corners, stake it, and throw and clip the fly over the body, sake out the fly and you are done! It literally takes the same amount of time with two people to set up as my backpacking tent. I am 5' 8" and I can stand up in both the tent and vestibule. The interior is roomy, spacious, and has all the storage you could need. Bonus features is a closable screen window on the door, and zip open windows on the rain fly for ventilating the tent. It proved its waterproofing on our first day. As soon as we had it set up a big thunderstorm came in with wind, heavy rain, and thunder. I stood in the vestibule during the rain storm and I was totally dry. You'll need a large area to set this up, but you'll never want to camp in another tent after you spend a night in this one. Great design, easy set up and break down, has its own stuff sac with handle, and packs down smaller than some other tents this size. If you are looking for a 4-6 man tent, you are for sure going to want to consider this one for the price, functionallity, and waterproofing.
We did not want to sit around camp so while it rained, we did some more exploring of the area. I found the route to a lake I want to backpack, and we tested out the Jeep on some really rough and rugged terrain. Did not even seem to affect the Jeep. A couple of slow and go places, but over all my Jeep Renegade really showed how awesome it really is! Once the storm passed we headed back to camp to finish setting up our home for the weekend and to get dinner going. We made camp pizza and boy was that delicious. S'mores were up for dessert and my daugher was excited for that! Evening set in and my son had an early bed time. I stayed up and took some shots of the Milky Way and a star trail shot that is the title photo in this report. We awoke the next day to clear skies and we made pancakes and then took it easy in camp for a while. The ladies played Sushi Go while I watched my son as he slept in the shade in his pack and play. Once he woke up, we headed out on an adventure expolring the area. I found a few connections to trailheads I want to hit in the future and it was just beautiful out there.
Eventually we came back to camp. At this point the mosquitoes were unbearable and my wife was having a hard time with our son. So I think everyone was tired and as soon as dusk set in everyone went to be. I stayed up for a bit to have a fire, but there was cloud cover in all night so no photography. I tunred in to what was a very light drizzle on the rain fly. I was awakened at 5 AM by my son so I popped out of the tent and saw an amazing sunrise popping through the trees. Red sky in the morning, campers warning! We all went back to sleep for a couple of hours then got up, hung out for a bit then packed it up. We drove out to Kamas and ate at Taco's De Somrero, an new place next to the Cheveron. It was so delicious! Its on my to eat list everytime I go there now. And they are open on Sundays! A great time with my family and I hope to get out with them more often. Enjoy the pics, More adventures to come!
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