Uinta Highline Trail, Day 1 & 2, High Uintas Wilderness- August 2022

20 years ago in a hiking book I read about the Uinta Highline Trail. It was a 75 mile, 7 mountain passes, 13,000 feet of vert and took 8 to 10 days to complete. I dreamed about this, but thought it was so far out of reach that I looked at it as something I wanted to do, but never was going to be able to do. Then a few years ago I started moving to more of a Ultralight Backpacking set up. Combine that with some huge life changes both in diet, addiction, and activity and it was a dream that seemed attainable! After two years of research, planning, training, and test packing I felt I was ready for this adventure!

We were shuttled to Chepeta Lake by Jim's wife and I am eternally grateful for this! At Chepeta Lake we could see we were going to have some weather to negotiate going over North Pole Pass. We put the packs and footwear on and made haste getting moving on the trail. The first couple of miles were just climbing forest sections then navigating meadows. There was one water crossing but nothing difficult to manage. We then started climbing for the ridge. We came out of the treeline and it opened up on us. Jim saw a boulder with an overhang and we all jammed to get under it before the storm unleashed on us. We hunkered down as the Monsoon moisture unleashed and it came down pretty good. Surprisingly in a rain jacket and pants, I stayed pretty dry from the splash that was happening around us all. After about an hour it broke and we moved for the pass.

As we climbed the switchbacks to the top of North Pole Pass, the clouds parted and a rainbow appeared! It was magical how the evening sun turned the mountian side gold and the rainbow, a full one, stood out for us to enjoy! We a treat after having to shelter from thunder and lightning! We continued up and eventually hit the High Uintas Wilderness Boundary which was the top of the pass! We took some photos then moved towards the west side of the pass, where it ovelooks Fox Lake, our home for the first night. As we descended, we found this area very boggy with some standing water after we got off the pass. We eventually right at dusk found a spot and set up camp. It stayed clear enough for us to get a fire going, and make dinner. After dinner it came in and started raining and we all turned in.

Day 2 brought us more torrential down pour. It rained all night, only slowing down in lulls, it never really stopped raining. I cooked my breakfast and made coffee in my vestibule. Jim and Micheal did the same. I packed everything but my shelter. We had a couple of lulls in the AM, but it never stopped raining. Eventually we packed up the shelters and we made haste shooting for a lunch stop at Kidney Lakes. It just dumped on us the whole time. Never letting up. I am so glad I brought rain pants! We hiked the five miles to Kidney Lakes crossing rivers and wet boggy areas in pouring rain. When we got to Kidney Lakes we were soaked and my core temp was comprimised from sweating out my rain jacket. I needed dry clothes and I think both Jim and Michael were thinking the same thing. As soon as we dropped the packs the sun broke at Kidney Lakes so we hurried and put out our wet clothes and gear and settled in. We did'nt realize it was almost 4 PM by the time we rolled in there so we decided that Kidney Lakes would be our home for the night.

Evening set in and we had a deer join us in camp. I tried a bit of fishing but got no action on my Tenkara rod. We had a nice fire and got pretty much dried out from the 18 hours of rain we had. The evening sky was partly cloudy and as it got dark I turned in for a much needed sleep. We were going to need it for the next day for how big our adventure was going to get! For a continuation of this journey see my Day 3 & 4 post following this one! My YouTube video is posted below! More adventure to come!