The High Uintas. This mountain range encompasses 456,705 acres and stretches nearly 60 miles east to west. It is a spectacular area with hundreds of glacier-formed lakes reflecting blue skies and Utah's highest peaks in clear, cold water. This area was legally designated as wilderness in 1984, by the Utah Wilderness Act. The intent of wilderness designation is to preserve parts of the earth as places dominated by natural forces, not man. Amen.
Accompanied by my wife Lutgart and our brave lab Bailey we made our first trip to this area of Utah. This area normally opens up to visitors in June or July based upon the melting snow. A good friend sent me a map with info and I literally saw it before we hopped in the car! We drove through the splendid Utah countryside arriving with our hiking equipment nearly 2 hours later. Mind the roaming cows please as you drive up the mountain! We stopped at the Provo waterfalls on route 150 and this was amazing. My God, Utah is full of treasure! Not sites that make the headlines but just stunning nonetheless! In any other state something liek Provo waterfalls would be a main attraction but such is the abundance of riches in this state it doesn't draw the attention. We press on.
The drive ends abruptly 15 minutes later! We thought we still had a ways to go but no, the sign says Mirror Lake. So we turn in and drive down the road...literally. Did I mention they call it "High Uintas" for a reason? Our elevation is just over 10,000ft! I don't like heights but this was an easy drive. Mind you a year ago I wouldn't had dared...progress I suppose.
We arrive at a crowded parking lot. Families! Lots and lots of families. And why not? Utah is built for it and Lute and I remember doing this with our kids and best friends. Bailey is an immediate draw for the children and we get numerous request to pet her..please do! Finally we are off, Lutgart breaking in some new hiking shoes, pink laces which she hates. My wife is not an attention hound but we haven't had the chance to replace these atrocities so on we go.
What can I say about Mirror Lake? It's Utah! So that means mountains all around and beautiful clear water. We see boats on the water. We see people fly fishing or fishing from the boats. We watch a guy snag a salmon with his family beside him. Nice catch. And we observe the beauty and blessings of a land that is just dripping with gorgeous views. These people are lucky. I do think to myself how on the other side of the world people are drowning trying to get to a distant, hostile shore for a better life and here I am with my wife living the dream. We are fortunate.
And this image. Well, this is a fragment of what we saw. If this had been a "proper" photography session I would have been here at sunrise but still it was worth it. We hiked through steep countryside to another lake, Lake Fehr and apparently there were 2 more lakes we could have visitied but we were already exhausted, getting hungry and had a 2 hour drive home so we called it. But we'll be back and continue our journeys into the unknown. We'll return to Mirror Lake.
