The last summer hurrah

My friend Joseph Creswell and I decided that we wanted to take a "man" trip before the summer was over. We worked on recruiting other guys to join, and at one point we had about 7 guys who were going to join the fun. In the end, they all backed out, the last two the night before, and the two Joseph's were left to go it alone.

We made it up there (Granddaddy Basin in the Uintas) early Thursday morning and blasted John Denver on the way up. Maren's gps and Joseph's guide book got us to the trailhead with no problems and we were off. The trail is a little over 3 miles before you get into the basin and then you have the option to follow several different trails within the basin. We headed west past several beautiful lakes and then found a heavenly spot to camp by a smaller lake which wasn't named on our map. We discovered later that its major shortcoming was a lack of fish in the lake, but there was lots of firewood and was a great place to camp.

That night we did some fishing at a larger lake (Betsy), and didn't catch anything but had fun. We ate dinner and went to bed. The hotdogs didn't sit well with me, and at 2 am I let them decorate the ground outside of the tent. That was my birthday present to Joseph as I had to lurch over him to get to the door, and Friday he turned 24. After that I got to sleep and felt much better. We spent Friday hiking around and did some fishing at Palisade Lake. There I caught the lone catch of the trip and we found some raspberries too that were delicious. We stashed our bags for most of the day, and in the evening we found them and then camped by Granddaddy lake that night. We finished Friday sleeping under the stars after eating the fish and some more raspberries.

Saturday I took the picture of the sunrise in the early morning and soon thereafter we packed and hiked out. It was a great time and the weather was perfect throughout. If any one is looking for a good place to enjoy the Uintas, Granddaddy Basin is a great one!