My dad, brother and two of his sons joined me on a two day backpacking trip in the Uintas. We decided to make it an easy one—base camping at Wall Lake just north of the Crystal Lake trailhead near Trial Lake, off the Mirror Lake highway.

Since we were meeting at the trailhead on Thursday morning, I talked my wife into letting me extend my trip by letting me go up Wednesday and do an overnight by myself. It was my first trip alone.

Solo Night

I decided to work a half day so I could have plenty of daylight to hike and set up camp for the night. I didn't know where I'd camp, but I knew I wanted to be close enough to get back to the trailhead in the morning. I chose the Three Divide Lakes as a possible area. I headed west on the Lakes Country Trail #066 until meeting the trail that took me up past Cliff Lake, Petit Lake, Watson Lake, and finally Clyde Lake before the trail finally leveled out. Once at Clyde Lake, a faint trail heads west towards the Three Divide Lakes but mostly fizzled out. It doesn't seem that there's much traffic up there. Mount Watson sits to the south of these lakes, and to the west of the ones I hiked past on my way in.

On the west most lake of the Three Divide Lakes, I found a small stand of trees that juts into the lake on the south side. There was a fire pit and evidence that it was a fairly used spot. I'd camp here for the night. I briefly tried fishing for a bit with a new collapsible pole but didn't have much luck. I've really never been much of a fisherman.

It was awesome hearing the coyotes howl off in the distance as I settled in and fell asleep in my DIY netted hammock.

After breakfast in the morning, I quickly packed up and headed back down to the trailhead. Just as I arrived, my family had just pulled into the parking lot. Perfect timing!

Hiking, Fishing, and Rain!

This time, we headed up the trail close to Trial Lake and up to the south end of Wall Lake. We found a perfect spot to camp on the south end. My family all shared a large tent while I hung in my hammock.

We tried our hand at fishing in Wall Lake but didn't have much luck. We spent most of the day at Wall Lake. A major afternoon thunderstorm forced us to hunker down at camp until it passed. It was the first rain the Uintas had for most of the summer.

On Friday, we took a hike off trail and up to Clyde Lake, around to North Twin Lake, past The Notch, and back down the trail to Wall Lake from the east. Another storm came through as we were hiking and hit real hard after we got back to camp.

A very heavy and long period of rain greeted us Saturday morning. We didn't get out of our tent and my hammock until about 9:00 because the rain was so hard. Once it slowed enough, we quickly took down camp and headed back down to the trailhead.

Fishing on this trip was mostly a dud.