I had a co-worker visiting Utah from Portland, so I convinced him to let me take him on an overnighter in the Uintas. So on August 5, 2006, he and I went backpacking at Granddaddy Lake in the High Uintas Wilderness of northern Utah. Being from sea level, I may have run him pretty hard up over 10,000 feet for his first real backpacking trip. The weather was iffy for the whole trip, but somehow we managed to avoid any storms or any major rain. I really don’t know how we avoided some pretty nasty looking storms, but several of them just went right around us. We did see new snow on a peak north of the basin, however…it was August 5th. The snow was gone by the next morning, but I don’t like thinking about the impending winter…especially at the beginning of August. We had a really nice hike, though. We only saw one other group hiking on the opposite side of Granddaddy, despite the fact that the trailhead was pretty crowded. A ranger at the trailhead said most of the cars belonged to day hikers or backpackers who would be leaving that morning. That was nice to learn, because I have noticed the Granddaddy trailhead can get pretty crowded. Apparently the solution to avoiding the crowds is simply not to backpack on Friday night.
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