Backpacking in the Uintas

I didn't hike far, but I had to try out my new backpack and my old legs.

If you can't read it, the sign says, "High Uintas Wilderness."

The trail I followed from Christmas Meadows to the Amethyst Lake cutoff is not too tough. It has some ups and downs but very little overall elevation gain, which was just right for me.

The trail crosses a lot of drinking water streams, especially this time of year. But don't drink without a filter.

The bridge was out at Ostler Creek, so that's as far as I went.

Stillwater Creek is anything but still here. It does slow down and meander when it gets into Christmas Meadows. You can almost see Ostler Creek dumping into Stillwater in the upper left of this picture.

The only flat place I could find to camp was near where the two creeks meet. It looks peaceful, but the creeks sounded like a jet flying low overhead, or camping on the beach.

Okay, stop for a book review. I grabbed this book called "The Shack" at Costco before I left to backpack on Friday morning. No offense to Wynona Judd, who said, "Reading 'The Shack...has blown the door wide open to my soul," and Kathie Lee Gifford, who said, "'The Shack' will change the way you think about God forever." I was not impressed. Unfortunately, it was the only entertainment I took with me, and with rain most of the evening, reading was all there was to do.

When I pick up a novel, I want to be taken on a journey. If the journey provides some insight into human nature or our relationship with others, all the better. I don't have to agree with the author's viewpoints, as long as there's a story and it makes me think. I understood "the Shack" was about a man's discovery of and relationship with God, and having my own beliefs about God, I expected the author's views to be different.

But I didn't expect that after the first few chapters the book would turn into a long, trite, coma-inducing conversation with a mystical God that I could neither understand nor relate to. He/she is three in one and one in three, or any other form you choose. I guess the idea is that God can be anything you want. Not a new idea, Nicene Creed and all.

I admit, after page 100 I skipped to the end. But nothing had changed. The weekend-long conversation was till going on. A big burning question the man had was how to deal with his antisocial daughter. Apparently the issue was never addressed until the very end, when a curt, one-sentence revelation was so obvious I could have told the guy that on page 60.

Okay. That's out of the way.

I'm not a cabin kind of person--I don't want to be tied down to vacationing in one location. But if I had a cabin, it would be here in Christmas Meadows.

On the way home I stopped at Mirror Lake. The trail around the lake was still covered with about two feet of snow, but there were quite a few people enjoying the day. The people in the right side of the picture caught their limit of fish on "green jigs" for the second week in a row in the same spot.

I caught one rainbow on a Rapala.

Then I lost three Rapalas in the weeds. These lures are expensive. I switched to another lure and snagged it, too, but when I pulled it in it was dragging one of my Rapalas.

I know you've been waiting for the shot of the aspens. I took this near where I camped.