A 15-Mile Gift

On Saturday, Mark, Nicole, and I hiked in the Uintas, the highest east-west running mountain range in the contiguous United States:

We started at Mirror Lake above Kamas, about 80 miles from our home, and started hiking...

One of my favorite things about the Uintas is that the rocks are purple with bright lime green lichen:

A little over half-way up, we stumbled upon some of our USEE friends, Jason and Maggie, at a crossroads. Now people, bear in mind, the Uinta range is vast. The chances of this happening are miniscule. If either of us had arrived at this location just a minute later, we would have missed each other completely. We commemorated the astounding event with a photo, though their uber cute dog Fossil was more into catching flies than smiling for the camera:

Our destination:

Getting into the really high country:

7.5 miles in, the end of the road, Jordan Lake:

A nearby waterfall:

If you hike 7.5 miles in:

you hike 7.5 miles back:

 

But with scenery like this, you hardly notice.

It's a 15-mile gift that will last much longer than our fatigue.

 

Much, much longer.

Comments

[Ms. Maxwell]

Ahhhh. One of my all time favorite places. Two weeks ago it SNOWED all over Marc's camping trip up there...

[Rachel Greig]

Wow - beautiful photos!!!! Looks like you had a wonderful day!

[Marilyn Moore]

Beautiful pictures, Catherine. You guys are really in shape to complete that hike.
On another subject, I just finised last month's bookclub novel. I really enjoyed it (March).

[Harriet Hensley]

thank you so much for sharing ..... so relaxing and beautiful....