Amethyst Basin, High Uintas Wilderness

Delight is what you feel when you get a call from your boss about flying out to Salt Lake City for a meeting in Deer Valley that starts on a Monday night. What that means is you're going to book a flight for Friday afternoon so you can get to those mountains a few days early and explore. It was easy enough to get out there after a 12 hour weather delay in Dallas that put our arrival into Salt Lake at 2am on Saturday morning, but we were not to be deterred! Visions of the beautiful Amethyst Basin had been swimming in our minds for several weeks and so when the alarm sounded at 7am on Saturday morning, we packed up at the Salt Lake Hilton and hit the road.

One of my very favorite moments of the trip was rounding a corner on highway 150 and seeing nothing but gorgeous coniferous trees as far as the eye can see like a carpet between two ridges. It's breath taking. The drive alone is worth it, but I think you'd regret not getting out to poke around.

For us, the "poke around" part involved a 6.5 mile hike in and a 6.5 mile hike out. Easy breezy right? Silly east coaster, you forgot about the elevation! I thought we did pretty damn good considering, though "I think the meadow where we're supposed to camp is just right up here," was the recurring theme/joke as we trudged up the worst stretch of rocks and steeps. One day I will master the art of the 20 lb pack, but somehow even for one night I end up with extra stuff I don't use. Ah well, all the more reason to continue to practice!

Highlights of this hike included a 3am wake up call Sunday to catch the milky way and Perseids shower after the moon set. Aaron got some incredible photographs, his first successful shots of the night sky:

Check out these meteor shots (look for the straight lines in the center of the photo on the top and in the top right of center in the photo on the bottom):

Sunday morning we finished hiking up to Amethyst lake. What an incredible meadow and scenery!

We were worn the heck out by Sunday at the end of the hike, but there was one last surprise in store for us. As we rounded a corner during the final mile of the hike, the hikers in front of us stopped us to let us know there was a moose about 10 yards off the trail. Sure enough, a nice sized bull moose was just hanging out munching on some leaves and let us snap a pic:

Amethyst basin did not disappoint, but it is a very crowded trail so I would not recommend it if you're looking for solitude. For us, who had never camped at 10k feet, it was perfect to have some more experienced folks around in the event of an emergency. So, a great hike for someone wanting to take on the western mountains without the isolation!

Here's some video footage from the trail: