An Elegy for the Uintas

Goodbye pine forests of America, you will be missed.

I should really stop hiking in the Uintas.  I drive 2 hours just for the right to drive a third hour down increasingly bad dirt roads, to an area that gets rain literally every single afternoon, making me nervous that the roads will turn to pudding and my car will get stuck.  Then I hike with a windbreaker gore-tex jacket on to protect against getting soaked, though this works as a kind of charm to just make the air humid without any actual rainfall, and to protect against rabid trillions of mosquitos, all for the right to crunch orange pine needles in dead forests of stripped and singed trees, where the asian pine beetle has found a mecca and killed lots of miles of forest.

I have gone to the Uinta Mountains 4 times now actually.  I had 1 amazing hike/climb, and 3 bad ones.  I aborted 2 within a few miles.  I could not put my finger on it until this last trip though.  Its the dead forests that get me.  Two years ago around 33% of the forest was dead and it was still pretty.  I blamed myself for not liking the area.  Last year I don't remember noticing dead trees, but maybe that basin was just spared thus far.  This trip, I hiked Henry's Fork- the most popular trail and basin in the whole wilderness, and it was almost immediately apparent to me why I did not want to be there.

I hiked 7 miles to Dollar Lake, and in the first 5 miles, at least 75% of the pine trees were dead.  In some areas it was 90%.  This makes for a very depressing and ugly hike.  No birds sing, no squirrels chatter.  Mosquitos are desperate because yours is the first blood they have smelled in their lifetime.  They managed to bite me through pants, socks, a hat, shirts, layers- everything but the winter jacket that is like wearing a sauna.  So my choices were to be bled dry or to sweat through my clothes.  I chose the latter, but it was hard to dry off by nightfall, when it dropped down to a low near 25 F.  I awoke with ice on my hat and crystals all over my sleeping bag, backpack, and gear.

So things started badly.  It is a dry year for the West, with low snow, so mid June looked like the end of August, with pale, dried out green fields.  And those orange fire colored dead trees everywhere, though after Elkhorn Crossing and nearing Dollar Lake, less trees are dead- for now.

If you are interested in the Uintas, I advise you to go soon.  Before the whole forest is gone.  But take a friend probably, as things are very depressing if you look about you.  I have to wonder how much of a west will even be left in a few years.  The official forest service policy if you were wondering, is to clear trees the beetles kill.  In other words: to let the forests die.  I don't know if anything could be done, but I wish we were at least trying something.  We are so good at killing things, wiping out whole species, destroying environments, but we can't deal with a beetle?  Is it not sexy enough?  If Godzilla attacked the forest, would we care then?  But only if the monster is large?

Well, as for this particular hike, I have no idea why Gunsight Pass is the way to reach King's Peak.  Looking around the terrain, it seemed like one of the least ideal spots to start climbing up.  Had I not read guide books, I would have gotten to the peaks I wanted a lot faster.  As it is, having studied maps, and read books, rather than just picking my own route and making my own adventure, I got lost, overheated, struggled with a pack that I thought I could carry over Gunsight and Anderson passes to make a loop (bad idea), nearly collapsed, and did not quite reach the peak.  Weather and exhaustion stopped me, even after I tried ditching the pack.  I had to abandon my plan for a big loop and turn back, a sorry and long enough alternative, and one that meant I had to go back up and down a high mountain pass with dark clouds nearly at my fingertips.  The highlight of the day was a fabulous rock I came across and camping near this Zigarat peak.

So unless you are taking kids along, I'd say go to Cliff Lake, climb up Cliff Point, or onto any convenient spot along Mount Powell, and things will go smoother.  Or shoot straight up towards Fortress Peak on a steep rocky chute at the end of Henry's Fork Basin.  The Gunsight Pass route is staggeringly long and involves ups and downs, and the trails are badly marked, at least in early summer before footsteps have worn the grass away, and I got lost both coming and going.  Once trying for a shortcut and ending up on Dome Peak before I noticed just how not the right way I was going, and once trying very hard to stay on trail. I wound up adding an hour with the shortcut I took and think I crossed every hill, marsh, and brook in the whole basin. 

Then I got hit with a mix of rain, hail, sleet and snow, which I didn't even know was possible.  Though it was very brief.  I did not have a tent along which was a big mistake in the Uintas, what with the mosquitos, even though I planned to be moving or sleeping at all times.  Mostly moving.  The bivvy sack is a great idea sometimes, but not for this range.  I wound up just heading home through that dead forest again.  King's hardly seemed worth it anyway.  Fortress Peak is gorgeous, and I'd still like to see Red Castle, and Mount Powell looked very appealing as an alternate destination, and I wish I had gone for any of those.  King's, were it 100 feet shorter, would not be visited at all.  It is an unimpressive and inconvenient mountain with no challenge or glory except that it happens to the highest point in artificially invented state lines known as Utah.  I'd say skip it.  I won't try to go back ever and finish the last few hundred feet.  I looked up some pictures on the site summitpost to see what I missed.

Mountains are in general in the Uintas, not so fun.  Mostly just long boulder slogs, with lots of hopping, spiders, and tedium.  Anyone can reach the top of them with enough time, though that is true of most mountains. The challenge, and the fun are what I want though.  Cathedral was worth it.  Kings, didn't tempt me, even as I got closer.  And the funny thing about the Henry's Fork-Gunsight Pass route is the closer I got the farther away the mountain seemed.  And the less I wanted to bother with it.  I had altitude sickness anyway, which I thought might happen, as I am prone to it, and this was my first hike in months.  So I could not eat for 24 hours.  I wound up hiking at least 25 miles on an empty stomach, with 18 or more of them in one day because I just wanted to get out of there.  If I wasn't going to make it to King's Peak summit then I at least was going to prove to myself  I was a tough guy by hiking all the way out from near the saddle in a single afternoon.  I accomplished that, though it was not fun.  Perhaps I should have stayed another day and gone up Mount Powell.  If I had sat down for a little bit, I might have been able to eat, if the mosquitos had not instantly eaten me alive.  Even pumping water was a challenge with them.  So take bug spray if you go the Uinta range also.  You will need it.  Usually I find sunscreen is enough, but not here.

I can always tell how long it has been since a person has been to the Uintas too.  People always tell me how pretty it is.  And I know right off they have not been there in at least 5 years.  They remember the living forests.  I am hesitant to go to Colorado now, as I know the beetle has hit them very hard.  But I am more intent than ever to hike myself to death if I have to this summer to see as much of the West at least once while it is still there.  Glacier is melting, forests are dropping from global warming anyway, and this beetle means business.  They don't play around. Beauty still exists but is harder to find.  Dead trees are even in the best shots now, as the one I love above.

There is still some beauty in the area, but even in the prettiest spots, trees were dying.  Even the aspens seem to be falling now.  I'm not sure if the beetles are jumping into them, or if they just need pines around to help shield against wind, and sun, or what, but they are falling too.