Jake, Drew and I had an awesome weekend in the Uinta mountains. We backpacked into Ibantik Lake, stayed overnight, tried to catch some fish, and enjoyed our time together. We made a short little video with a few highlights.
The wildflowers were out in force. Temperatures were perfect for hiking too.
We took a long lunch at the lower of the Twin Lakes. Jake setup a hammock and took a little nap and Drew and I started to fish. We could see good-sized trout jumping in the lake, so we thought we were going to catch one, but the fish clearly weren’t interested in what we were offering. In some cases we were dragging out lures right in front of the fish that we could see in the crystal clear waters.
After lunch, we hiked through (over?) the notch and started our descent into Ibantik lake.
When we arrived we crossed over to the other size of the lake and started looking for some good campsites. Here is our recording of our trek to Ibantik.
My brothers David and Jesse showed up a couple hours later, and Jesse’s friend Greg too. We all cooked dinner, setup camp, fished (still catching nothing), and sat around the fire swapping old camping stories.
On Saturday morning we got up and did some adventuring. We went around the lake to the far side that is nestled up next to the cliffs and found a small stream and a few other really cool campsites.
Jesse and Greg cleverly diverted some water and made us a makeshift washing station complete with a shampoo shelf (we just used some Wilderness Wash) and hat hooks. The water was very cold, having just been snow not long before. But, it felt great to cool off and get somewhat clean.
Jake, Drew and I came back and packed up and headed home, leaving the other three to stay another night (they finally did catch some fish).
On the hike back to the trailhead we made good time. Drew did awesome. We passed a fellow backpacker who asked if Drew was available for hire and commented on how good he was doing. That earned Drew his trail name “Speedy Sherpa”, or just “Sherpa” for short.
It was nice getting back to civilization (especially the peach milkshakes we picked up on our drive home), but we had a great time out in the beautiful Utah mountains. Definitely need to get out there more often.
MightyJohnsons 