South Slope of the Uintas

We are in full-fledged "what should we do before we leave Utah?" mode. We previously took Audrey on her first camping trip and she experienced the hot deserty side of Utah. She wanted to use her fancy new tent somewhere else, so we decided to do a high Utah mountains camping trip.

We went to the Yellowstone Canyon recreation area on the south slope of the Uintahs. We had been there once before, a number of years ago, and it still is one of my favorite places in Utah. It is about a three hour drive from Salt Lake City which includes a good eight miles on severely washboarded and rocky dirt roads. Our little mazda navigated the rocks and ruts like a champ, embarrassing the big dodge truck that was inching along in front of us.

The three hour drive must be about a half hour too long for most people, because the road ends at 7000 feet above sea level with a beautiful mountain river winding through a secluded national forest. There were about 16 campsites at our campground and on a Saturday with perfect weather there was exactly one other person staying in the campground.

Audrey enjoyed the solitude, though we were joined by the free range cattle that roam the high elevations in Utah. She signed "dog" every time she heard them in the distance (distinguishing various animal sounds might take a while still). She also stayed up late enough to enjoy her first camp fire, though not quite late enough to enjoy any smores.

Night proved to be a little colder than we were expecting with the mercury dropping to about 40 degrees. Even though Audrey was bundled in four layers (a onesie and socks below flannel PJs, below a thick sleep sack, topped off by a jacket), it was much to cold for her to sleep alone in her port-a-crib. She eventually crawled into bed with Kelly and the three of us mostly just waited for the sun to come back up. Once the sun crested the mountain ridges and we got some warm food in us, we spent a bit more time exploring the river before heading home.

Our final rugged Utah outing was another success. Maybe we'll be back some day to revisit some of our favorite Utah locations.