First Uinta Summit, Bald Mountain

We left Salt Lake City early afternoon to escape the summer heat and headed for the Uintas. Our intention was to do a short hike or climb and familiarize ourselves with an area we hadn't been to in years. As we approached the summit area of the Mirror Lake Highway we saw a pretty awsome mountain, Bald Mountain, and shortly thereafter it's trailhead parking lot. We stopped here and got our stuff ready for the climb.

We were at the trailhead sign at 3:30 PM and started the uphill climb on a fairly steep trail or so it seemed for two old men at 10600'. The trail was relatively narrow and rocky with unusually pretty and interesting rock to the uphill side. The trail had several switchbacks and to keep things interesting several types of wildflowers grew out of cracks in the rock. The views were outstanding and keep getting better as the elevation increased. A little beyond the one mile mark and about 200' below the summit I decided to leave the trail in favor of a scramble up thru some slabby rocks. This was a little more difficult than it looked from below, as anyone knows who has climbed, is usually the case. I reached the top and walked a little further to the summit. We we greeted with a carin nearly 10' tall.

Here the views were better than ever imagined in every direction. Mirror Lake from this elevation looked like a pond, Reids Peak to the West was very impressive as were other peaks to the East. We hung out for quite a while on the summit before finding our own route down to the Southwest. We saw several Mountain Goats in the area that wer grazing on the West side of the peak taking in the early evening sun. We were back at the car by 7:00PM. I would certainly recommend this hike for anyone wanting an introduction to the mountains in the Uintas without the long approaches required for most other peaks.