Feb 27, 2012

High Uintahs camping as a scout, Lost lake, Palisades lake, Pine Island.

In my youth I had some great experiences camping with the scouts. We went to several lakes in the Granddaddy lakes area of the High Unitahs. Ine year we camped at Governor Lake, another two years at Palisades Lake. We hiked to a lot of lakes during each of those years also such as Lost Lake and Pine Island Lake. I remember being scared that I would get lost and so never ventured very far from the trails. I had some very special experiences. The year we hiked to lost lake it became very apparent why it had the name it did since there was no real trail leading to it and it was only because one of the men with us knew how to get to it. I remember thinking from the pattern of where we were catching fish that they had to be swimming around the lake in a large group since those scouts who were walking around the lake seemed to be catching them when I was at a spot where they had just been and wasn’t catching anything except twigs and rocks. I never was a fisherman and that didn’t build my confidence any either.

I remember another time walking for a long time on a trail and not really knowing where I was and seeing a tree that had fallen in a small marsh and I took a picture of it with my little Kodak instamatic camera. Years later as a scoutmaster I found that tree again and took another picture of it and that time I knew where I was.

I loved camping at Palisade lake the most and knew we were almost there as we would pass Brinton Meadows where the forest ranger camp was set up. Later my brother Stan would spend a lot of time there and even Clair and I would go there for four days with him later in my teen age years. I learned to love the beauty of the basin and will always consider it to be one of my favorite spots on this earth.