White Pine

This weekend (Aug 15-16) Alex, Ben, and I took a backpacking trip to White Pine lake here in northern Utah. White Pine and the surrounding areas are my favorite places in the world to snowmobile but I've only hiked there once. Alex had never been to the lake before nor had she spent any appreciable time in the area.

The trail to White Pine is just under 4 miles each way when beginning at the Tony Grove parking lot. It took us about 1.5 hr to complete the journey and the entire time I was thinking how, on snowmobile, it takes about 10 minutes.

One thing that immediately struck me were the wildflowers. You never see them in the winter. I was expecting to hike through a bunch of dead weeds because of the lack of water but these flowers stayed amazing! If flowers like that could be grown around here I'd instantly change my policy on zero-scaping. Alex isn't much entertained by scenery pictures (she calls them "post cards") but I took a lot anyway. I doubt they do justice to what it actually looked like but they'll do. If anyone reading this would like us to personally show you how beautiful it was, we'd be glad to schedule another trip.

I'd like to mention something else. Alex tossed and turned really bad that night. I don't know if it is the nice new sleeping bag we bought her, the amazing 4 season tent we've got, or the 3 inch thick inflatable ground pad we carried in for her, but she woke up every 2.5 seconds to adjust her temperature or position or both. I'd never seen anything like it. As a result she woke up with killer bed head. There are pictures of it in the slide show but none of them are of the fresh dew. When she first lifted her head off the pillow I thought I was in a tent with Medusa on crack. WOW!

In my (Alex) defense, it was the mummy bag and Sterling's excellent choice of tent placement that resulted in my tossing and turning. Mummy bags sure are warm, but you can't move in them worth a darn, and I am a girl who likes leg space. I did have a lot of fun though, and I would never think of passing up an opportunity to camp-out like that just because of the sleeping conditions.

PS, here are a few facts from our trip. Distance, 8.12 miles. Average speed, 2.9 mph. Total ascent, 1573 ft. Max elevation, 8840 ft. Wife's bed head, 9.8 out of 10.