Breaking free from my comfort zone of Little Cottonwood Canyon can be taxing. LCC holds the people, peaks, and accessibility that leave me with a “why leave?” mentality. Change is a good thing I tell myself from time to time, and with the mighty Uinta Range so close (yet so far), I felt the urge to throw the routine on its head and do something different.
My friend Nate and I hadn’t a clue where to go in the Uinta’s beyond what road gets you there. From Park City though Kamas and eastbound the lush pines enveloped us as on all sides as we wove through the forest and into the highest east-west running mountain range in the contiguous U.S.
Enjoying the joyride just fine on its own on the bending road, we intermittently came out of the trees and into a vast landscape of 12 and 13,000-foot peaks dolloped in every compass point. We passed a few campgrounds and scenic overlooks, eyes peeled for the white-stickman-with-hiking-pole-on-brown-background sign that indicated a hike was near. We passed one, then maybe two, yet kept looking, perhaps content to tour the beautiful highway.
We discovered, without looking for it, a scene of pure Americana. Herds of cattle grazed open range style on the vegetation that lay inches from the road, fisherman casted alongside the Provo River, and dually trucks pulled into camping zones towing long trailers.
After a few U-turns, wrong turns, mind changes, and second guesses, we settled on Bald Mountain, for the fact it was right there, and we couldn’t just lollygag behind the wheel all day. Coming from the east, Bald Mountain looks to be a loose rock wall of imposing cliff faces, but from the west, it’s a gentle sloping brown dome of a peak. We approached from the west.
It is a two-mile trip to the top. We had perhaps been seeking a bit more of a lengthy stroll after putting in the time to drive, but didn’t have difficulty convincing each other this would suffice. We began from almost 11,000 feet so at least we had some altitude to work with.
A simple hike with new views on every other switchback, the pleasant temps of September whisked us to the top. The rock field at the top is flat and allows you to get as close as comfort will permit to the precipice that faces east. Down on the highway a snake of four Harley riders roared around a perfect S-turn among the scattering of bright blue lakes. We sat until the autumn chill hit us (a welcome phenomenon after this withering summer in SLC) and sauntered back down.
Easy and scenic, I saw a hundred other longer hiking options, attractive campsites, luscious lakes and a billion potential lines to ski when the white stuff starts falling. Back in Kamas we sat outside on aluminum picnic tables, eating bacon cheeseburgers at the fantastically plain-named Uinta Drive Inn with temps in the 60’s and nary a cloud in sight. The need to come back sells itself.