Hey folks, welcome back to Grand Adventure! I'm your host Marc Guido, and
in today's episode we're going to be exploring and camping along
Utah's famed Mirror Lake Highway, so stay tuned!
Utah State Route 150 is better known to Utahans as the Mirror Lake Highway. First
built to the National Forest boundary in 1933, the road was extended east and then
north, past Mirror Lake to the Wyoming State Line in 1953. A National Scenic
Byway, the road is only open in the winter as far as Soapstone, a popular
camping area in summer. It's used by snowmobilers until the Utah Department
of Transportation finally plows the road for summer recreation, sometimes by
Memorial Day but often well into June. The road crosses the western Uinta
Mountains, reaching an elevation of 10,715 feet
at Bald Mountain Pass. We're boondocking just below the top of the pass at around
10,600 feet. Our boondocking area is quite popular and
busier on this mid-august weekend than we prefer, but we've got more room than
we'd have in the Forest Service dry campgrounds lining the highway, and this
meadow just below the pass is one of the few easily accessible boondocking areas
that's still well away from the state road's traffic. The Uintas owe their
popularity not only to their natural beauty, but also to their weather. While
it's in the mid 90s only an hour away in Salt Lake City, we're enjoying daytime
highs in the mid 60s and cool nighttime temperatures dipping into the mid 30s.
The Uintas are home to more than a thousand small lakes, and the advantage
to staying in a Forest Service campground is that many are situated
lakeside. One of the nicest of these campgrounds is the one at Washington
Lake. With paved pads and decent separation between sites, reservations
here are a must and are released on a 12-month rolling basis. Single sites cost
$23 per night.
Some of the nicest waterfront access is at Trial Lake Campground, just downhill
from Washington Lake. Roads and parking spurs are paved here as well, and fees
are also $23 per night for a single site. However, the campground at Trial Lake
isn't nearly as roomy as at Washington Lake, and it was hard enough towing our
26-foot trailer through here. We wouldn't want to try it with a bigger rig.
The highway,s namesake body of water, Mirror Lake, is arguably its most popular
and one of its most scenic, right at the foot of towering Bald Mountain. The lake
is open only to non-motorized watercraft including canoes and kayaks, and it's
stocked with rainbow trout. Many of the Uinta Mountains' best hiking
trails depart from the Mirror Lake area.
The campground at Mirror Lake is another tight one, but the campground roads and
campsites are all unpaved. Many of the sites back up to the eastern shore of
Mirror Lake, and some offer a glimpse of Bald Mountain through the dense forest.
The nightly rate for a single site is -- you guessed it -- 23 bucks. There are
numerous other campgrounds all along the Mirror Lake Highway, including Moosehorn,
Lost Creek and Christmas Meadows. A pair of potable water filling stations are
located at Lost Creek, and there's a dump station at Lily Lake if you're headed
out via Evanston, Wyoming. We'll put a link on the screen to our recent episode
from Lily Lake, if you haven't yet seen it already.
While the Uinta Mountains are best seen by foot along an extensive network of
hiking and backpacking trails that reach innumerable remote backcountry lakes,
there are nevertheless sites to see right along the road itself. One of the
most engaging is Provo River Falls.
The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest charges a recreation fee for anyone
parking along the Mirror Lake Highway, including campers. Available at
self-serve pay stations all along the road, the recreation pass costs $6
for three days or $12 per week. Annual passes are
available, and an annual Interagency Pass, also referred to as a National Parks
Pass, is also valid to cover the Mirror Lake Corridor recreation feet.
Some thoughtful previous campers left a large stash of dry firewood behind all
split and neatly stacked for our use. On this trip we got to try four small LED
camping lanterns sent to us by Vont. A bargain at $25.99 for four, each has 30
bright white LEDs that operate for up to 12 hours on the included three AA
alkaline batteries. You turn them on or off simply by expanding or collapsing
the lantern. They're water resistant and their 140-lumen output truly lit up the
night, especially as they're small and light enough to hang anywhere -- even from
a small tree branch. We'll put a link to these lanterns on Amazon in the video
description down below, and you'll also find there a 10% off coupon code that
Vont has included to share with our viewers. We've added these lanterns to
our Amazon Store as we're sure to be using these for years to come. So we hope
that you've enjoyed coming along with us to the Mirror Lake Highway. If you're not
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Until next week please remember ... life is nothing but a Grand Adventure! We'll see
you soon!