Uinta Misadventures

As many of you already know, the Uinta Mountains are often another world weather wise compared to the Wasatch Front.

Indeed that was the case today as our hike turned into a quagmire thanks to thunderstorms that fired up near the Uinta crest.

I knew there was a chance we'd get caught out, so our plan for the day was to hike the Highline Trail to either Rocky Sea Pass or Naturalist Basin, hopefully being down in the trees if anything sparked.    Ideally, we would have had a crack of dawn start, but it's hard to get the teenager out of bed, so we hit the trail mid morning.

After a quick approach, we approachedNaturalist Basin, but heard a few rumbles to the east.  Not a good sign.

Eventually it was clear the time had come to turn around, so we headed back down.  That's when things really fell apart.  First heavy rain turned the trail into a quagmire.

And then the pea size hail started.  Although not large, the some of the larger stones stung pretty good.

The hail began to cover the ground.  Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead today, and my cell phone crapped out after the photo below, so that I couldn't take any photos after the trail was buried deeply in the stuff.

It was really hard to believe it when we got to Park City and there was barely a cloud in the sky!  Goes-16 imagery for 2032 UTC shows the contrast well.