Camping: Butterfly Lake, Unitas Mountains, Utah

Butterfly Lake, about a hundred yard from our campsite, 10,000 ft up in the Unitas Mountains in Northern Utah.

Interesting factoid: The Unitas are the only mountain range to run east to west in North America.

Around the lake were lots of blue dragonflies in mating flight, dipping to the water to lay eggs against the upcoming winter, and these blue flowers springing up in the marshy meadow around the lake.

We travel light, and snug. This time in a campground with large RVs and shaft toilets, water spigots and trash containers. Lots of people and loads of children are enjoying the campground too.

We arrived Friday evening, and headed out for a hike Saturday morning. Ruth Lake trail head was just up the road, and the hike was featured as an easy 3/4 mile adventure.

It really was easy...we passed families carrying babies and toddlers on the way.

I admired the trail tones: rocks in mauve, pink, and rose shades that were difficult to capture somehow.

Harebells swayed along side the path. I'm such a sucker for blue flowers!

Small streams wound through meadows that must have been spectacular with wildflowers a few weeks back.

No snow on the mountain tops yet...but with the white stone, it was easy to imagine how it would look in a month or so.

Not Ruth Lake! Just a small lake along the way...

The pine tips were glittered with crystal sap droplets. (Click on the picture to see that effect!)

Bernie taught me something: These bunched branches were the result of constant "trimming' of a branch by by-passers. A similar technique is used deliberately in bonsai work.

Most of the lavender toned daisy like flowers were spent. What was left were being enjoyed greatly by insects gathering the last of the summers bounty.

Stony outcrops that appeared so evenly blocked out, it could have been the ruin of an ancient Abbey or castle on another continent. It was all natural, just a geological form, and evidence of one more thing in life that I know very little about, having never studied geology at all.

I love how tiny streams cut through meadows and how wild flowers follow the streams.

The bleached roots of a fallen tree made a magnificent sculpture along the shoreline.

This was Ruth Lake...and it was the center of a hive of activity: a Boy Scout troop was whooping it up, fishing, swimming, throwing rocks, climbing trees, racing...you name it, it was being done, with the non-stop boasting and challenging and laughter that only boys create.

I thought to myself: What a pity it was that boys that age are ever cooped up in a classroom, when they are obviously so created for this sort of setting.

At that moment on of the boys in the lake shouted out: It is 15 degrees in here!

Hmmm...well, I guess some classroom time is in order, unless the boy was using Celsius in his temperature reporting. (That would be 59 degrees F. then. That was possible...but if it was 15F., then the water should have been rock hard.)

Back to those darling blue marsh flowers....

The tracery inside is so lovely.

I left Bernie to fish, and climbed up above the lake a bit to a rocky flat.
Pockets of soil were sustaining small moss gardens.

Up close they looked like a parkland viewed from an air plane.

Or maybe a golf course.

The solid flow of rock was encrusted with smaller stones of a variety of colors.

How long ago had that flow occurred?

What are such rocks called?

(Curious, but not curious enough to get a geology book out. I just want a geology maven to chum up with on these hikes.)

At 10 thousand feet up, the few butterflies I saw were going flap flap flap WHEEZE wheeze...flap...wheeze...Oh I need to rest for a minute...

It was pretty easy to get this shot. The butterfly just stayed right there the longest time.

It was interesting to follow a small stream and meadow up to the end of the timber line.

We are still not sure what bird this is: A gray jay or a ?????

Dad? Any clues?

The bird and his buddies demanded we feed them. Thankfully we did have some peanuts in our trail mix or I don't know what would have happened.

Did Bernie catch a fish? Yes he did....and several more! He actually only kept three...a rainbow, and two of these below:

This was a brook trout...and it had sweet pinkish meat,while the larger rainbow had white meat.

B. actually only caught and kept one up at Ruth Lake. The others (and the ones he released) he caught later that day back at Butterfly Lake.

The trout loved to hid beneath the lily pads!

Seriously...is this not gorgeous? And there was entertainment too, as we watched a man and his father launch a canoe, and promptly tip over in the water, only to emerge covered with slime.

They cheerily called out "The second show will be held at 8 pm!"

A steady gently breeze rippled the water most of the time. I was glad of the few shots I could get of still water reflections.

Bernie dry fly fishing. Yes, he caught the fish on dry flies!

While he fished, I was napping. He put together a foil wrap stew dinner for us.

As the pink sunset to the west turned the eastern mountain range red...

We enjoyed a fire in the cool evening air, and I read John Adams aloud by lantern.
Back home we knew it to be close to 100 degrees F.

Being high in the mountains is a great solution to August heat.

Come morning...trout for breakfast!

I did wash up...and wondered what others thought: is mis-matched flatware fun or bum?

Should I stay with the odds and ends, or get a neatly matched set?

(Put your opinion in the comments please!)

After washing up and packing up, we headed back down the mountain, stopping by a portion of the upper Provo River, where a large waterfall was right off the road with a viewing area.

Of course fishermen were fishing...

We pulled over a bit more down the road, and Bernie took a try at a bit more angling.

While I did a bit more camera exploring.

I thought this was the prettiest flower of the weekend. Love the furry throat.

This was pretty wonderful too...

and this. I never get tired of photographing flowers.

Lichen catches my interest as well....

It makes for a nice balance: He fishes, I photograph.

More geology...the colors! It could be bark if the blue wasn't in it.

Pretty everything.

So much beauty all around...and less than two hours from home.