Trip #6
Mirror Lake Weekend
July 8-14, 2021
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We needed to bring Al back home again this weekend so that David could have a Saturday Facetime call with one of the techs at Airstream. Our backdoor was not closing/locking properly and we needed his assistance in guiding us with the adjustment. The weather was calling for extreme heat in Park City so we decided that we would try to take Al up to the High Uintahs to escape the high temps once we were done with the repair. There was only one problem: we couldn’t find a campground reservation and we couldn’t learn enough about the dispersed or FCFS campgrounds to have confidence that we would find a spot we liked.
So, on Thursday afternoon once work was done, we headed up Mirror Lake Highway to do some reconnaissance. None of the dispersed camping suited us n00bs, but we finally found Beaver View Campground, which seemed perfect for us. The only problem (at least in our minds), was that if we waited until Saturday afternoon there was a good chance we wouldn’t find an available a site. Lucky for us, we came prepared. We found a site we liked, placed the fees for the weekend into the USFS fee envelope, put the receipt stub on the post at the site, set-up a chair, and pitched the two-person tent David and Emily had used when they did the Ride Across California in 2006.
On Friday, Donna and Doug drove back up to the campground to relax at the site for a while so that we could demonstrate that someone had been there.
In retrospect, this was all considerable overkill and we are sure that we didn’t fool anybody.
We returned on Saturday with the trailer and enjoyed a nice dinner in the cool mountain air. On Sunday morning we learned that we had made a HUGE mistake: we forgot to bring coffee! That meant we had to drive to Evanston, Wyoming, and back. Once David was sufficiently caffeinated, we took a lovely hike to Lily Lake, where we enjoyed a picnic lunch. Later that afternoon, Emily and Doug drove up from Park City and became our very first dinner guests! After they headed home, we cleaned up around the site so that we could leave early enough in the morning to make it home in time for work.
It was a short, but fun weekend away – even if it was so close to home.
Total Miles: 180
Tip: Even FCFS sites can be available at a moments’ notice. Don’t stress out or devise elaborate schemes. None of that is really necessary!
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