Lofty Lake Loop

Continuing my backblips from our trip out West

September 25
Another spectacular day hiking, this time in the Uintas mountains, east of Salt Lake City. The Lofty Lake Loop trail is one of the most popular hikes in the Uinta Mountains. At around four miles in length, but with 1,000 ft elevation gain, it passes by three beautiful mountain lakes, Lofty Lake, Kamas Lake and Scout Lake, as well as additional alpine lakes in the distance, meadows adorned in their autumnal splendour, marshes and peaks with amazing views. The second down on the right is the view we enjoyed while having our lunch! Lofty Lake is the highest of the three sitting at nearly 10,800 feet. My collage begins in the top right, and goes round clockwise. We saw several hikers carrying fishing gear - apparently Lofty Lake and Scout Lake are good for trout fishing. Since that hike was shorter than some of our recent ones, we later did a short trail to Ruth Lake. Jen had taken me here in the summer of 2017, when I visited on my own, but it looked quite different in a different season! As we were returning to the car, we saw an interesting sight (see extra). We passed quite a large group, I would guess three generations of a family, accompanied by goats carrying some of their load. Being a Friday afternoon, they were heading out into the backcountry for the weekend. Jen was telling us you can rent goats or llamas to help carry your gear. The group we spoke with reckoned goats were easier - they don’t kick or spit as much as llamas!