Backpacking to Naturalist Basin

This year's backpacking trip was to Naturalist Basin in the Uintas. What an awesome trip this was. Sometimes you have to brave the crowds to go see beautiful places like this. My original plan was to do a 4 day 20+ mile loop starting at the Highline Trailhead going to Naturalist Basin, Four Lakes Basin, the north end of Granddaddy Basin, and back to Highline, but nobody could go for that long. Fortunately my neighbor was able to do 3 days, so we decided to do just Naturalist Basin from the Highline on Thurs Jul 30 - Sat Aug 1. It turned out perfect because we were able to do the grand tour of the basin, whereas if we'd done that 4 day loop we wouldn't have been able to. We hiked the 6.5 miles in on Thursday and camped at Jordan Lake. It was a bit busy, but it had the most campsites below treeline. The next day we did the grand tour going up to Shaler first, then to LeConte and on over to Blue Lake, then down to the Morat Lakes and on down and back over to Jordan. We saw and fished 10 lakes, saw some beautiful country and scenery, and had most of it to ourselves. Blue Lake was also quite busy, but the rest we had to ourselves. I'm glad we went that way instead of up to the Morats and Blue Lake first because the trail up to those is steep and looked like a bear to hike up. Much better going down. The alpine terrain above tree line is beautiful with the soft grass and low vegetation, all the views all around are awesome, and the brook trout are vibrant, colorful fighters. We caught around 20 brooks and cutts on spinners and flies. LeConte Lake was my favorite due to the beauty of the lake and surrounding alpine terrain and the fish we caught out of it. All together it was about 17.5 miles, 6.5 in and out, and 4.5 on the grand tour. No fatigue or blisters (like last year), beautiful weather, saw 2 deer, got a checkmark on my list of places to go, and can't wait to go backpacking again.

Wes and I at Shaler Lake, the first on the grand tour
The alpine terrain above Shaler Lake
The approach to LeConte Lake, my favorite lake
View of the Morat Lakes and the valley from Blue Lake
One of the brookies caught on a fly and bubble. I love the colors.
There's beautiful sights like this all over up there. This is a stream coming down into Jordan Lake, near where we camped.