No Standing Only Dancing: Spring Missions: Castle Peak Yurt, Uinta Mountains

Friday-Sunday: Castle Peak Yurt, Uinta Mountains

SheJumps has been planning this awesome backcountry outing for the last few weeks and it was awesome to be apart of an all lady tour into the wild!

Organizing 14 ladies for a two night trip and a decent 6 mile trek-in is no easy task.....neither is meeting on-time. Our little carpool crew (Pip, Re, Merebea and myself) set out on Friday morning, a little later than planned but all the merrier after the extra tea and coffee we could consume.... The ladies met at the trail-head of Mirror Lake Highway, past Park City and just outside the town of Kamas......

...a few interesting sites in the area include the Beaver Creek Nudist Ranch and the Samak local store that sells amazing home made jerky, smoked trout and salmon and the best granola bar I have ever eaten...'Stickies'.........

.....After sorting ourselves out and jumping on the trail, the 14 of us trekked up 6 miles of low angle roads. In my opinion, this kind of hiking is much more mentally challenging than physically. Although 6 miles is no short distance to make on skins, it is the blisters and never-ending flat lands that slowly ascend, which were the hardest part. I was super impressed by everyone's stamina and ability to get those miles down!...One of the girls Lindsey had bleeding blisters on her feet and still continued to hike in her boots until the last mile!....can you say endurance?

One of the kicks of this trip was that all the food and amazing meals were taken care of by Lizzy Sherry. Herself and her partner Rob lugged all our food essentials up on sleds and then stayed to created delicious food for us every meal.

There was a bit of confusion at the beginning of the day, the Castle Peak Yurt was nowhere to be found. Mainly as it look a little like this:

the yurt covered in snow

Luckily Lizzy and Rob found the Yurt before we made it up there and so navigation was no problem for us. Slowly but very surely we all made it up to the yurt. The yurt sleeps about 8 people and has a fire place, a grill, bunk beds, a sauna and an amazing outside toilet.

entry to the yurt

inside the yurt

While the trip was all about fun and getting outdoors, it also served as a great introduction for snow travel, winter camping and everything else you do in the mountains during winter. I helped set up the first snow tent I ever slept in and we also did a nice little tour near the Yurt up to Castle Peak and the best part, we built different types of snow pits to analyze the snow pack, getting down and dirty with our shovels.

the outside camp: note Re's great fotress around the tent for wind protection

checking out the crapper

view from the beautiful wooden poo hole

Digging actually became a little bit of a theme from the beginning. I soon realised that everyone has their own way of expressing the 'digger' inside them. Re for instance liked to spend a lot of time perfecting the walls and ground of the tent platform, where I liked to make sure all the walls on our snow pits were perfectly smooth. Others just started digging and found it very hard to stop.....which lead to the creation of an enormous snow cave.

the girls excavating the compressed snow to make a nice burrow

re, waist deep in snow cave glory

emily and pip crafting the inside of the snow cave

Digging became a little dangerous, I decided that snow caving wasn't really what I felt like doing, after digging snow pits, I lay down for a nap and a little book devouring. However, some of the other ladies became addicted and didn't stop their excavation until 8pm. Although no one ended up sleeping in it, the snow cave was very impressive and took us a long time to demolish.

snow cave

sunset over the tent and my skis

sunset

waking up- down caterpillar hour

After a day of adventuring about the yurt, we tuckered up and bunked down for the night. On Sunday morning, everyone ate a massive breakfast and got ready for the trip down. Skiing with a 50 pound pack on your back is interesting but not too bad, especially when you find bear tracks and are much more interested in spotting animals than skiing.

I am really stoked I got to go out with a group of girls and learn a heap of new skills- including how to hang out in a yurt with 14 people!