Soapstone Basin

Bryan and I were able to have a nice get away just the two of us for our anniversary this year.  We haven't taken a trip without the kids for a few years and thought now was a good time.  We didn't want to go too far, so we chose Soapstone Basin in the Uintas.

Our first night had had a few rain clouds and when it cleared up we had this beautiful sunset.

Our campsite was nice and secluded, except for when people passed on the road, but that was mostly during the day when we weren't around anyway.  We had a spot that the closest campsite next to us was down and around the bend.  The second night we could hear them, but barely so it wasn't a bother to us.

On Saturday we took the Soapstone Ponds Trail on our bikes.  This was a new experience for me.  I've never ridden a bike on dirt and rocks before.  We estimate we went in about five miles before the trail ended.  Going in wasn't bad. We did this in about 30 minutes.  Coming back took a bit longer.  My leg muscles aren't what they need to be and so I had to walk the majority of the way back.  It was a nice trail and a lot of fun.

At our campsite we found a tree that had birds living in it so we sat and watched them fly in and out for awhile.

Our final day we decided to take one more drive.  We wanted to get out and above to see Soapstone Mountain.  On our way we passed some beautiful mountain meadows.  We could hear several birds singing and these flowers went on forever.

We got to a part of the road that had this branch laying over the road, a little too low for us to just drive under.  After Bryan broke off all the side branches (in doing so he poked a hole in his wrist) he decided to just push the branch up out of the way while I drove under it.  Not long after this, the road was completely impassable and we had to turn around, and once again Bryan had to hold the branch up so I could drive under.

This mud puddle was right at the beginning of the trail.  Bryan immediately got excited, but I did not want him going through it.  There was a small side road off to the right of this picture that we took on the way in.  But after getting a hole in his wrist and having to hold that branch up twice, Bryan decided he could have a little fun with the mud puddles on the way out.  I still didn't like the idea of it.  I told him to let me out so I could go poke a stick in it to see how deep it was.  It wasn't very deep, however, it was very soft.  I got back in the truck and let Bryan have his fun.  His fun ended very quickly when in the middle of the puddle we got stuck.  We were stuck enough that we thought we would have to hike a bit to go find some help to get us out.  After a minute, Bryan tried again and we were able to slowly move out of the mud.

After getting out of the puddle, Bryan had to admire his work.