Tayson: Everybody welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals today we have a super lucky uh i want to call lucky episode where we're going to recap the attempt 2 at the Uinta high line trail we just got off trail uh was it last week and uh so we're gonna talk to you guys about how that went uh the ups the downs the exciting parts the dramatic parts uh all of that so i'm gonna go ahead and have these guys introduce themselves and with the introduction i'm going to have them also state uh their mentality going into the hike whether they were excited whether they were concerned if they had any injuries just a little bit of background uh were they on the trip last time were they not uh so we'll go. Ahead and do that we'll start with you derek explain or introduce yourself and give just a little bit of context for you going into this trip.
Derek: All right i'm derek i do marketing here and i was pretty dang excited to go on the highline trail after not finishing last year i was just kind of amping myself up to get the whole thing done this year i was pretty excited about that excited to spend the the week outdoors in the mountains and enjoy that so i was excited.
Tyler: Okay tyler cool i'm tyler um over operations and uh i was definitely excited to go out and try again but i was also determined to not get hypothermia so i had a lot more clothing.
Tayson: This time tyler so for those of you that aren't aware of our backstory with this particular trail we did attempt this a year ago and the first part of the trail went all right except for we had some sickness on the trail after we sorted that out we ran straight into some crazy weather patterns in august where we actually got snowed off of the trail and had to quit the quit the trail and it was kind of a big deal because we had been building up to this all summer long a ton of our content all summer long was about prepping for this and preparing for this and training for this and so we got out there and to get set off the trail was was a was a big slap in the face and.
Tayson: Uh i think it left all of us with a bit of a bitter taste in our mouth per se of just uh kind of kind of wanting to go back for revenge at least that's that's kind of how i felt is the the trail won that year uh in that week but uh wanted to get out there and show that you know i could do it you know to myself that we could do these kind of mileage and go through this country but also um let's be able to push through so on that note tyler is referring to the fact that he was freezing cold last time uh in his uh just like the rest of us pretty much were in our shorts and trail runners um but they were all very jealous of a.
Tayson: Particular rain skirt that i had last time uh and uh so tyler actually went and built himself out of an old uh ov tarp that was around he built himself some rain gear so yeah built some rain pants and some rain mitts uh if if for nothing else just to help retain warmth uh because that that water and the wind just whipping on you and those high peaks can just zap the the heat out of you so anyway so tyler good introduction uh personally i was excited for the trip but i was also coming off of the week previously having run my very first ultra marathon that ended up being about 45 miles and so i was physically beat and i was very concerned because i had a lot of pain in my lower leg. And it kept swelling up and having issues and so i was very concerned that i'd get out there and it was going to get worse and it could fester into me not being able to do the mileage that we need to do and so i was quite concerned just physically how that was going to play out on the trail but other than that um i was pretty dang excited for the for the trail so brigham.
Brigham: Uh yeah i am brigham i work here um i was really excited uh to go out again and knock out this trip i was really motivated to kind of knock it out in the same itinerary that we wanted to last year and just it's it's a bucket list hike for me that i've wanted to do for a long long time i'm very familiar with the uintah mountains and i spent a lot of time up there but being able to kind of like it might i guess the way that i view it as like it's like a like a highlight reel of the uintah mountains to kind of walk the whole length east to west or west to east and just kind of get like the best of the best of the best of the uintas. And so i was really really excited to get out there and and do the whole thing.
Joe: I'm joe i'm the content creator here uh and um i was excited i had heard about this trail years and years ago um but my uh i guess my history with uh with through hikes is not uh it's not a very complete one uh and therefore i was i was pretty scared about doing the amount of miles that you guys wanted to do per day and so i started training about i guess eight months beforehand is when i decided that i was going to at least try to get in shape for it as best i can within the time period that i could um and so yeah i guess i was excited but also uh cautious about the whole thing yeah yeah am i.
Tayson: Good to talk brigham please not interrupting anymore please okay um so yeah we're gonna actually walk you guys through this trip there was quite a bit that transpired some good takeaways from it for just a hair more background on the Uinta mountain range it's a big mountain range basically 100 miles east to west and then as you get into the trail you are you know up to 12 at a minimum typically about 12 miles like to go north or south to get out of the range and so it's really unique in the sense that we you can walk almost 100 miles with with like never feeling like you're getting closer to a road for the most part or at least a good like 60 70 miles of that before you even can get to a.
Tayson: Dirt road you cross like one or two dirt roads in the entire time and they're all kind of on the far side so you can walk about 60 70 miles it seems before you even bump into that so it's really incredible in that sense the trail also is um 80 85 percent of it is over 10 000 feet pretty much it feels like you're over 10 000 feet from the time you started the car and since we started on the west side of the range this time which apparently is completely backwards from what every single other hiker does um we started on the east side last year we decided to start on the west side this time to try to get through some of the big passes before weather came um but i mean from.
Tayson: The moment you step out of that car you are at really high altitudes uh which which poses a lot of difficulties whether it's hydration altitude sickness um exposure yeah exposure to sun exposure to elements um all those kinds of things lightning uh all sorts of things that that are just going to be more prevalent at that type of elevation and especially being that far into the wilderness so it's a really cool hike it's definitely one that like joe said we you know you want to be dialed in with your gear you want to be dialed in with your systems you want to be physically prepared for it um because it's it's a pretty unforgiving trail once you start it so um yeah so there's some of the background so what we decided to do this.
Tayson: Time was last time we started on a sunday evening we drove up and slept up there this time we thought we'd shortcut it a little bit and we actually started about 5 a.m at the office and drove up there picked up joe along the way got to the trailhead and started hiking at 11 a.m so about an hour before noon our goal for the day was to get somewhere around 18 miles so we knew that we had our work cut out for us and uh that was pretty much the theme of the rest of the trip was trying to keep up with with our goals for mileage for the day but uh yeah even.
Tyler: Before mileage like when we're planning out we're looking at the passes that we had to get over because you'll go through a big basin and then you'll come up to a big pass that opens up to another basin on the other side and has big peaks on either side of it and so for day one the goal was to get over two high mountain passes and uh that was essentially the goal for each day was to cover um the two biggest scariest passes of that day so.
Joe: Did we mention we did this in five days.
Tayson: Did we mention not not yet yeah we we did have a goal to finish the i think it ended up being somewhere between 105 110 miles which is what we were expecting but the goal is to finish that start on a monday and finish on a friday we were kind of prepared well actually we found out halfway through that four of the five of us were prepared to stay till saturday brigham was committed to finish on friday no matter what he didn't bring any extra food so uh but no we uh we were trying to get that done in basically four and a half days uh is kind of what it ended up being so uh what that equated to is a lot of the days being at least 22 or more miles uh so. Um yeah pretty pretty big endeavor um and i think we'll get into it as we go along but doing that day after day starts to compound so i was pretty.
Derek: Pretty jealous of brigham not bringing that last day through because when we got to the end which we did finish on.
Tayson: Friday all right like hey no spoilers.
Derek: Two days worth of food almost left in my pack and i've been carrying around all this yeah like five extra pounds like.
Tayson: All week yep i there's a little bit of jealousy when i probably mentioned that you might have heard through my voice but uh let's let's uh go back to monday so we start the trail it's 11 a.m brennan uh who actually got sick on trail at this last year he actually shuttled drove for us this year um so he drove us up dropped us off and we started the trail tons of cars at the trailhead tons of horse trailers but as we got on the trail didn't pass a whole lot of people and um i don't know the miles to me seemed like they clicked off pretty dang easy you know from the start over to our first pass which was rocky c pass real.
Derek: Quick if you're going to start on that same trailhead that we started on make sure you uh pay the applicable fees reagan walked up and down some of those cars taste the messenger there was a ton of trucks and cars parked and at least half of them had tickets in the windshield so nice that was uh something to know.
Tayson: Yeah yeah so we started there.
Tyler: Um above 10 000 feet there at hayden pass and so we're already quite high elevation went through a burn area and then got to rocky sea pass.
Joe: Yeah that was the last pass right rocky seat pass the last the last pass of the day the.
Tayson: Best thing that was oh no that was the.
Derek: First major one yeah that was where we had lunch.
Joe: Yeah that was a nice pass it was cool.
Tayson: I think things were going well i mean by the time we got to rocky sea passes when it started to get more and more pretty i think the start we were in the trees pretty well went through a little bit of a burn but then uh yeah we basically stopped maybe around two o'clock or something for lunch and that we're just right in the middle of this past called rocky sea pass and uh it was really pretty it's like when you you basically get to come up and you get to see the stuff behind us which is really pretty but then you crest over and you're just like yep we're back in the high country of the uintas you just look at a massive basin and a ton of you know just high elevation peaks. Something brigham.
Joe: Pointed out to me when we were on that first pass was looking out across you can see all the way to mount tipanogas which is this big mountain in like the middle of the states and like orem utah and the fact that you can see i don't.
Tayson: Know how many miles was that like 60.
Joe: Miles or something like that way out there yeah and um that was kind of cool you just kind of like look out there and see forever uh all the way into that into that distance so um you're out in the wilderness but just past that one mountain that's where the cities are at yeah.
Tayson: I i think we do have to know one thing also about the hike in uh we passed like the first group and said hi and then we passed like the second group and said hi and then he passed like the third group and said hi and i was like is it me or is everyone out here not look that happy right now i it was it was a strange thing where but everyone we were passing also was carrying you know they either have like big external frame backpacks or they maybe like we're with like a scout group or something like that and i don't know i it was it just it was.
Joe: That's someone who was fishing and they asked if he caught any fish and then he said nope not really yeah.
Tayson: Maybe the fishing was bad i don't know but uh we were all in really high spirits all smiling away and everyone else was looked like it was their last day and they were ready to be out of there but uh i think i don't know if there's really any any takeaways from that but i feel like that it was interesting as we went farther into the wilderness more people are more happy but the other thing i felt like i noticed is more people were more you could tell they were more uh like comfortable in the backcountry uh maybe whether that was their gear or they're just prevalent you know their appearance in the backcountry like they were like more comfortable there uh just like they belonged but um some of those people we.
Derek: Saw on the first day i don't think they'd really been doing the whole highland trail just been there like overnight like a quick you know in and out kind of trip and those are the ones that looked fairly miserable with big heavy patterns yeah.
Brigham: They definitely have any fish yeah they definitely look like people that don't do it very much um you know and it was kind of like maybe they're one once or twice a year big adventure yeah which uh yeah it makes sense i i'd say that adds up.
Tayson: We definitely want everyone to get outdoors and experience the back country but it just kind of reminded me i think of maybe my experiences growing up of being pretty miserable in the backcountry versus um you know getting more knowledge and getting better gear and just how that kind of changes the perspective of of what you feel like on trail and what should potentially look like to the passers-by so anyways that first burn area i thought look really that was actually like kind of a ghostly burn area you could see like the the.
Joe: Pristine blue water surrounded by all these like dead trees oh before rocky sea yeah like the very first burn area that we went through that was that was actually like really cool and we have i have some neat pictures in there um but then after rocky sea pass we went through the that was the big burn right like the one we almost hiked around but then decided to go through mm-hmm yeah.
Tyler: That's like a big question that we.
Derek: Actually had we mapped out a route to go around the burn area because we weren't sure we wanted to deal with all the fallen trees and lack of trail and try to find our way through you know multiple miles of bird that kind of covered the original high line trail but when we actually got to the juncture where we had to make the choice we decided to go through the burn it would actually cut off about four miles off of our day and i'm actually really glad we did that because when we hiked through the burn it wasn't that bad there's a couple trees we had to go over but most of them if there was a tree that had fallen there was a clear path where you could see other people have been walking. Around it that was really easy to do with just a few trees to step over and so honestly it was fairly easy to get through that burn area and it was beautiful.
Tayson: I made it like i made a big point everywhere yeah i made a big point of not being the one to decide that though because i feel like i've decided to walk through burns before and it's and uh certain people in the group uh have not appreciated walking through deadfall and stuff so we reluctantly drug brigham through the burn and i think he was happy with it yeah.
Brigham: There was no dragging and to be fully transparent tasting has taken us through some terrible routes before that were 10 times worse than this.
Derek: I can second that that's where a little.
Brigham: Bit of my hesitance fell but no it was totally worth going through that burn it was it was a yeah maybe a little bit slower paced than like standard but it's definitely faster than walking or all the way around.
Derek: Yeah so one of my favorite parts about it though like i was saying there's all this new growth that had you know decent amount of time to grow up around in between and through all the burned trees and there's these really bright flowers everywhere bright purple flowers mixing in with all the black trees i don't know i thought it was kind of cool looking it.
Tayson: Was it was the first time i had seen moss like growing on the ground in a burn it was it's pretty unique to just see like moss growing on on the ground like that and then one of the first things to start growing you know after after a burn like that so it was cool it was it was unique in that sense um but what the way that this basin was laid out is that we basically started to drop down to the bottom of the basin uh down to a bigger river essentially down there um and then we'd turn and hike up the burn to get across the basin and uh i would say it was maybe around here where where uh you were starting to feel a little bit of the hype that's right. I started to.
Joe: Feel like yeah i had notes so i had done a shakeout hike a week before.
Tayson: And i knew what my speed was going to be.
Joe: I told everybody what it was going to be um but i had done like 27 miles because i thought that that would be matching the biggest day of the hike i don't i don't know if it ended up actually matching that but um and i realized after the midway point so after about 13 miles that's when my body started to be like you're done and i mean i hiked through it okay but.
Tayson: It was definitely a lot slower.
Joe: First 13 miles i get hyped normally the last you know 13 and a half miles it was.
Tayson: It was a lot slower going it was the same here it was basically the same thing like right after that burn areas.
Joe: When we clicked 13 miles and that's when my body was like yeah you're done and so every time we'd go uphill i'd get pretty winded um and uh so like physically exhaustion wise for me that's when i started to feel it then at this point were you feeling on my.
Tayson: First day were you feeling like how to say like like soreness or were you feeling more like a calorie wall.
Joe: Where you had no energy uh i had no energy is what i yeah i had no energy i felt like like i mean you guys kept on calling at a calorie wall i would still eat food and it wouldn't really change anything it's like my muscles were not.
Tayson: Strong enough past 13 miles okay yeah this is the straight endurance of it so.
Joe: I mean what i have been training for was with a lot of running i had been building up my cardiovascular system so it wasn't like i was out of breath that was never the thing it was really like my legs are just tired man they're just everything's just tired um and so yeah that's when i started to slow down to about two miles an hour as opposed to like what we were keeping which was probably just under three up until that point.
Tayson: Yeah so we kind of climbed up out of that burn and we're like all right let's find a good spot for dinner sat had a really uh nice dinner next to just kind of a little lake there a good good vantage point um i don't know how much derrick remembered of it because i'm pretty sure he passed out of sleep but.
Derek: One thing i loved about not just this dinner spot but in multiple break areas throughout the whole week like there's so many big rocks up up in the uintas especially that hyatt and they a lot of them made fantastic back rests when you sit down and just lean back against this big rock so comfortable.
Tayson: I don't know i was talking about rocks are not the most comfortable chairs but when you're that tired they are all right there very great backrest i think.
Tyler: I got pictures of him sleeping on a rock.
Joe: Like on every day.
Tayson: He's pretty good at those little cat naps for sure.
Joe: So i slowed everyone down at that point we were having dinner i think in a spot we weren't supposed to have it and then we climbed up into this one area that was kind of going towards our next pass we were slowly going up and up that was really pretty up there you could see everything and of course we were hitting there as the sun was starting to set and so like the edges of the tops of the mountains were all like this golden.
Tayson: Light and that was really cool it was it was way pretty a massive beautiful basin kind of meadowy basin down in there that um yeah it was pretty breathtaking uh we were looking for wildlife thinking man how could anything not want to live right here it's just so nice so pretty and and for those of you that do want to see this um make sure that you are subscribed to our outro battles YouTube channel we actually took a new camera on this trip that that films in 360 and so uh we may upload a full video of just 360 footage of these areas so you could kind of go back and and see some of this that we're talking about once we do post that video but the past that we were going towards was. Called dead horse pass and uh yeah i would just say like the lighting the pass itself was just just so pretty and i think i mean well maybe here at the end here but i think it was maybe one of the crowd favorite passes of the entire trip i think so i i.
Brigham: Think that experience from dinner and that approach towards the past like now that i've had a few days to just like kind of think back and rewind reflect a little bit and talk about it i think that was like probably my most memorable experience was just those couple hours of the lighting the temperature the scenery it was yeah i for me that was probably my my favorite like experience was probably the last two hours of daylight of that day yeah i look back at my.
Joe: Pictures they do not do it justice.
Tayson: Basically help someone else take better.
Joe: Pictures.
Tayson: Yeah so we climb up we climb up to this pass which and and one of the things that is crazy about the uintas is a lot of times even on the approach you basically have to get right up to the cliffs to even be able to see where the trail goes like it's from a distance you look at it you're like i have no idea how a trail is going to get over that mountain that's a cliff you know what i mean like you can't even see it they camouflage in and and they're just little tiny goat trails a lot of them and so um yeah the the trail like i remember just as we were hiking up i thought it was going to go one way and man it turned back a totally different.
Tayson: Way but uh kind of a steep little climb uh saw a deer just hanging out under underneath a really cool little ribbon cliff and um very peaceful got up to the top and i think as soon as we crested we were all like wow like that was where everyone just stopped and it just kind of took everyone's breath away because the basin on the other side of the pass was every bit as as beautiful as just this tight little basin lake in the bottom beautiful views the sun was just going down in fact i wish we'd been there just a few minutes earlier uh because well i haven't reviewed the footage but i think the video footage and pictures were just behind where the light needed to be to just really capture how amazing that. Looked but uh just absolutely an incredible path to stand in um and and then i mean yeah we're it is it is dead horse pass and we found out pretty quick why because uh i thought the trail was going to go to the right and it turns out it goes clear left and just carved down this tiny game trail essentially yeah switchbacks there and the light was.
Joe: Going down so near the near the bottom of it we had to pull out the headlines that passed the bottom the other side of that pass going down it felt like it was going on forever and i had jelly legs at that.
Tayson: Point so it was like.
Joe: I was like i wasn't feeling totally secure while i was going down that thing.
Tayson: You were relying on the trekking poles i.
Joe: Was relying on the trekking poles which is one of my big regrets of this trip but uh the big boulders all over the all over the trail as well like that that trail was.
Tayson: Just boulders in that spot so it was it.
Joe: Was rough going on down that thing i imagine going up would be easier like going the opposite way and then like the trails will cut a little bit more um steady on the other side of it where we approached from so if you're going the normal way that that pass probably isn't as intense but to give you an idea.
Tyler: Though that that traverse down the back side of that pass goes from 11 430 feet down to like 11 200 feet in like a quarter of a mile or less so you're dropping quite a bit it's very steep and it's a it's just a very loose talus slope and the trail itself in a lot of places was more narrow than your two shoes side by side like there was a lot of places where it was just extremely narrow tiny trail that was still off camber it just wasn't quite as steep as the rest of the slope below you but it was that was the probably the skinniest most faint trail of the whole trip and uh yeah all of these passes were you.
Derek: Know super tall this one wasn't even you know above 12 000 feet but multiple passes on this trip were just so so high up with really steep steep trails you know jason mentioned we were you know had our breath taken away at the top you know i don't know if we're ever going to be able to prove how much of that was the view and how much of that decline and then we had to climb all down it on this on this path on this off-camber tiny trails that tyler and all these guys have been talking about but that was still probably one of my favorite passes the whole trip.
Joe: Yeah i mean the physical exhaustion of the pass i didn't like but the views.
Tayson: Were amazing yeah i was all over it i was loving it um but uh yeah so we ended up crawling off there got off right at dark found a place really quick to to set up our tents it was a really awesome spot just this incredible backdrop straight into the cliffs that we just came down this is right now it was right off of it it was near dead horse lake i believe i was looking for pictures of it when i came home i was like where was that yeah yeah it was a really good spot and uh yeah i think everyone got their tent set up pretty quick uh on my watch we had gone 18 and a half miles uh on day one and we pretty much finished hiking at play 9 pm.
Tayson: Um so from 11 to 9 we covered 18 and a half miles and yeah i think it was i think it was good i felt felt good and um hadn't i personally had an interesting night of sleep where i just happened to put my pad in a little bit of a bow spot and i kept waking up with my with my legs locked somehow and it was kind of like losing circulation in my feet but it made me really nervous because of my because the pain i had in my lower leg from that ultra marathon i kept thinking i was waking up and that there was something wrong with my leg but i think it was just a weird a weird tent pitch for me yeah i had moments where i was bending my.
Joe: Foot and i was like am i about to get a charlie horse like it felt like it was.
Tayson: On the edge of it i never did get one but.
Joe: I was scared and i was like yeah we were actually well we were harping on you.
Tayson: Like crazy for hydration i was really i was very i think with last year with brennan with me getting you know elevation sick in on the beaver skyline trail in the tushers um i was i was for sure harping on you a lot to be like are you drinking water are you getting electrolytes that's probably like overarching mama bear like you're like shut up jason just leave me alone but i was very adamant that no one was gonna get elevation sick on this trip and uh so i don't know if that anyways i made another problem with that is like last.
Joe: Time i'd been up in the uh when i tried to do kingspeak i got elevation sick like a quarter mile away from the top and then i turned around and went back down and felt better same thing happened on mount albert i.
Tayson: Was about.
Joe: A quarter mile away from the top and i got i got elevation sickness and then i turned around um just like this like nausea mixed with this like panic attack kind of a feeling just like everything horrible so i mean i was afraid of it too so i was like i was pounding that stuff as well um i've never gotten it not trying to sum it a peak so i've never gotten it outside of those two um instances but um so yeah it was important for me as well that i felt like i wasn't going to get altitude sickness so yeah the drinking of the.
Tayson: Water and the salts and the yes it was good i mean i think we woke up the next day i kind of asked how everyone was doing no one really felt like they had elevation sickness which is always a good sign after getting a full day on trail and everyone seemed to be in pretty good spirits so i think day two started off pretty well we started straight into downhill and my body did not like that um i would say i felt good until we.
Joe: Actually started the trail we took two steps down the trail steps down the trail and suddenly my knee.
Tayson: Was on fire like it hurt so.
Joe: I started the day being a slow hiker because my joints and then it would what.
Tayson: Happened was like it started with my.
Joe: Knee moved over to my like hip my opposite hip and then the knee stopped hurting and then the other knee started hurting so something was hurting the whole time while we were going on that downhill um and then we made our way to a river where there was a moose and then we started going up and uphill.
Tayson: Yeah after that yeah that was pretty cool um i also was kind of the same way where for me the the injuries that i had sustained in that ultra was really on the front part of my calf so kind of that the muscle that goes along your shin bone and really what that is and what what gets what what fires that up for me is going downhill and kind of like breaking where you like where you're kind of stepping on your heel and then easing into the step down and so i also started off pretty slow going like it it took me a while to basically warm up my leg to the downhill and again that was definitely on the back of my mind you know getting started this morning but also like man we. Got we got a lot of miles left to go i really hope this doesn't get worse every day and compound but.
Tyler: The plan for day two was to go from a.
Joe: Dead horse pass.
Tyler: Uh up and over red knob pass which was another big one and then through another basin over porcupine pass and then to camp that night at the base of king's peak essentially on the on the west side of king's peak so that we could do anderson pass first thing in the morning on day three and and have like the clearest weather possible because usually those high peaks get bad weather in the afternoon and evening and through the night um but they're usu there's usually a calm window in the mornings unless you're just in the middle of a multi-day.
Joe: Storm so king speak for those of you.
Derek: That aren't in utah at all it's the tallest peak in utah so we're pretty much the highest point of utah was our plan to get right right up to.
Tyler: That on day two and it's like 13 580 feet something like that something.
Joe: Around that so we were doing everything.
Tayson: We could to set ourselves up for success through anderson pass because anderson pass is where we got turned around the year before so it was like get set up as quick as we can and as best we can to cross through anderson while we have the potential best chance of weather because uh yeah anderson's a a brutal pass it's a 12 000 foot pass and you don't want to be up there when the when the storms come through but yeah.
Brigham: That's the place that will have the highest chances at the worst weather so that's what we're trying to set ourselves up for is to have the best chances at the best weather in the area that has the best chances at the worst weather so but what that equated to is that we.
Tayson: Needed to click off about 22 miles uh today on day two so we also knew that we.
Tyler: Had good weather for days one and two but that day three the day that we had to get over anderson pass it did have weather on the forecast for the afternoon so we were we were really trying to to get there and and get through it in the small window that wasn't the.
Joe: Forecast saying it was going to be clear the first two and a half days and then it was gonna be raining after that yeah yeah.
Brigham: Yeah yeah yeah which is like which was a big deal it's before it's like it's like the most up-to-date forecast we could get at the time we started our trip which then you're entering the back country where you don't have the internet so you can't keep like tabs on the up-to-date weather forecast so.
Tayson: Yeah we'll we'll get to more weather here in a minute for sure but um to start off day two uh we we dropped down and then we climbed straight up out of red knob pass and uh that pass was actually really cool i think the the name red knob makes you think it's like just a little blip you know what i mean but it's a full-size pass and had some really amazing vantage points of the basin behind us kind of had like this hidden basin next to us that we got to see and then we got all the way up to the top and then you could just have another you know every pass is it was just kind of like this where like you get up to the top and you look and you.
Tayson: You look at just the most massive looking basins and you're like yep we got to go all the way across that and then around the band and then across the next massive basin like this and uh really breathtaking you and i i would say like for me like i just can't like look as far as i can look and think about like i've got to get there today like i just have to kind of just keep my mind on like the next miles right but uh it is really really cool to just stand on those passes and see because looking back at dead horse that basin there was just absolutely beautiful in fact we crossed one hiker that said you know they were doing a shortened version of the high line they kind of teed. In about halfway through the highline trail and they're like man this is our favorite favorite past that we've seen yet and it really is it's just a beautiful uh basin there yeah red knob was.
Derek: Definitely my second favorite view i think my first favorite view is that you know the the dead horse pass that we hit the night of day one and then the next morning day two Tayson's talking about this red knob past the views you could see off in like so many different directions into multiple different basins obviously the one we just came through and the one we were going into but you could see where all these different mountain ranges are big peaks i guess came and met all in a similar area and it was really beautiful it's kind of a four-way.
Tyler: Intersection of of different four different basins.
Derek: What i did not enjoy about red knob pass as much was the trail going up it it was just there was no switchbacks it was just kind of like this straight shot up this like super steep mountain pass and uh.
Brigham: Yeah that was brutal that was it was.
Tyler: Like it was almost steep enough to where you know you put your hands on the.
Derek: Ground in front of you in certain sections to like climb up the dirt look.
Tayson: Man i use four wheel drive aka trekking poles for a reason they uh they come in handy on passes like well what would you.
Tyler: Guys have guessed that the elevation at the top of red knob was i would say 11.
Derek: 7. Yeah eleven six.
Joe: No idea yeah but it's uh eleven thousand.
Tyler: Nine hundred and seventy five so so that was one of our highest passes.
Joe: I do remember on that pass it was the halfway point that i thought was the actual pass and then uh and then it like.
Tayson: Took a right and then it kept going i'm going you got it like a sound like a false summon yeah.
Joe: That was my favorite mostly because i was in a lot of pain and i was starting to feel exhausted from the day before so i was not having a great time hiking my eyes personally couldn't quite keep up with the rest of the group and that pass was one where it.
Tayson: Definitely separated me from the rest of the group we passed another group coming.
Derek: The opposite direction and uh there's this lady and two guys and i think this is the group jason mentioned they've been doing a section of the high line not the full high line trail um but they were going into dead horse basin out towards that horse lake i guess i don't know what the basin is called but um the lady she was up front and she actually was well ahead of the other people she was within her group and so she caught up to us and we crossed paths and were chatting for a little while turns out it was her first time backpacking and she was loving it and having a great time so that was that was cool to see you know the first happy person that we crossed past within the stream so. Far and yeah and then her uh companions show up and these two guys they're the ones that have been backpacking more but they looked a little more beat than she did and heavier packs yeah for sure they had heavier packs and they were there's a there's a stereotype.
Tayson: Out there that i just want to know and it's if you have a frying pan a fixated to the outside of your backpack you're not one of us.
Joe: I don't know how's this like there was a handful of people we like pass that are carrying a full like frying pan just like.
Tayson: Just lash to the outside of their pack like don't do that to yourself guys it's just that's rough it's not gonna do any favors especially in that kind of country i don't know i i have some so.
Joe: I've had good experiences carrying very heavy gear and it's only you know like nine miles a day or something not not like what we were doing and in that in that like i've had like big just straight up foam pads like four inches thick like wrapped to the and that was.
Tayson: Like half the weight of my stuff and i had a 50 pound pack in total but you know what when you actually get.
Joe: There and you have all the comforts actually camping is amazing that's like a big that's a big part of it so i don't know if i want to crap on those people i mean.
Tayson: If you're going into fish and you want to like fry up a fish i i could potentially understand it but you could also bring tin foil i can't i mean you can also bring.
Tyler: With with the frying pan and the fish though because if you're going to catch a big fish it's probably not going to fit in your frying pan so you need tin foil anyways but the cooking with the tin foil works every bit as good as this.
Tayson: I'm going to carry extra weight it's not going to be in a frying pan that's all i'm saying i'm going to.
Brigham: Try and take some middle ground here hey listener if you hike with the frying pan we still love you it may not sound like it but we do accept you.
Brigham: There could be some justifiable good experiences with a frying pan people like to do wilderness cooking bring some hash browns some mushrooms onions peppers grill up some food yeah it's all about what we really need enjoy your experience how you want it may weigh way it may weigh a lot more but you're not.
Tayson: Inferior i will say you may enjoy it and.
Brigham: You're very well justified i agree.
Derek: Absolutely but i i just think we're tastings coming from here if you're doing what we were doing.
Joe: Yeah you are not going to have an.
Derek: Enjoyable experience because the majority of your time will be on trail not a camp so joe your thick pad yep terrible time on this trip a frying pan terrible time on this trip we need a.
Tayson: Titanium manufacturer to build a big frying pan a big one a big there's like six inch little tiny frying pans i have one they're just not big enough we need one so just wanna just want to put that out there and if you carry a frying pan no i don't hate you keep backpacking we love you just don't do the uh the full you went to highline trout the frying pan or i may judge you in my own head and maybe on a podcast well it's it's one thing to.
Tyler: Do the Uinta highline in eight days with a frying pan it's another to try and do it in four and a half so when our goal for for day two was 22 to 23 miles we uh i'm not saying i.
Tayson: I think i saw three frying pans on this trip did you i don't think i saw a smiling face on someone who was carrying a pack with the frying pan that's all i gotta say all right yeah but we also.
Tyler: Only smiled at the tops of the passes oh.
Joe: So smiling and having a good time are.
Tyler: Not mutually exclusive like.
Brigham: Okay okay you know there's like when.
Tyler: You're that high in the mountains everyone is gonna suffer so.
Joe: Whether you're packing light or not and and we did do some good suffering yeah so so the next basin down that's when i really started to hurt again in my knees because the pain kind of went away as we were going up we were going down my knees started hurt again but that was like the big brassy.
Tayson: Open area uh we actually met a guy who recognized you mm-hmm down there who had camera gear yeah a lot of cameras said he regretted bringing the camera gear i.
Joe: Remember that he had a massive tripod.
Tayson: But yeah really cool kid um he he'd actually followed us a little bit and met us at a show once as well so it's cool and that was kind of the start of us running into people on trail that knew us um and it it was pretty wild how many people we ran into like that which we'll get into more so on the next day but um yeah bumped into him went down had lunch next to a river and uh we were at this point i would say i was becoming concerned uh for joe and at this point a lot of it was just me watching your demeanor joe and just being like he doesn't look like he's having fun right now he just looks like he's zoning out he's hiking by himself he's not. Smiling contrary to what tyler says i think smiling can be important.
Joe: I just said they're not mutually exclusive they're not mutually exclusive.
Tayson: But but joe just looked like he wasn't having as much fun at this point and i was i was definitely concerned about that um so we had we had lunch joe left camp a little bit early and we'd said hey about 200 yards down here you're gonna need to take a hard left on a trail uh we let him go 10 15 minutes early and then we we followed and the trail was pretty like a pretty dang hard left and uh like maybe backtrack back track yeah like a v style and and so we started up that trail and i started to get real nervous that maybe joe missed it so we uh we started charging up the trail to see if we could catch joe um just by the time i was getting real. Concerned we we bumped into him uh but uh i was feeling all right on that a scent.
Joe: By the way well it happened to us the.
Tyler: Year before with brennan where he was sick and he went ahead and then he took a trail we didn't want to take well i.
Joe: Had the onyx thing on my phone so i was following it so did he well that's his problem last year i don't want to get so i don't.
Tayson: Want to get lost in the bounce i had to.
Derek: Go run um to go catch up to brennan last year and that was not on my agenda for the day.
Tayson: Yeah but anyways we catch up to joe we start hiking climbing at that point yeah it was kind of a sneaky little climb in there that didn't really notice on the map but you feel it you know when you're when you're on the trail and got up on top of this area and man came across this really beautiful lake that just had this really cool like like you have the lake and then just a straight vantage point out across this big basin and area and um i thought that was really really cool and then kept hiking a little bit further and um joe you were where were you at at this point.
Joe: A little behind you guys.
Tayson: Physically and mentally here.
Joe: Um i mean i had been in my joints were just in pain but i was also like more muscularly tired than i would have guessed that i would have been on that day too um and so i was not in a good place i think mentally i was not in a good place because i felt like it was so much slower than the rest of the group and i knew that i was gonna probably be averaging two miles an hour um which is kind of what i figured i would be at anyway like i think i factored in from when i had done the like shakeout thing and be like i was at like 2.2 miles or 2.18 or something like that miles per hour by the end of the day after i like including. Rest times including everything um so i was kind of like ready to accept kind of just the the slowness of it but i was definitely feeling a lot of pressure um of like not hiking.
Tayson: Fast enough for these guys i also had like i don't know i was dealing with.
Joe: Trekking poles and i was dealing with pain and i just you also felt like you.
Tyler: Couldn't eat at lunch remember you were.
Joe: You're already not really excited about the food that you had yeah the food that i had i i wasn't too happy about the food that i had i just i got too much sweet stuff i think yeah you're.
Brigham: Kind of taking a lot of food donations at that point yeah.
Joe: That was nice that tasted great um but yeah yeah i was just in generally not not in a very good mood i could feel like the and like part of me was just wanting you guys to just keep going and i would catch up with you but you guys kept on slowing down for me um.
Tayson: But i definitely wasn't in the headspace to explain that too much.
Joe: Um but yeah yeah but i was also mad that i had to film a whole bunch of stuff and that was also slowing me down and it was like oh i just can't i don't know there was a whole bunch a.
Tayson: Whole bunch of factors i was i will say.
Derek: Like when you when you are focused a lot on filming that does have an impact it slows you down trip it slows you down and makes you feel like a hard trip is like harder for sure i've felt that.
Joe: Before so it was slowing me down and uh then i was like well this time it was slowed down because of the camera it wasn't slid down because it was slow like we're on a flat section or something like that i was waiting to get a shot and then i couldn't quite catch up um so yeah there was a whole bunch of there's a whole bunch of stuff involved and then i had the uh you're kicked off the island uh conversation.
Joe: So i started i got hung up because i.
Tayson: Went to film something off this edge i got behind people no no i dropped my water caps i had to filter some water because i'd tainted my water essentially and so i got i was walking behind joe and at this point in the day we were walking on a flat piece of ground and it was like hey we got to click off the miles we got to get 22 miles and as i was following joe i was like i was watching my watch and my pace and we were walking at a 30 minute per mile pace so two two mile an hour pace and i thought this this isn't going to get us there by dark uh it was kind of the questions i started to had and so um after a little while walking.
Tayson: With joe and trying to probably ask you 50 million questions of like where you're at how you doing you know joe pry doesn't remember any of it and uh so then i kind of cut back ahead and these guys were all hanging out sitting on some or some rocks looking across this next massive basin and uh i just kind of said to these guys i don't know what we're gonna do i'm i'm concerned that if joe's feeling this way on you know day two what's he gonna feel like on day three it's gonna feel like on day four day five you know i think we had planned like a 26 mile day five you know and so it was just gonna get more difficult we were just gonna get the harder passes and so on. So forth and and so um yeah basically um you know brigham's giving me the eye roll and derek's looking at me you know with his optimistic self but but questioning and these guys basically pressure me into having a conversation with joe right so twist my arm bend my fingers you know uh type of thing where i i'm like okay joe shows up and i feel like i gotta just catches up jason just.
Tyler: Jumps on it oh man.
Tayson: Pretty much yeah it was not probably delicate i don't know i have no idea no it's actually me who.
Tyler: Who talked first when you got there but anyways we started into that conversation yeah.
Joe: Yeah i just kind of started to.
Tayson: The idea was i just wanted to start to get it out there in the air of just being like um you know where are you at we've this is our situation we might need to start thinking about what to do if this gets worse and uh somehow it just went into full-blown like we went i like in my mind i was gonna have a conversation around like let's start playing out ideas and and and like what ifs and somehow just went straight into like now this is a great bailout point see you later uh okay so this is the.
Joe: I don't know they're basically options given one of the options is that you guys would hike ahead i would probably get the like the extra.
Tayson: Garmin.
Joe: And so we could communicate if we needed to but you guys would hike ahead and then i would just hike at my own pace and um yeah that was kind of like the idea there that was that was one thing um which yeah then the other thing was like well joe you're not you're having trouble doing this you could you could be out here hiking the same amount of time and do king's peak that was one option do king speak and then take a left and go down and uh down to henry ford henry fork yeah thank you and you could basically have a great five-day trip with a lot less miles in it uh or you could bail out at this point because we were not that far from a bailout point that went. To.
Tayson: Moon lake not that far means 12 and a.
