It was smoky in Idaho and we had the 3-day Labor Day weekend in front of us. Instead of inhaling smoke and having no visibility, I did research and found out that we would likely be relatively smoke free in northern Utah.

The area we chose was in the Bald Mountain Pass area east of Park City. Lots of high peaks, lots of lakes, and it looked scenic when I did a quick climb of Bald Mountain a few years before.

We left work Friday afternoon and stayed the night in a dump of a hotel in Rock Springs, before driving up into the Uintas on Saturday morning.

For Day 1, we picked the Lofty Lake Loop from Pass Lake trailhead. We did the loop counter-clockwise, hiking to Picturesque Lake then Scout Lake, before following the good trail to the 10,900 foot pass above Lofty Lake. From the pass, we scrambled up the bouldery, class 2 south slopes of Lofty Peak.

Views from the ridge were great of the dozens of lakes and especially of Hayden Peak.

From Lofty Peak we could see Mount Marsell and the route seemed like it would go, so we descended from Lofty Peak back to the trail and followed the trail to the saddle between Lofty Peak and Mount Marsell. We then scrambled up the east face of Marsell. The face got steep in a few places, but never more than class 2.

Mount Marsell had terrific views and very unique rock striations. The summit was heavily covered in alpine shrubbery, which was unique. From Mount Marsell, we descended straight down to Kamas Lake.

After checking out Kamas Lake, we finished the loop. Although quite popular, it wasn't as busy as we expected.

We found camping just below the Bald Mountain overlook, at around 10,600'. It was quite interesting being camped that high for 3 days!

Read about Day 2 of the trip.

The Pass Lake Trailhead is located off of Mirror Lake Highway (Utah State Route 150) in the Mirror Lake/Pass Lake area just east of Bald Mountain Pass.

We followed the Lofty Lake Loop from Pass Lake trailhead. We did the loop counter-clockwise, hiking to Picturesque Lake then Scout Lake, before hiking to the 10,900 foot pass above Lofty Lake. From the pass, we scrambled up the class 2 south slopes of Lofty Peak. From Lofty Peak we could see Mount Marsell and the route seemed like it would go, so we descended from Lofty Peak back to the trail and followed the trail to the saddle between Lofty Peak and Mount Marsell. We then scrambled up the east face of Marsell. From Mount Marsell, we descended straight down to Kamas Lake, then finished the loop hike out from Kamas Lake.