Camping on the Mirror Lake Highway

We love our new tent! 

This year we bought a brand new tent as we were having trouble with a few of the poles on the old one. This tent sets up in seconds, which we really love.

So we took the new tent up on the Mirror Lake Highway and set it up at Soapstone Campground. We made a trip of it and ate at the High Mountain Cafe and visited the Fairy Forest. We even did a few hikes including one around Teapot Lake, and one to Ruth Lake. We adore the High Uintahs and the cooler temperatures you can find up there in the summer-- it was about 20 degrees cooler than in the valley.

We saw these Osprey near Jordanelle State Park.

We ate at Hi-Mountain Drug which was delicious.

We checked on our rocks in the Fairy Forest. They are doing pretty well.

Provo River Falls is always a stop when we visit the Mirror Lake Highway.

Teapot Lake is beautiful. We had fun walking around this lake.

We love hiking in the Uintahs.

Dad is becoming quite the photographer.

This finch was showing off!

Four little ants, sitting on a log...

We have the best hiking boys ever!

Natalie is thinking about a dip in the stream.

Mom just turned around and walked away when she saw this.

The water at Ruth Lake was really clear.

And we are serious about our rock throwing.

We enjoy sitting around the campfire, and the boys are all about playing baseball with sticks and pinecones rather than plastic bats and balls. As we were relaxing close to dark the camp manager came by to tell us that a black bear was spotted across the road from the campground. We thought that the boys might be a little scared, but they were super-excited to see a bear! Unfortunately we weren't that lucky.

You can play baseball no matter where you are.

We went for a short hike around the campground so we had to be prepared with head lamps and lanterns.

Mom spotted a beautiful Dark-Eyed Junco

Soapstone is right next to the Provo River.

Dax found a rock shaped like Utah. He was so proud!

Playing games by lantern light is our favorite part of camping.

This was one of our fellow campers.

We saw this beautiful deer next to the road.

The boys went right to sleep as they always do when we are camping. They missed the main part of the adventure, which was a torrential downpour on our new tent that lasted for about 2 hours. Lightning struck with blinding flashes and thunder immediately rumbled and rolled around the entire canyon. It was a thunderstorm for the ages. We just lay there and laughed and hoped the tent was as waterproof as advertised. We were a little bit surprised that it was, and only a few drops of water had to be wiped out of the inside the next morning.

It was definitely a camping trip that we will remember for a long time!

Mom and Dad had a lot of fun watching the full moon rise over the mountains.