Red Castle - 3 day trip

This post could be a lot longer than it is.

Red Castle is a geological formation sticking out of the ground at the headwaters of Smiths Fork River. It is located just south of the Wyoming-Utah border in the High Uinta Wilderness. Our plan was to spend 3 days backpacking the castle.




On this trip:
Jared Moore, Spencer Walker, Bronc Walker, Me, Chris Parks, Devon Parks
(just a group of good fellas, that's all)



The trail begins at China Meadows trial head and you approach the castle from the north. I had learned about this place from my friend Cordell Andersen and decided that I needed to go there.

We camped the night of the 12th in the China Meadows campground. The next morning, after a really good breakfast and after everyone finally got themselves together, we headed down the trail.
The trail cuts back and for across the river, staying mostly in the woods, until you reach the castle about 11 miles later.



Parts of the trail have improvements, like this boardwalk that stretched for a few hundred yards. and 3 foot bridges where you cross the river



This is the GPS route for the total trip, 46 is our camp.



And this is the zoomed in view of just around the castle



I don't have many pictures from the trek into the castle because it rained for 6 hours strait.
We did meat some interesting people along the way, including a husband and wife on a goat packing trip. They had been out for about 2 weeks. The goats carry about 40 lbs a piece and live off the land.



And one of the buggers tried to eat the trail mix right out of my pocket.



We walked all the way to the Lower Red Castle lake and then hung east around to East Red Castle lake where we had planned to camp. However, the storm was to rough up there and we were forced to retreat, and make camp in a small cove, with plenty of trees for our hammocks.



As we all lay in our hammocks and tarps, listening to the rain and wind, we worried that the trip would get wasted by the weather. I don't mind camping in the rain. It is kind of nice sometimes. But in this case we had at least 3 lakes we wanted to fish, an entire castle to explorer, and a possible summit of Wilson peak.

But the prayers must have paid off, because we woke to perfect weather that would last until dinner time.

We Traveled back up to East Red Castle lake for some fishing. This is one of the most beautiful place I have ever seen. And we had it all to ourselves.









We then traveled around the north end of the castle.



Across boulder fields



And through meadows



We went past Lower Red Castle lake



And up to Red Castle Lake. Were we sat in a natural lazy-boy, and...



...slaughtered some fish,...



...and looked off the edge of the world.



We enjoyed a quick rain on the way back to camp...



And ate our take home (the guys probably through at least this many back)



I enjoyed the scrumptious taste of the first fish that I've caught in Utah, a little Tiger trout.



But that night the weather turned again and we woke up to a pending storm, and high tailed it out of there.



After having walked about 32 miles in rain, perfect sun, hail, and even snow, we arrived at the truck in pretty good condition.

It was a great trip, one that I would highly recommend.

More pics here, and even more to come later.



a couple of miles are missing off this elevation chart due to loss of gps reception in the storms