I try to make it to the Uintas for a run each summer to tag a mountain or two. This year, with the drama of the pandemic and a few other issues, I wasn’t able to make the trek west until October.
October in the Uintas?! The Uintas are often socked-in with snow in early October and the trailheads are buried but this year the trails were dry and beckoning. This year I needed something quick and East Fork of the Bear is always poised to deliver in such regards. Yard Peak seemed like the perfect objective. I had previously looked across Yard from A1, Cathedral, Beulah and Priord Peaks and was struck by everything about it, but its name. If it had a more memorable name I probably would have climbed it years ago!
The jog from the trailhead to Allsop Lake went quickly and I soon found myself picking my way up the Pine Beetle Coulior. I hadn’t done my research and didn’t know it was the established route. Instead it was the obvious weakness and make for a quick ascent. Admittedly, without snow, the route was loose and a little sketchy. A typical High Uintas steep boulder festival – steep, large-rocked, and waiting to collapse.
The descent was less straightforward but also less loose. I headed down the northwest ridge, aiming for Norice Lake and the right hand fork of East Fork. I negotiated several cliffbands, wandering left and right, trying to unlock the ridge-route and avoid the looseness of Pine Beetle. The route went, but not without a few head scratching zig-zags and questionable downclimbs. Soon I was scree-skiing west from the saddle below, down the vague gully that dumps west to Norice. I admired [Chuck] Norice Lake and thought back twenty-plus years when I backpacked through here with distant friends. Sometimes it’s hard for me to grapple with those ghosts of my past. Nowadays, I seem to travel solo – which often resolves the future nostalgia issues.
