Box Rocket
Well-known member
So I work with a group of 16-17 year old boys at my church and each year we do what they call a "High Adventure" trip as one of our activities. We have a small group of boys right now and one of them has muscular distrophy so are activities can be limited. This year they said they wanted to find a cool place to camp and do some fishing. I was in charge of finding the location and pulling the basics together. We just got back last night, and it was a great time.
Boulder Mountain is part of the Aquarius Plateau in South/Central Utah and is the highest wooded plateau in N. America. We chose the area around Row Lakes and Purple Lake as our location because it was somewhat remote but we could still drive there since we couldn't hike in with the handicapped boy. I hadn't been there before but had this particular place suggested to me on another message board. Turned out to be awesome! Beautiful country. Our campsite was just over 10,000' above sea level and what a change it was from the 90+ temps at our homes near Salt Lake City. I think we topped out at somewhere in the neighborhood of 68 degrees for our high at that elevation. Ended up with quite a few clouds and a good bit of rain in the afternoon and evenings. We had inteded to camp at Purple Lake but we were pulling a trailer with 8 canoes and the trail got a bit rough and we had to ditch the trailer. We arrived at the Row Lakes first with my Land Cruiser and a Toyota Tundra. We found a good campsite there but decided to all pile in the Cruiser and continue down the trail to Purple Lake just to see how it was. That trail got a bit more tight and challenging. I can understand why there aren't too many that camp at Purple Lake. It would have been a very challenging drive for the Tundra in stock form. We made it just fine in my cruiser with my little trailer in tow but it would have meant a good mile hike carrying the canoes to get up there so we just decided to set up at Row Lakes.
The fishing was much better than I expected in the small lake. We caught some good sized rainbows ranging from 10-14" and they were fighters. Definitely made for some fun fishing. So other than the cooler than expected temps and the rain it was a really great experience and I'm planning on going back there with my family for a bit more camping and fishing.
Here's a bunch of pics.
Row Lakes as the rain clouds rolled in.
Getting ready to set up camp.
The sun was going down and the temps were dropping so we got a fire going and then got the rest of camp set up.
Our camp at the edge of Row Lakes
Boulder Mountain is part of the Aquarius Plateau in South/Central Utah and is the highest wooded plateau in N. America. We chose the area around Row Lakes and Purple Lake as our location because it was somewhat remote but we could still drive there since we couldn't hike in with the handicapped boy. I hadn't been there before but had this particular place suggested to me on another message board. Turned out to be awesome! Beautiful country. Our campsite was just over 10,000' above sea level and what a change it was from the 90+ temps at our homes near Salt Lake City. I think we topped out at somewhere in the neighborhood of 68 degrees for our high at that elevation. Ended up with quite a few clouds and a good bit of rain in the afternoon and evenings. We had inteded to camp at Purple Lake but we were pulling a trailer with 8 canoes and the trail got a bit rough and we had to ditch the trailer. We arrived at the Row Lakes first with my Land Cruiser and a Toyota Tundra. We found a good campsite there but decided to all pile in the Cruiser and continue down the trail to Purple Lake just to see how it was. That trail got a bit more tight and challenging. I can understand why there aren't too many that camp at Purple Lake. It would have been a very challenging drive for the Tundra in stock form. We made it just fine in my cruiser with my little trailer in tow but it would have meant a good mile hike carrying the canoes to get up there so we just decided to set up at Row Lakes.
The fishing was much better than I expected in the small lake. We caught some good sized rainbows ranging from 10-14" and they were fighters. Definitely made for some fun fishing. So other than the cooler than expected temps and the rain it was a really great experience and I'm planning on going back there with my family for a bit more camping and fishing.
Here's a bunch of pics.
Row Lakes as the rain clouds rolled in.
Getting ready to set up camp.
The sun was going down and the temps were dropping so we got a fire going and then got the rest of camp set up.
Our camp at the edge of Row Lakes
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