Hell's Kitchen / Jean Lake (Uintas) - 07/19/14

scatman

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I spent a couple of days camping at the Ledgefork campground near Smith and Morehouse Reservoir over the weekend with my family. On Saturday, I did a day hike up a side drainage of Smith and Morehouse Creek to a basin named Hell's Kitchen that contains a small lake called Jean Lake.

I had originally looked at a 100K topo map of the area and I noticed that there was a trail from the Smith Morehouse trail up the drainage, past Jean Lake then on up to the saddle that overlooks Anchor Lake.

Hell\'s_Kitchen_100K.jpg
100K map of the area

When I pulled out the 7.5' map of the same area, I was surprised to see that there was no longer a trail to Hell's Kitchen. This intrigued me, so I thought I would try to find the old trail and hike up to Jean Lake. I first drew a line that approximated the trail from the 100K map to the 7.5' map.

Hell\'s_Kitchen_7.5.jpg
7.5 minute map with no trail to Hell's Kitchen

Hell\'s_Kitchen_7.5_2.jpg
7.5' map with an approximate location of trail from 100K map

I set off about 9:00 am to see if I could find the old trail. I had marked on my GPS unit where I thought the old trail intersected with the Smith Morehouse Trail and it is located about one mile up from the trailhead. I reached this location and did not see anything that was definitive so I began bushwhacking down the slope to Smith Morehouse Creek. I then crossed the creek and began looking for the old trail.

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crossing Smith and Morehouse Creek

I soon found a game trail (or perhaps the real trail) that seemed to be heading in the general direction that I wanted to go so I hiked up the south slope of the drainage for a good distance on it.

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game trail that I followed for awhile

Eventually, I had a clear enough view down the slope towards the stream, and below me there seemed to be a more established trail which I began working my way down to. Once I made it down the slope, I could tell that this was the old trail.

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on the no longer maintained trail

I made my way up the draw on the old trail where it crossed the stream a couple of times. The going was rather slow due to quite a bit of downfall that I had to negotiate plus I would lose the trail every now and then and have to search to pick it up again. Along this stretch there were some very large rocks that had been rolled over and each one had old ant colonies exposed. I suspected that a black bear had been busy rolling them to get to the ants. I passed six such large rocks as I continued up the trail.

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stream crossing - the trail is hard to see but it is there

14725275003_7028c8c769_k.jpg remnants of old ant colony underneath an overturned rock


Once the the terrain started to level out just a bit, there were some cairns and blazes to help guide me on towards the lake though I still had to do some searching occasionally. I eventually made to a small meadow that gave me a little bit of a perspective of where I was in the basin.

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my first view with a perspective

The trail led me to another meadow and beyond this meadow I could not pick up the trail again so I just headed cross country to a pond located just northwest of Jean Lake.

14518949257_36533a500a_k.jpg
pond located just northwest of Jean Lake

From the pond , it did not take long to arrive at Jean Lake. Once at the Lake, I hike around it to the north side where I stopped and ate lunch. After lunch I took a few pictures of wildflowers growing near the lake.

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Jean Lake - viewed from the southwest side of the lake

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Jean Lake - east side perspective

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Jean Lake - viewed from the north side of the lake

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wildflowers along the lake

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wildflowers along the lake

If I had had enough time I would have liked to continue on to the pass but I felt I needed to start heading back to camp. I did briefly look for the trail north of the lake but I could not pick it up though I am sure it is there. I just need to do a more thorough search.

On the way down I took GPS waypoints every so often including where this trail intersects with the Smith Morehouse Trail. Also on the way down I ran into a family of grouse (scared the hell out of me!).

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a grouse

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Columbine - seen on the way down

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trail skirts the southern edge of this meadow before crossing Smith Morehouse Creek

After I made it back to the main trail, I piled a few rocks to mark the location of the junction of the old trail.

14705068942_b16043cc3d_k.jpg
the beginning of the no longer maintained trail to Hell's Kitchen and Jean Lake

Hell\'s_Kitchen_7.5_gps_2.jpg
Blue dots are GPS points I recorded on the way down. You can see how far off the trail from the 100K map actually is.


I then returned to the trailhead and back to camp for dinner.

14518688318_6d965621b3_k.jpg
mileage marker at the trailhead

If you are looking for solitude then this is a great little hike. I didn't see another person all day. It doesn't look like anyone has used this trail in quite some time other than wildlife. It took me just over 7.5 hours (including lunch) to complete the just over eight mile round trip route.

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Nice exploratory work! I wonder what the history is up there, and specifically what earns a place like that the name 'Hells Kitchen'?
 
Very nice! That's my kind of hike. I've been scared by grouse like that before as well--seems like they wait 'til you're 10 feet away then flap around trying to fly off. Scary as hell in bear country. :D
 
Very nice! That's my kind of hike. I've been scared by grouse like that before as well--seems like they wait 'til you're 10 feet away then flap around trying to fly off. Scary as hell in bear country. :D
The grouse jump when you're 10 feet away?!? lucky. I swear i can feel the wind from their wings they're so close.
 
I stepped on one in the pre-dawn hours a few months ago. Scared the crap out of me. Probably not as much as it scared him though.
 
Nice exploration. Love the work finding the old trail.
 
@Nick said
Nice exploratory work! I wonder what the history is up there, and specifically what earns a place like that the name 'Hells Kitchen'?

I also wondered about the origin of the name.

I did a little more investigating last night and found out that there is a 7.5' map from 1972 that has the trail on it. It appears to have been removed on a subsequent update of that map. It would be interesting to know the decision making process for closing/not maintaining/removing from a map, of a trail. I suppose things like budget, politics, wildlife considerations or perhaps just a personal decision by an individual all play some part in it.
 
Great report! This is also my kind of hike... I'd love to try this one sometime...but so many remote locations and so little time. Thanks for sharing!
 
There's always a sense of achievement after a hike, but I would imagine it's even much more gratifying when it involves bushwhacking to find old unmaintained trails. Great job.


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This is great documentation Scatman. You are the only other person I have heard of walking Hell's Kitchen. :cool:

In 2003, my two buddies and my dog walked from Crystal Lake out past Long Lake and then trailless to Anchor Lake. We crested the ridge and descended the entire Kitchen to the Smith Morehouse campground. We had no knowledge of the extinct trail and never saw any remnants. I distinctly remember the descent from the Kitchen down to the SM trail being a way steep bushwack and being glad we were going down, not up. Good on ya for doing it the hard way. I designed a backpack through it just because of staring at the name on the USGS map for 10 years. Wondering.

If you ever find a way to not get an adrenaline rush on a grouse explosion let me know. Happens every third or fourth mountain trip. Nice trip report.
 
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@langutah - It's nice to see that someone else made it through. :) I absolutely love looking at maps! I can spend hours at a time scanning over them. I usually pick out an obscure location and say " I wonder what that looks like on the ground?" and then try to plan a hike to it. Normally it is something like a pond or lake, but it can be as simple as a drainage .

Truthfully, I only bushwhacked about one mile, and that includes the game trail I picked up, before I found the correct trail, though it did have quite a bit of downfall to negotiate.

I continued to investigate the old trail and found that it exists on a 1950 map of the Wasatch National Forest, but by 1965 the Forest had removed it. Now granted, the 1965 map is at a smaller scale so perhaps they only included the popular trails on it. By 1976 the Wasatch NF had combined with Cache NF and the combined map produced, which is at a reasonable scale, does not show it either. So my guess is that the trail was abandoned over 50 years ago and it took USGS a decade to get it off the 7.5' map.

It looks like the route you took north of Long Lake used to have a trail to Anchor Lake but it also has been abandoned.

If I return to Ledgefork next year, I will leave earlier from camp and make it over the pass to investigate what the trail does around Anchor Lake and perhaps towards Long Lake. Of course it might be easier to start from the Crystal Lake Trailhead.


upload_2014-7-25_8-34-39.png
1950 Wasatch National Forest Map

upload_2014-7-25_9-31-46.png
1972 USGS 7.5' Quad - shows the old trail heading over the pass (10803 ft) and down to Anchor Lake where it then makes its way south and hooks up with the trail that runs north from Long Lake. It is kind of hard to see but is labeled "Pack Trail".
 
Scatman! Hard for me to call you that, even scat lover that I am... :)

Great sleuthing. I have made a career of traveling places that don't have trails and sounds like you are making a career of researching and following trails that have extincted. Good on ya. I find it intriguing, like you do, the history of our precious Uintas. Do you know of another master Uinta historian, Cordell Anderson? http://www.cordellmandersen.com/

This guy is admirable for many reasons. Notwithstanding his interest in the history of our backyard mountain range, this guy is still out soloing - in his 70's !!

Anyway, let's hookup and go exploring some time.
 
@langutah - Thanks for the link. I am not familiar with Mr. Anderson but I'll read through the website and see what I can learn.

I hope I'm still hiking in the mountains when I'm 70!
 
I wish someone would design him a better website. He has tons of great information on there but it's nearly impossible to find and sort through it. I admire the guy though, I hope I am still on the trail at his age.
 
Well this doesn't surprise me one bit. As soon as I read that 2nd part, I knew what was coming next, lol. Nice report and great pictures!
 
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