Mirror Lake Seven

Two or three miles further up SR-150 is the turnoff to Mirror Lake, a beautiful forested lake set at 10, 050 feet (3,060 metre) high in the Uinta Mountains. It is about a 53 square acres (about a quarter of a square kilometre) in size, although it seems much larger, probably from the grandeur of the setting. For my family and friends in New Zealand and Australia, Mirror Lake is 2,740 feet (or 835 metres) higher than Mt Kosciuszko, the tallest mountain in the Australian mainland. It is only 2,266 feet (or 690 metres) lower than the peak of Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand proper. So in other words, it is up there!

Mirror Lake Six

Dang that water is cold. My feet are like blocks of ice. It doesn't matter it's right at the end of summer and has had several months to warm up.

Mirror Lake Five

Is that a fish that I see in there?

Mirror Lake Four

If you climbed all of the terraces it would be like walking up the stairs of a ten-storey building at least. Luckily you can take it a slowly as you like, enjoy the scenery on the way up, and stop for a dip in each pond if it takes your fancy. Nice.

Mirror Lake Three

 What a beautiful and unusual falls. They are terraced like a long, wide set of grand stairs. Keziah just could not resist running up and down them all. Too much fun.

Mirror Lake Two

We drove south to Interstate 80 and turned east toward the Wasatch, then up Parleys Canyon, past Jeremy Ranch and Kimball Junction. We then took US40 and SR 248 past the Jordanelle Reservoir to Kamas where we stopped for a cold drink. Kamas is a pretty, alpine town of around 1,200 people in Summit County, that is often called The Gateway to the Uintahs. Then up into the foothills along SR 150 to a great country store that sold a bunch of hand-made food and souvenir items not available anywhere else. We were able to purchase our $6.00 -3-day recreation pass, to allow us to go up to the lake. About 30 miles (50 kilometres) up SR 150 we made out first stop, Provo River Falls.

Mirror Lake One

My daughter Keziah and I have been planning on going for a drive up in the mountains this summer, a daddy-daughter getaway. We settled on going up to Mirror Lake, up in the Uintah Mountains in Duchesne County. I have been really wanting to travel there for several years, but have just never found a good time. So last weekend we ate our lunch and jumped in the car for our afternoon trek.

All in the Family

It's a pretty incredible and touching story a grandfather and paramedic delivered his own grandchild Saturday morning after his daughter unexpectedly went into labor. Grandmother Kathleen Forsyth said her daughter called to tell the family she was going into labor and wasn't going to make it to the hospital. She and her husband David Forsyth, still in pajamas, rushed over to their daughter's house where paramedics were already getting the mother into an ambulance.

The baby could only wait long enough for her soon-to-be grandfather to arrive. As they took off for the hospital, delivery couldn't be avoided. That's when the he started helping deliver the baby. "I saw a little tuft of hair and I thought, "Uh-oh, we're gonna have a baby,'" he said. He said he was able to stay calm because not only is he a paramedic with the City of Orem but he's helped with a few deliveries.

"I got to be the first one to hold my granddaughter. it was pretty good," Forsyth said. Little Jane was delivered just before 6 a.m. Saturday morning. She is healthy and a pretty happy baby. The mother says that while of course having a child is special in itself, to have her father do the delivery made it that much more remarkable.

Three Branches of Government There For A Reason

A week or so later, I am still kind of sputtering over a comment dropped from the lips of our dear President, Barack Obama. Rather a thinly-disguised attempt, I think, to muzzle a potentially damaging outcome from the Supreme Court. His words were:

“For years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or the lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law, and I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

I am fairly sure, even though nowhere near an expert, that the Founding Fathers of these United States of America, ensured that the three branches of  government; the legislative, the judicial, and the executive, were separated for very good reason. That tyranny and despotism could not reign in this country.

Is the judicial branch of the government, in the form of the Supreme Court of the United States, not in its very existence to ensure that unjust and unconstitutional laws are struck down? I am not saying that their law that President Obama is lobbying here to uphold is unconstitutional, but that the President is very wrong to send such a pointed message to another branch of government.

The Supreme Court should be allowed to work out its stances on legislation and legal precedent without, as they say, fear or favor. They must be afforded the opportunity to discuss and debate this case before them without an elected official bullying them into compliance, that they may, or may not agree with. That is their duty.

Utah woman oldest to climb seven continents’ highest peaks

The amazing Carol Masheter, at age 65, says she is now the oldest woman to have reached the top of the tallest mountains in all seven continents, a feat completed in four years: Denali, Aconcagua, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, Vinson Massif, Everest and Kosciuszko. It’s likely she will keep the record, because those who issue permits for Everest in Tibet have since decided no one over 60 can attempt the climb.

Masheter, who arrived home in Salt Lake City from Australia Wednesday morning, said that attitude makes no sense when held up to death-rate statistics for big mountain climbs. Older people have better survival rates, she said, likely because they have better endurance and judgment. "Each climber needs to be evaluated on their own merits," she said.

Masheter’s merits can be traced to her childhood in Orange County, Calif., where her parents loaded chores onto her and her siblings and didn’t pay them any allowance, but did pay them for chores her mother and father normally took on. Her parents required the kids to tithe to their church.

Masheter says she has saved 10 percent of her income for herself since age 8; by the time she was a freshman in high school, she was considered so responsible and organized that her neighbors would have her take care of their homes while they were away.

So you could say Masheter was in training all her life. But it wasn’t until she was 50, when life dealt her multiple blows — over a period of about 18 months, her sister became ill, Masheter lost her job as a university professor, her mother died and the man she loved left for someone else — that she started climbing.

That was in 1997, in South America. "I was discovering my talents rather late in life," she said. And they weren’t knitting or playing bridge. "Mountaineering," Masheter said moments after getting off her plane and hugging a gaggle of welcoming Wasatch Mountain Club friends at the airport, "saved my life.