East Fork Yurt

This little trip was magical for me. It didn't turn out exactly as envisioned but it turned out so great. We had planned to go up to a yurt in the Uintas in the winter but the weather was awful the weekend we were supposed to drive up so we didn't go. I changed the reservation to fall thinking it would be a fun time to go. Brooke and her fam were supposed to come but with Covid being lame, she was a little apprehensive. So they didn't come and I had invited my friends Ariana and Francisco and they were both really excited about coming. But kind of last minute Francisco had to work and Ariana had some apprehension about just us going (especially since like 2 days before a big story in the news came out about a guy trail running getting stalked by a mountain lion...CRAZY!) haha. Soooo....anyway. Everyone bailed. I didn't think I was going to be able to go by myself with all the kids stuff, but tried to pack it all and realized I could fit it all. So we decided morning of that we were going to take off Thursday. We got to Evanston and had a McDonald's picnic in the back of the car since we couldn't go inside anywhere and it was cold!

Lottie fell asleep like 20 minutes before we got to the trailhead, so I had to wake her up. She wasn't too stoked on the "hiking". If you can call it that. It was along some ATV trails and mostly just a walk. Not sure how we ended up with so much whining. It was only 1.5 miles too. Oh well. We made it :) 

Actually made it about 2 minutes up the trail and had to stop to throw rocks into the mud puddles.

If Greta gets to pose by a sign, you better believe Lottie does too. 

I almost wasn't going to bring her blanket, but I don't think that would have been a good idea. Although having it out during the hike was funny. It kept Greta warm since it actually was pretty chilly and I couldn't remember what part of my pack I had stuck jackets. But then Lottie would hold onto it and suck her fingers. Didn't help with the continuous forward movement though. 

And Lottie is crying here because Greta wanted to be in her picture. 

She looks like a camel. Haha. 

Okay, now we really made it. As soon as we saw the yurt from the main trail, the kids squealed and ran down the little lane. It was extremely exciting for everyone! The yurt was AWESOME! I was so excited about it too! Just rad. And the outhouse seemed pretty new and was super clean and didn't stink at all. They had a solar panel so we had lights at night (and in the bathroom, and some usb charging ports). 

So there was a lot of running around and playing inside for awhile. We got to the yurt about 3:30 so we messed around for awhile, playing and then some Uno and 10,000. Then it got cold so we started a fire and cooked our fancy mountain house dinners :)

This is the kids taking turns telling each other scary stories wearing the oven mitts they found. 

Cozy, quaint and all the happy.

That first night actually sucked. I only packed 3 sleeping bags (hard to fit 4 bags in one pack, but mostly because I had taken two or the bags to Ariana and I didn't want to drive to bountiful and back to get a sleeping bag). I figured I could share with Lottie or Harvey and Greta could share. Well...I think God knew that wouldn't work out so well. There was a sleeping bag in the yurt when we got there. It got COLD at night and I was up every couple hours the first night relighting the fire or adding wood. So it would have been a disaster trying to share, any of us, really. Friday was so beautiful! It was such a fun day! Kids played with rocks and in the dirt and ran around and all the things. I chopped a ton of wood to restock what we used. That took awhile and was quite exhausting. 

She found a little snow and decided to eat it I guess. 

We needed to restock our water supply so we took a stroll down to the river. So pretty. I filtered water while the played around. I thought we'd stay longer but they lost interest soon.

We came back up and hung out a little bit, played some hide and seek, I rested, etc. and then I realized we weren't too far from another yurt. Maybe 3/4 of a mile. The kids were on board to go check it out. But it was kind of painful again. Lottie and Greta kept whining. It was cold. They were tired. Greta's feet hurt, etc. Harvey did great. But it was fun and killed a couple hours. Ha. Unfortunately when we got to the other yurt (beulah vista) there was a car there. Apparently we could drive to them? Anyway...we still imposed ourselves on the people there and asked to take a peek inside their yurt.  They had this cool little fort just outside the yurt that the kids climbed in and around for a minute. Then we headed back. 

Then it was too cold to be inside so we played more cards and hung out. They had "The Giver" there so I got to reading that while kids played amongst themselves. Greta took this of Lottie. She wouldn't have done well without that blankie!

Look how cool this place is!

Our second night was WAY better. We stayed up a little later and I had the fire built much bigger so we got some serious warmth in there. It was actually pretty hot. We went outside a few times to look at the AMAZING stars a few times. Then they went to bed and I finished my book. (Lottie luckily fell asleep a lot sooner). I slept on 3 mattresses (if you could call them that...they pretty much sucked) instead of 2 and only woke up once in the night when the fire went out and I noticed it was pretty cold. And then again at 6:30am. But it was cozy and lovely. We got up and made our breakfast and just cleaned up and packed. Swept the inside, chopped more wood, etc. Then we hiked back. Again - the "hiking" part was kind of terrible. Greta did a lot better and Harvey did awesome (There was promise of a "prize" from the gas station in Evanston). But Lottie, on the other hand, was tired and whiny and it was actually pretty cold and windy. And Lottie HATES the wind. So there was a lot of crying and stopping and not moving. So I carried her almost the whole way. It was killing my arms and she kept squirming around because she wasn't sitting comfortable with my backpack. So the last little bit I put her on my shoulders. Yowsers. That was intense. Her plus the backpack with all our stuff. My shoulders and neck were killing when it was done but we made it. And then we crossed the road and went to a river to grab some rocks to paint to put in the foundation of the Layton temple. We had some excitement at the gas station with Lottie breaking glass things and Harvey dropping Greta's prize. So we spent twice as much as we should have and I got really annoyed and mad at them but then we all were good and they got to watch a movie on the way back. Win! It was SUCH a cool experience. I loved having that time with them and making those memories with them. I hope at least Harvey and Greta remember it. But I think it's pretty safe to say we will go back! And I definitely want to still try it in the winter!