At the trailhead, Jock, Ed, Chris, Tom, Andrea, Ryan & Johnna don't notice that Rebecca has joined the dark side.
Aspen, pine & spruce line a mountain avalanche chute.
Yellow wildflowers flourishing in the rocky soil.
Marching into a subalpine forest.
Dale, Andrea, Eric, Sam, & Rebecca head into the woods.
Andrea straddles a rocky drainage.
One of two columbine sightings along the way.
Scree & felled trees - harbingers of the mountain rash awaiting us.
More avalanche debris to circumvent.
Sam & Chris ambling along a mountain stream.
Chris riding shotgun on the hike.
Spruce & scree dominate the lower views.
Sam, Eric, & Andrea are transfixed by a rock from one of the debris fields.
Sam, Eric, Andrea, & Johnna resting happily on a log.
Andrea shares a laugh with Johnna with Meredith & Dale close by.
A mother & child reunion!
First view of the hanging cirque by Mt. Tukuhnikivatz.
Picking our way carefully beneath mountain peaks.
Rebecca leads Tom, Jock, Johnna, & Ryan along the rocky trail.
Following another small drainage around an avalanche field.
Craig riding herd on Ed in a small meadow.
It just takes a little water for flowers to bloom.
Following the drainage around debris & through a stand of spruce.
The first lake along the trail.
Andrea modeling as a wood nymph.
The White Knight appears in the forest.
Johnna's jagged cut from an encounter with a fallen branch.
Passing by the tree-lined second lake.
Ascending to the edge of another Mt. Tuk rock field.
Ed demonstrates his Western Roll high jump technique.
Rebecca & Eric atop a field of scree that still contains patches of snow.
As Rebecca snaps Eric's picture, the mountain peak looms over them.
Spruce hanging on with avalanche fields all around.
A long talus slope below one mountain headwall.
Eric mugs with the two women in his life.
The White Knight, Tom, Johnna, & Ryan at rest.
The forest edge is as abrupt as a buzz cut.
Marc's second columbine sighting on the hike.
Looking back at the cirque on the approach to the tarn.
Summer heat has caused this Gold Basin tarn to shrivel in size.
The scree field is reflected in what's left of the tarn.
The gang settles in for a lunch break.
Andrea perched on the rocks eating lunch.
Marc & Andrea pose with the cirque behind them.
Eric shot this photo of Marc with his mom.
The mountain looming behind the tarn's trees.
Trouble ahead. Rebecca's got her map out & is ready to promote a loop hike.
What a beautiful backdrop for lunch.
A profile in courage - leg gash & all.
Johnna catching 40 winks in the sun.
Looking across the tarn from the avalanche field.
Looking up the avalanche field to a hardy stand of spruce.
The White Knight & Ryan sitting among the scree.
A last look at the shallow tarn as we stride naively into the unknown.
This is a trail?
Delicate beauty in a harsh environment.
Mountain sentinels.
Is this the Von Trapp family escaping the Nazis?
Mt. Tuk's cirque as seen while standing uneasily on a steep slope.
"Just walk around this tree & go up over the ridge to the road." Yeah, sure.
How many times did Andrea & Eric say to Sam that "you don't see this in Chicago, do you?"
And this you don't see in Chicago.
Eric, shouldn't that shirt say "Property of Samantha?"
Ryan will have tell you the story about the wrap on his wrist someday.
Johnna playfully trying to topple a tree on the uneven slope.
Her legs slashed by tree limbs & scree, but Johnna grins & bears it.
"I think I see the trail." Uh huh.
Chris was a tower of strength as we struggled through debris field after debris field.
Nothing like picking your way through a rock field at a 45 degree angle.
"You know, just over the ridge to the road."
"Will no one rid us of this damn scree?"
If you had a chance to look back, the view was majestic.
The White Knight contemplating a breakaway down a drainage of Brumley Creek.
A successful descent into a glen near where our cars are parked.
A grove of Aspen in the glen.
The White Knight & Johnna strolling through the glen.
A second grove of very slender aspens.
Battered, but unbowed, the rest of us cross the glen.
Just a hundred yards to go, in front of a ribbon of trees.
Andrea, Rebecca, Sam, Chris, Eric, & Ed bring it on home.
Reprising the hike two weeks later, Jock, Rita, Marc, & Judi saw that the Columbine was much more plentiful.
Early on, the five-pointed sepals were more lavender than blue.
Then the shading turned to blue.
As pretty a wildflower as there is.
Mountain Bluebells in bloom were as plentiful as the Columbine.
Classic view of a Columbine wildflower, including its blue spurs.
Blue spurs & sepals, white petals, & yellow stamens add up to the beautiful Columbine wildflower.
Triple play.
Columbine & Fly #1.
Columbine & Fly #2.
Columbine & Fly #3.
Rita, Judi, & Jock are loving this hike.
Gee, I wonder where the tree line is?
6,000 feet above the summer heat in Moab.
Tripleheader.
Marc's not the only one that wants to be up close with the columbine.
Judi crossing the headwaters of Brumley Creek as Jock stands among the bluebells ready to assist her.
Judi standing among the rubble at the small first lake.
Spruce trees reflecting off the second lake.
The Columbine & the Fly.
Fly in yellow stamen ecstasy.
A small stand of spruce fights for survival among Mt. Tuk's rockfields.
Jock, Judi, & Rita demonstrate that there is plenty of fallen timber to rest on.
Rita & Judi sidestepping yet another deadfall on the trail.
Judi, Jock, & Rita arriving at Upper Gold Basin.
The tarn & rockfield at Upper Gold Basin.
The rockfield above drying out Gold Basin Lake.
Cirque, rockfield, & marshy tarn below Mt. Tukuhnikivatz.
Gold Basin Lake (mostly evaporated).
Where once was water is now a mud flat.
Something seems out of place among all the rock scree.
A blaze of snow still remains on the mountain behind Rita & Jock.
As usual, Jock has a story to tell & Rita & Judi listen in.
Judi next to what's left of the tarn known as Gold Basin Lake.
"This wasn't the way we came. Where are we?"
Jock, Rita, & Judi route-finding through small stands of fir & spruce.
Judi relieved that we had located the trail again.
Beauty springing out of the rubble.
Columbine blooming at the foot of an avalanche slope.
Judi fording a marshy area to join Jock & Rita on the trail.
Indian Paintbrush along the trail about a quarter-mile from the end.
Rita out of the spruce & in the clearing near the end.
Judi getting ready to follow Rita up the hill to trail's end.
Quaking aspen at the end of the hike.
Two years later, the water seems to bubble out from a spring right at the bottom of the scree.
Jock the White Knight and Mike Stringham at the meadow's edge beneath the mountains.
Judi feeling frisky before altitude sickness kicks in.
What "above the treeline" looks like.
Judi walking up a steep slope as the trail transistions from meadow to forest.
Lake 1 at about 10,500 ft., 1.5 miles into the hike.
A Marc moose crashing through the alpine forest.
The second small lake, about a quarter of a mile above the first one.
Mike works over his GPS while doggedly trying to put in the waypoint for the third tarn.
In late June, snow patches remain on the upper reaches above Gold Basin's alpine meadow.
The small third lake in Gold Basin proper, at an elevation of close to 10,800 ft.
The scree flowing down to the foot of Gold Basin.
The White Knight, Rita, Mike, & Judi stand at attention in Gold Basin, beside Penny the Wonder Dog.
A marshy wildflower in bloom.
Judi wheels her body over a log blocking the trail.
Rita at the large cairn that marks the way back as you transistion from forest to meadow.
