Yellowstone of the Uintas

Yellowstone Creek in Utah is not to be confused with the river that runs through Yellowstone National Park, but it is beautiful in its own right. 

At the trailhead, we found a couple of new signs.
This one for the Boreal Toad is appearing at all the trailheads this year. I guess these toads must be becoming rare.  We've never seen one.

And Swift Creek trail is closed all summer due to work on returning several dammed (damned) reservoirs in the High Uinta Wilderness Area to their natural lake level.

Good thing we weren't planning to travel that way. We did cross Swift Creek, which was running strong on its way to join the Yellowstone:

Not far down the trail, this garter snake was crossing the trail:

Note the bulge in his middle.  Apparently he's recently ingested a meal.  A frog, perhaps.

Daisy sniffed her way through a meadow covered in golden peas:

And found herself a nice tasty elk head:

A bear had found it first:

Fortunately, all we saw of the bear was his scat.

On one of the cliffy parts of the trail, we noted this phenomenon:

The process of erosion will soon erase this path.

An adjoining area has already sloughed off and been washed away by the river, as we observed when we descended to river level for a better look.

As usual, Steve had a little nap after lunch:

Daisy, never one to rest for long, insisted on waking him up:

Places to go, things to do, Dad, she says. She was right.

We saw lots of wildflowers on this hike.  I'll post about them soon.