dust and starlightUtah
Uinta Mountains and the Mirror Lake Highway
The high country east of Kamas along the Mirror Lake Highway: Provo River Falls, Hayden Peak, and the Milky Way over the pines at Mirror Lake, with Bald Mountain on the skyline.
- Photographs
- 5
- Made
- June 2024 – September 2026
- Months
- June, September and October
- In the collections
5 photos
Field notes
When to go
Our frames here are from three trips: the evening of June 30, 2024, the night of October 5, 2024, during the Yellow Lake Fire, and a late afternoon along the highway and in Soapstone Basin on September 26, 2026, at the height of the fall color. The Mirror Lake Highway is a summer-and-fall road: UDOT closes SR-150 east of Kamas through the winter, typically from November through May or June, depending on the weather, so check UDOT's Seasonal Roads page or the UDOT Traffic app before you drive up.
Getting there
The Mirror Lake Highway (SR-150) climbs east from Kamas through the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest to Bald Mountain Pass, 10,715 feet and 29 miles out. As of 2026, a recreation pass is required for any vehicle parked at the Forest Service fee sites along the highway, including the Mirror Lake and Bald Mountain Pass trailheads: $10 for three days, $20 for seven, or $60 for a year, and America the Beautiful passes are honored. You can buy one in Kamas, at the self-serve fee stations along the highway, or as a digital day-use pass on Recreation.gov, and it goes on your dashboard. Concessionaire-run campgrounds charge their own fees, so check the forest's Mirror Lake Scenic Byway page before you go.
Entry and passes
Mirror Lake Scenic Byway pass: $10 per vehicle, 3 days, $20 per vehicle, 7 days. The $80 America the Beautiful annual pass covers it. The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest annual pass is $60 (Forest Service recreation sites across the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache, except Mill Creek Canyon and concessionaire-run sites). The pass is required for vehicles parked at the Forest Service fee sites along the highway, such as the Mirror Lake and Bald Mountain Pass trailheads. Concessionaire-run campgrounds charge their own fees.
Our story
Three trips up the Mirror Lake Highway, two in 2024 and one in the fall of 2026. The first was an evening drive down from the high country at the end of June. Hayden Peak stood over Moosehorn Lake and a small campground under a cloudy sky, framed by spruce, and a little later we had the tripod out at Provo River Falls, slowing the shutter to smooth the water over the stepped ledges and into the pool. We finished lower down on the Provo River toward Kamas, with the evening light on the spruce along the bank.
In early October we went back up for a night at Mirror Lake, during the Yellow Lake Fire. We looked at the lake through the pines in the afternoon, and after dark we photographed the Milky Way core standing straight up out of pines lit orange by the fire, with Bald Mountain's ridge on the right and our 4Runner parked under the core. Facing north from the same lot, the Andromeda galaxy hung over the pines.
We came back on September 26, 2026 for the fall color. In the late afternoon, red maples and aspens lit up a talus slope beside the highway at the turnoff to Soapstone Basin, and down in the basin orange aspens stood scattered through the dark conifers, and a dirt road ran into the aspens below a flat-topped peak and a sky of cumulus.
Nearest places
All placesAs the crow flies, from the center of Uinta Mountains and the Mirror Lake Highway to the center of each.
