Another festival in Salida, time for us to boogie on in search of cooler temperatures, away from crowds. Lisa looked through a Bob Martin's guidebook "Hiking Trails of Central Colorado", and found a few nice looking trails. We debated whether to go to Crested Butte, but decided to stay closer to home.
It's not a very long hike, but it'd make for a full day. It's about 12 miles long, out and back, and gains some 2,500 feet in elevation. We decided to overnight there and to fly-fish too.
It was a hot day, and we went to watch the kayakers, getting to the trailhead around 1pm. We loaded up the packs, and started up! It took us some five+ hours to get near Willis Lake, and we camped some 10 minutes away from it.
The trail crosses over Lake Creek, and within a 100 yards takes a left and starts climbing towards the Colorado Trail crossing. It's fairly steep, but offers nice views of the valley below, mountains and the Twin Lakes.
We were in no hurry -- and took the walk slow, esp. with our packs. For the most part we walked in aspen and pine forests, along the raging Big Willis creek. We stopped every so often, let the dogs rest. Laika was loving it, but the mini-grayhounds were getting tired. Still, they were good troopers and did very well.
The dogs alternated between running around and heeling -- every so often it was funny to see them jockey for the position behind whoever was walking first.
As we got above treeline, we walked through some meadows and some major talus fields. I carried Sophia over those, as her little paws were hurting on the rocks.
As we thought we were getting close to the lake we searched for a good camp spot. The meadows were nice, but I thought it'd be hard to get to the creek -- lots of thick willows everywhere. As a matter of fact, the trail led through some, and it took serious bushwacking to get through them.
Finally Lisa and Sophia stayed at one spot, but Porter, Laika, and I went up to scout other opportunities. We found a nice, wide open, spot with great view of the mountains, and near the creek. It was only a 2 minute walk from the ponds, which we initially assumed was the lake itself.
We set up the new tent (purchased earlier this year for the Owyhee rafting trip), and had time to relax and read some books with hot chocolate. I tried my luck fishing in the pond, but it was very boggy all around it. I saw some fish rising, but failed to attract their interest. I went back to reading :)
For dinner we had some MRE's leftover from sea-kayaking in Alaska last year. Nothing special, the beef patty and chicken breast meals, but we wanted to get through them, and they're definitely caloric, if nothing else.
The night was rough. It wasn't very cold, though it dropped below freezing, but the mini-grays needed to stay in our sleeping bags. We dressed them in their winter fleece jackets, stuffed them in our sleeping bags, and spent the night tossing and turning. Laika just slept at our feet and snored.. Our sleeping pads are very light, but also not very thick, and made it difficult to sleep on our sides.
The morning was great -- we were happy to see the sun and be able to finally get up! We read for a while, read our books, and I tried fishing again at the pond. I write "pond" because that's what it was -- at first we thought it was the Willis Lake, but we were wrong.
Around 11am we decided to hike up to the end of the cirque, and packed up camp, jumped the creek, and stashed the gear behind some trees. Jumping the creek was what Corran Addison would call a class II-V mode -- class II in ease, but with class V (likely death) consequences as the water ran under a big snowfield! Laika ran over the snow, faster than the wind, and we jumped over with the other dogs.
Lisa was tired from not getting any sleep, so I grabbed the dogs and we went up the trail to see what was there. Within 10 minutes we were almost at the lake, the real one, and ran into a guy who camped out too and was walking back with a 22-24" trout! Yikes!
I went to the lake, saw groups of dozens of trout swimming near the shore in clear clear waters, and I knew I had to fish! I'm just a budding fly-fisherman, so seeing that many fish got me excited. I walked back to see if I could convince Lisa to come back with me, and to get the fly rod and gear. Successful on both accounts, we hiked back and I tried a big fat grasshopper.
I quickly realized that I had to strike the water a foot in front of the fish to get their interest. Just casting far and stripping the line wasn't doing the trick... I tried, and SHAZAM I got one!
I caught another one a few minutes later, then tried switching flies to a #18 with a sweet shrimp dropper, but got nothing on that. An hour well spent, though I would have been happy to just cast and watch these creatures swim around. Had I motivated to hike further the first day, we could have had fresh grilled trout, instead of MRE's, for dinner!
The hike back was very fast. The dogs knew we were heading back and all quickened their pace. The gradient made for fast walking, and we were back at the truck in about two and a half hours. Less than half of what it took us to go up... Sophia was getting tired, so I threw her on my shoulders, between my head and my pack, and she regally observed the world from up high.
We got back to the truck around 16:30, with plenty of time to hit Quincy's restaurant in Buena Vista for their fillet mignon dinner, with a few bacon scraps for the dogs!