A Golden Backpacking Trip (with pics!)
After far to many delays and excuses, I finally made an excursion to a lake that I have been meaning to go to for several years. This lake, which shall remain nameless, is rumored to contain large golden trout and lahontan cutts in its waters. Although I mostly caught goldens, I did manage a large (20” +-) cutt, but alas, no photo. I left early Monday and got back today and I saw no one the whole time I was on the trail or at the lake. I had the place to myself for three whole days. Pretty difficult to do in a state of 33 million people, I must say!
Getting to the lake required a somewhat lengthy backpack in, with an unpleasant uphill slog to the lake itself at the very end. Here is an easily recognized monolith nearby, which might give a clue to those that have been there before, and know of where I speak.
The canyon below the lake had a profusion of wildflowers this time of year, this wild iris being an example.
I caught this nice golden the first night when it was getting pretty dark, this being one of the larger ones. I love the spawning colors and kyped jaw on this guy.
Here is a more typically sized golden that I caught. I did see several that were much (MUCH!) larger, but they wanted nothing to do with me or my flies. Still, it was cool to see them.
Once I had the lake more or less figured out (at least this time), I became curious about the stream in the valley below, where I saw plenty of fish swimming around when I was hiking in. There was also the wind, which was absolutely screaming across the ridge-tops, bringing in the cooler weather. Here is a small portion of the stream:
What was inhabiting its waters? The ubiquitous eastern brook trout.
They were easy to catch and plentiful, but the wind was still screaming down the valley, so hard that I was afraid that it would rip my tent right out of the ground. I think the only thing keeping it from ending up in Nevada was me sitting inside of it, even staked down. Yeah…it was blowing THAT hard! I decided that I’d had enough, so I beat it back to the trailhead, making good time, but still getting back to my rig at 9:30 PM. Two good things to come from this: no mosquitoes and a cool lenticular(ish) cloud formation.
Ultimately, I was glad I left when I did, as I woke up to a steady rain drumming on the roof of my camper shell at 3:00 AM, which continued well into the morning. That would have been a real drag to walk back in when going to back to the trailhead…but at least the wind had stopped!
That’s about it. Enjoy!
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