Multnomah

City of Rocks II

Before we left the next day Jasper, Penelope and I hiked up a rocky hill east of the Twin Sisters and Jasper and I climbed up to the rocky summit. The photos below are of Jasper on the summit of that hill.





Penelope in the sagebrush near camp.

City of Rocks

On our way to Portland OR we stopped in City of Rocks, ID for a day. We pulled in late at night and had some trouble finding a camp site. In the light of the full moon we found one and set up camp. We woke up the next morning to discover we were camped under the Twin Sisters formations. The photo above shows the tents nestled behind a rock in the sagebrush.

Tom climbed up to the base of the formation to check out the routes. We later discovered this formation is closed to climbing to preserve the view for tourists exploring the California Trial who might be offended by climbers. Outrageous as far as I am concerned.



We did some climbs on Bath Rock. We started with a few lines easier lines on the front to get warmed up. The photo below shows Jasper climbing the Cowgirl Route (5.5).




We moved around to the back in the afternoon and Tom started off by leading Colossus (5.10C) [picture below]. I tried leading a bolted face route (5.8/5.9) to the left of Private Idaho (5.9) which I backed off of a bit more than half way up. Tom completed it so we could all try it on a top-rope. He then put a rope on the corner/crack route Private Idaho. Clea did all three routes, Jasper and I did the face and Private Idaho which was a bear.



It turned out out be a fun day of climbing in an area I first climbed in 17 years ago with David Pearson.

Moon

Taken with a hand held Canon G9 through a Swarovski CTC-30X75.

Flying in the Front Range

Garrett took my Dad and I flying. We flew out of Fort Collins/Loveland airport. We headed north over Fort Collins and then West toward Red Feather Lakes and Halligan Reservoir. We turned back south over Gray Rock and the Poudre River Canyon. We got some nice aerial views of Gray Rock. The video shows our landing back at Fort Collins/Loveland.

I don't want a pickle ...

The motorcycle is a 1978 Yamaha SR500. I've had it for two years. In 1978, Yamaha was competing with the British bikes like the BSA, Norton and Triumph's and they came out with this 500cc road bike in the British style. I've always liked the classic Brit bikes and the Yamaha is a close cousin supposedly without the electrical problems. Ha! It's been an epic to get it running right; and the problems turned out to be mostly electrical. I gave up trying to do the work myself and hired Barry Messenger from Ft Collins as my mechanic. Barry specializes in restoring older BMW's but owned an SR500 himself back in the day. I had the stator rewound from an outfit in Quebec. First time it came back it had a pinched wire; sent it back and they redid it again. In the mean time winter came and I went off to Scotland on sabbatical for the Spring. When I came back, Barry was moving his shop and could not take the bike for six months or so. The bike still had problems and after some extensive carburetor tuning we decided it must be the CDI (electronic ignition) Parts for this bike are hard to find and I ended up ordering a new unit from New Zealand where they are very popular. Installed that and, among other problems, the bike would not turn off. Sent that unit back across the Pacific, and in the meantime the guy who owns the company went in the hospital and was out of commission for six weeks. He recovered and an new unit was sent. This one worked! There still is a minor hesitation problem on a long pull in top gear, but we think we can fix that by rejetting the carburetor.





Took it out for a real ride yesterday. From Woods Landing where I live down Fox Creek Rd. (dirt) to Hwy 11 and then 130 to Centennial WY. From Centennial I headed up and over the Snowy Range and down the west slope into the Platte River Valley. South on WY 230 to Encampment/Riverside and then dipping down into Colorado to come back north to Woods Landing from the three-way.


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Wild Browns

Good fishing access is tightly held. And really, all good fishing and hunting spots should remain secret; or so I was told by the riflemaker in town when, a few years ago, I pointed out a number of grouse coverts on the map for him and his British visitor (Paul Roberts the well known rifle and shotgun fitter). Well mostly, grouse are where you find them and I didn't give much away hoping for a free fitting. But fishing access is far more limited and unless the spot is already world famous it is best to be discreet. I won't mention location or even the name of the river.

There often is a story (which may or may not be true) that goes with a good spot and which is designed to keep people away. In my experience, the stories are often mostly true: rattlesnakes; dangerous roads; long walks and difficult access; Grizzly bears; mosquitoes; elusive fish and even stories of the crowds of fishermen are all told. For this spot it is the mosquitoes. This is a particularly bad mosquito year all over the northern Rockies because of all the rain we've had. One old timer told me that the mosquitoes haven't been this bad since the 60s. On this river the mosquitoes are always bad, and in a bad year the swarms are just plain absurd. You have to be hardcore to fish with the swarms we encountered. I wore a mosquito headnet most of the time and liberal and frequent applications of deet at least kept them from biting much.


This river has wild brown trout (Salmo Trutta) A fish is wild if they are naturally spawned in the lake or river where they live. A fish is native if they're indigenous; they've always lived in the watershed and were introduced by some natural mechanism. The brown trout was introduced into North America in 1883 from Germany; von Behr Browns. Apparently the introduction was a controversy then and the introduced fish can still controversial be controversial. They displace native fish and there is something that is, well, not quite natural about them. But regarding the introduction of German browns to North America, in 1913 Theodore Gordon wrote that "Many of us can remember how poor our sport was before the first of the brown trout came in." A wild fish may not necessarily be native, but in a river where the environment and bug life is right they provide fantastic sport.

The two most distinctive things about wild fish is their fight and their colors. Trout in heavily fished tailwaters like the the North Platte, the San Juan and the Bighorn may grow to gargantuan sizes but they have all been caught many times before and tend to "learn" to just give in. Wild fish are outraged by the hook. And the colors are spectacular. These particular fish had a distinctive blue spot on the side of the head which you can see in the photos if you click to enlarge them.


I fished with Garrett and Matt. Hoping for some top water action on dryflies I rigged my Winston 9' 4wt rod. You can wade across this stream at the head and tail of most runs and the Winston is a nice size and weight rod to fish it. The rod carries an old Orvis Battenkill Mark III reel made by Hardy in England. It has the spring and pawl drag system so it sings when a fish runs. I'd forgotten what a pleasure it is to cast this rod and to control a running fish by palming the rim of the spool.

The fish were not feeding on the top though there was variously, a caddis hatch, some blue winged olives sporadically coming off, an occasional hefty yellow bodied yellow winged mayfly (size 14) and a spinner fall. We all three ended up fishing nymphs and I had my best luck with a cased caddis pattern of my own design. The center feathers of a golden pheasant tail are spotted and when wrapped on a hook are a perfect imitation of caddis cases from this particular stream. A small green head and this fly is an expressive but virtually exact imitation of the naturals clinging to every rock.

A rather violent thunderstorm blew in and we huddled under willows beside the stream in the downpour while the lighting crashed around us. We were on the edge of the storm. the main body passed upstream from us. After the storm blew over a rainbow appeared in the east we continued to fish, each of us catching a few more. But the runoff from the violent storm quickly colored the stream a deep muddy red until you could not see the bottom in four inches of water. We decided to head home. Sadly this happened just as a rather prolific spinner fall was getting underway. All-in-all I caught a dozen wild brown trout. They were all at least 14" with the largest just under 20", a very good afternoon of fishing.