Fishing Trip

In August my dad, Jared, and Bryce went for a backpacking trip into the High Uintah mountains in Utah. It was a fantastic trip and was about a 32 mile round trip with the extra jaunts I took. 14 miles in and out, plus some additional trips to lakes and sightseeing. It was a much needed taste of Utah and the mountains for me and I had a blast! We will see if we do this again in the next few years.

Here is the first camp. We hiked in 9 miles the first day and called it good at this spot. It was right next to a river that lulled me to sleep that night. It was a good thing too because my dad was snoring and the horses were moving and waking me up at night. It turns out horses don't sleep like humans. They move constantly and since they were tied on a area of rocks I thought they were making a run for it all night long! I woke up on the hour, every hour all night long. It took me a while to get some solid rest on this trip with the hard ground, 1/4 inch of padding underneath me, and the horses making noise.

On this hike I came straight from Oro Valley with an elevation of 2,600 ft and went hiking with the trail head that started at 8,176 ft. It turns out elevation is a big deal! I felt like I was starving for oxygen. It was rough the whole way in. I was definitely happy that we stopped where we did.

Here is an image of the river we camped next to. The fishing was fantastic on this river. My dad, Jared and I went for a small walk up the river and we caught somewhere around 75 fish total. Since we figured out what fly they were hitting it was basically throw your line in the hole and be ready for when the fish hit your fly! Unfortunately, they were only about 8-10 inches long. 

This beautiful picture is Ouray Lake. This lake is at an elevation of 10,380 ft. We camped about 1/4 mile from this lake next to the drainage river. This was a fantastic spot. There was soft ground (kind of, more on this later), a nice river to get water from, and wonderful scenery. 

This lake provided some excellent fishing. I think as a group the first night we fished it we caught a total of 200 fish between the four of us. It was basically throw your line out 5 times and catch 3 fish. We really had them figured out on the lure and it was a blast! This is some of the best fishing I have ever experienced! Again, the fish were only about 12 inches long at the largest that I caught. But it was fun.

Here are a couple of shots of our campsite. We camped here for two nights. The second night on the trip I woke up 4 times, again from the hard ground and the noisy horses. It turns out that I was really worried about bears! The last night I was able to sleep all the way through the night. The irony is that I finally had this outdoor sleeping figured out and then we were ready to leave! 

Here is Bryce and my Dad at the stove cooking some delicious breakfast.

So I always burn my pancakes on these trips. However, my Dad figured out how to cook them a nice golden brown. I am not sure how he did it, but I am sure thankful that he was pumping out pancake after pancake that was delicious.

Here is a nice picture of Jared feeding the horses. The horses were real troopers and Jared took great care of them. 

 Here is a picture of Lightning Lake, elevation 10,819 ft. This was supposed to be a great fishing spot and I am sure it is normally, but it turns out it was the mating season for an ant in this area and there were spent ants all over the surface of the lake. The fish were so gorged on these ants that they were not very hungry. Even when we matched the food on the lake our flies were one out of thousands on the lake. We were still able to catch some good fish which were about 2 inches bigger than the ones at Ouray Lake, but we did not have near the success.

After a while I got a little bored and went for a hike. Here I am at about 11,500 ft at the treeline. Things are pretty much stunted or don't grow at this elevation. In the picture above is Lightning lake on the right and Helen lake on the left. We never fished Helen lake.

Even though there were no big trees at the treeline there were a ton of pretty flowers. Here is an artistic photo (yes I took this one. Even a blind squirrel picks up and acorn every once in a while) that I took.

After my foray up to the treeline Bryce met me and he wanted to go for a hike and explore the area. Here is another picture of a lake we hiked to. The area was just plain gorgeous!

Here is the brave crew as we are getting back to the Upper Stillwater Reservoir. We are all about beat at this point, including the horses. The smiles on our faces are from relief that the hike will be over soon!

All in all it was a great trip where we got to catch up on how each other was doing, spend some quality time fishing, and drink in the beauty of the great outdoors. I am glad that I went and I can't say enough about how much fun we all had on the trip.