6/27: arrived at the Worthen meadows trail head at about 2pm. Trail to middle fork of the Popo Agie is easy through forested section over a bit of a saddle and predominately descending to the bridge crossing. Just before the bridge crossing,the trail forks and goes to ---- lake. ----- miles to the bridge crossing. at the bridge crossing we stopped and fished, nice water right through there. We turned up stream and hiked rolling easy trail a total of 6.75 miles to a very nice med sized campsite trail right with the stream falling hard over boulders trail left. Access to the stream was excellent via a continuous smooth Granite slab. Through out the night as we ate dinner and lounged around we periodically heard an odd, distant woofing sound. As it got completely dark, we sat on a slab of smooth exposed granite, straining our ears to hear the sound- trying to locate and identify it.
We actually thought we heard two separate "buglers" one fainter and more distant and debated if they were calling to each other. I didn't find the calls to be sequenced as call and respond, and the nearer call didn't seem to move. Although initially it did sound like a noise like I've heard bears in AK make- a sort of woofiing, the more I listened the more it sounded like a moose or maybe elk and I felt certain it was a short, clipped momma call- like I heard one night on Ongivinuk when a moose or maybe caribou came up on our camp from the bush at about 3am. I heard the brush cracking and then the short barked momma order to a no doubt surprised calf who'd come up on our tent- they both wheeling and crashing back into the bush. But this call was strange in that it didn't seem to result in any movement or action that we could discern. I think our postulates of heard calls helped the girls feel more comfortable that it wasn't an agitated bear looking for a fight. Eventually the calls ended all together and we enjoyed our first glimpses of the night sky completely devoid of human light interference- what a glorious view of the universe from the banks of the Popo Agie. The next morning we saw cow scat (sounds better than pie, right) and remember the trail head sign about live stock and figured it might have been a cow calling- that seemed to match as it didn't sound big enough to be a moose or elk.
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| Maree waiting for a shower cap at Popo camp 1 |
6/28: mick rose early, sort of- 8am, and fished the meadow below the falling section by camp. Beautiful water with eager although small brookies plentiful. We packed up and headed out only to stop .1 miles at another spectacular meadow. This was only feet from the trail break off to ice lake and a few hundred fee from the popo agie crossing the point where the trail back tracks on the opposite site of the meadow and heads up Stough creek. The girls took a shot at fly casting and did well despite our poor instruction and frustrated tones. Just up stream of the meadow is a fantastic huge campsite in the pines adjacent to the meadow.
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| The Meadow at Three Forks and just before crossing to ascend |
Ultimately we settled on a rocky knoll, med sized site on the lower western corner of the second lake. The only good tent sites were right next to trees and had the subsequent bug issues. Although the camp had lot s of small rocks, a fire pit, it was lacking a good bear bagging tree and had only one marginal rock big enough to sit on. On the last night JB tried to build a couple of other rock seats with only limited success. After the
climb and with out having eaten enough, I was fuzzy headed and had to wolf down a cliff bar to keep from collapsing. We were at 10,500 feet- 9,500 higher than I'm used too and that certainly was a factor, but happily none of us got altitude sickness. We ate super, got camp set up and enjoyed the setting sun and spectacular milky, JB using the illegal Chinese laser to point out constellations- big and Little Dipper being the only definitive stars he could ID. Not wanting to be rookies, we turned in around mid night- only Beth reporting a good sleep the next morning.
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| The View Base Camp Left |
6/29: The third straight cloudless day greeted us and after a breakfast of strawberry oatmeal and 100% d
Deet, we loaded up day packs with food, purification tablets, sandals and towels, expecting some pristine high lake dipping. Literally as we walked out of camp, JB nonchalantly pulled the rain fly over his tent- "Look at the sky man, It's not going to rain." "I know," he replied, but I'm going to do it anyway". I decided to as well.
Deet, we loaded up day packs with food, purification tablets, sandals and towels, expecting some pristine high lake dipping. Literally as we walked out of camp, JB nonchalantly pulled the rain fly over his tent- "Look at the sky man, It's not going to rain." "I know," he replied, but I'm going to do it anyway". I decided to as well.
JB and Maree found a boulder hopping crossing of the feeder stream close the lake. JB's reaching out for Maree and yelling, "you can do this, come on , you can make this!" convinced Beth that we needed to look for an easier crossing, so we kept moving up stream right and got separated from them. This was actually the stream crossing for the feeder creek to a shallow, small pond just above the lake where we camped. Beth and I ended up making the morning and lunch at the lake west of the shallow pond, catching brookies on dry flies at the exit creek and in the main lake. After several hours of lallygagging and just enjoying the beautify of the almost above tree line lake, we began to move up lake toward the feeder stream. Surprisingly, we ran into JB and Maree who came into the bottom portion of the lake from over a knoll which separated the "Mick and Beth Lake" from the it's eastern sister lake where JB and Maree had spent the morning. Of course the eastern lake was reported to have bigger fish and JB was breathless with tales of monster cuts cruising the shoreline- however I don't recall that he hooked any of them.
Reunited, we moved up stream as clouds began to roll in and decided to head for a lake above and west of the two sister lakes. AS we made our way the weather became increasingly ominous with loud claps of thunder and Beth expressed her trepidation, especially since we had no rain gear in the pack and sported only short sleeve shirts as the temp dropped. We eventually decided to follow JB and make it over to "storm lake" where shortly it began to sprinkle and we should shelter, all be it poor, in a rock over hang for
JB and Mar and a grouping of pine trees on a cut bank for Mick and Beth As we huddled we heard voices and watched a troop of 15 or so young hikers blow by us. We later learned they were a NOL's group and they told JB they had just summited one of the peaks surrounding on of the upper lakes. We passed this group two days later on our way out. Anyway, a break in the rain convinced M&B to make a dash for camp, some 2+ miles away. AS we made it back to the lake were we'd spent the morning, the rain came harder and we crammed ourselves under a rock, listening to the thunder and pounding rain on the lake, but staying for the most part dry ourselves. After 20 minutes things lightened somewhat and we crawled from under our rock, startling two women, clad in Arcteryx and Gonia rain jackets, "out wandering around". Beth told one of them she had that exact same jacket, but it was in her backpack! We made the most of the break and hustled across the outlet stream, finding an easy crossing that we would use the remainder of the trip and a good trail lake right (going down stream) that took us past the small pond and back to our campsite. AS we neared camp the rain increased, as did our pace. I quickly took the food out of the tree as those bags were getting wet, threw them under JB's ample vestibule, checked and deemed their packets safe deep under the branches of the pine trees, closed our packs and put them under tree limbs and filmed dime sized hail before ducking into our tent. It had rain much harder at camp than at the upper lakes and I was very grateful we'd pulled the rain fly over our sleeping bags and clothes in our tent. We dozed and kept an eye on the ground around the tent where the sheets of rain pooled and sluffed off from the fly. It cam in spasms for about an hour and I began to organize in my mind a rescue attempt for JB and Mar, assuming it was raining as hard up there as it was down here and knowing the temp drop and soaked clothes may not be life threatening, but certainly miserable. The only problem would be finding them. Not knowing if they might have moved father south to upper lakes after we left and might take a different way back to camp. As the rain lightened and I decided I'd make a shot at finding them, JB came yelling into camp, fairly dry as there was less downpour higher up and they had sheltered under a rock.
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| Ascending to Storm Lake |
After dinner we decided to pursue the
evening hatch on the sister lake where JB and Maree had spent the morning. There were lots of rises as we worked our way
around the lake to the bouldered shore line.
The girls found a "comfortable" rock and dissected the intricacies
of public education as we threw caddis and Griffiths gnat at rises. Some nice brookies came to hand and the gnat
got gnarled, we definitely had not matched the hatch as we took only 10% maybe
of the rises. Seemed they were taking something
small and maybe emerging as most my takes where while the fly was sinking. I tied on a #6 Dahlia skunk and after a few
casts, working the shoreline from a peninsula rock had a rod jolting slam, big
fish for sure, but Nada beyond that. JB
took a nice brookie and had some knocks on a cone head muddler. Beth was worried about hiking in the dark, so
we left a little earlier than otherwise might've, but truth be told, the slow
fishing had me sufficiently humbled anyway.
Back at base camp I decided to try
a fire. wood was limited, but i realized
the abundant yellow pines had lots of dead branches which were perfect fire size
and had been sheltered from the rain by the higher green branches. I gathered them up by the armfuls, building s promising
reserve for the evening, if only they would burn. the dryer lent and my Alaska training by the mule
yielded a nice crackling fire, the pine burned like Sterno logs. we watched more shooting stars and retired to our
sacks around midnight.
Even a fresh FFJ could yield no sleep
and Another tossing and turning night was followed by a brilliant morning. Sooner or later I've got to solve the
wilderness insomnia. I know I don't
sleep in Alaska because I'm intently listening for marauding brown bears, but
with no such fear in the winds I should've slept rip van winkle. Luckily I feel no ill effects during the day,
other than rising later than I'd like as what ever winks I get seem to be from
4-7am, the excitement of the mountains keeps me charged all day... And night I
suppose.
6/30/13
We hit the "big fish
lake" from the night before, but the water was covered with pine pollen from
the storm the night before, make visibility difficult. After an hour or so we crested the knoll between lakes, Beth and I stopping at a
snow bank and making grape slush ices in our bottles. The girls took the rods for little brookie
lake and maree in particular had great luck.
Eventually we moved up the feeder creaking, keeping to the south this
time instead of west to storm lake where we'd gone the day before. JB was working this med
and stopped at a fabulous run with chuncky brookies, 8-11 inches and much thicker than in the lake were aggressively taking the caddis. Beth took several fish and seemed to have found her groove if not her passion for rising trout. We fished a few more runs, but the hatch seemed to have slacked and we eventually hop scotched up to the lake. A small, shallow lake surrounded by spectacular cirques tempted us to bare all and swim. Instead we decided to bust up to a higher lake which was reported to hold goldens. Beth was more in intrigued by a crack in one of the circs and decided to forgo the fishing for climbing. She surmised her bouldering skills were adequate to "crawl the crack" a few hundred feet since we were sans harnesses, pitons, rope and caribeeners. So as Beth toed and fingered holds on a fresh rock face, possibly never before free climbed, Maree, JB and I scampered over a small knoll to an upper lake.
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| Beth's accent line, center crack above the snow |
I found fresh legs and with a 2
hour expected weather window (clouds were building and a repeat was expected)
kicked it into gear, quickly finding myself on a 40 foot cliff looking down at
the spectacular stream exit. Even more spectacular
were the large gold torpedoes waving in the shallow current, it was reminiscent
of the great north land. Although 40
feet above the water, my silhouetted movement sent the 20" jetting into the
depths of the outlet stream. Stupid
approach, sometimes in the wilderness you assume the fish are fearless, and
small ones are, but the big boys are big for a reason, their cautious and
smart. I made my way down to the stream
and took a nice brookie cruising on the seem between shallows and deep. I was casting 30 feet to objects farther out
that seem when JB appeared on the cliff.
From his perch he spotted a decent trout actually facing the cliff wall below,
no doubt working off a bounce back current.
After some miscommunication and in accurate casts, I finally understood
where he was telling me the fish was and launched a 50' cast to grassy
edge! "That's it man, thanks it, he's
heading right for it, hold it hold it!"
The head rose and the tail splashed and I set the hook on a memorable
presentation in a breath taking place.
We hit the lake and JB decided to
go south on the other side of the outlet stream, I heard an inlet streaming gurgling
in from a grassy area on my side of the lake and decided to head that way. Turned out to be the right idea, but the
wrong inlet stream. I caught on avg
brookie while JB will have to write about his
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| JB's choice of inlets paid off big |
It grew windy and clouds increased.
I thought to fish the outlet stream and
did take a brookie there, but worried about Beth possibly stuck somewhere up
that rock face with weather building and with no sign of JB and Mar I decided
to bust it back to the lower lake. I
found Beth fresh of her accent and relaxing by the lake, no worse for the
wear. She'll have to write about her
escapades on the wall. We decided to
fish the creek back, taking our time, seems the climb had taken more out of her
that she wanted to admit, maybe she doesn't climb as effortlessly as she did in
her twenties when we first met on the north face of El Cap.
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| Hard to say goodbye to this |
We hit the same fabulous run we'd plumbed
on our way up stream, but this time our fly wasn't getting it done, they'd
either "learned today" or we weren't matching the hatch this
time. I tried a few different flies,
even clipping down a crimson bodied humpy to look like a midge, and only took a
a couple of trout. Don't think Beth took
any this go round. I fished the stream down,
enjoying the Rambling diversity of the runs.
Eventually we cam to the lower braided section, shallow and inviting and
toyed with bathing although a little skittish being so close to the trail. We soaked our feet and from a sitting
position I drifted a fly to my first and only cutthroat, measuring him against
my bare foot in the cool water.
Eventually JB and M showed up and although intermittently sunny and hot
and cool and cloudy, it didn't rain and we made it back to camp around
dusk. JB and M had dipped at the upper
lake and Beth and I decided to hit the outlet stream just below our camp. our tub was trail visible but we hustled and I
remembered and employed the Jordo Vinuk plunge where you got to push up
position in shallow water, worked great and the water was only 10 second cold,
better than the 5 second cold of the upper stream.
Another fire, more stars a new
neighbor of three who'd unknowing set up camp in what had been our latrine,
hope they didn't move a lot of rocks around.
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| The Crew already contemplating the next time |
The next day dawned with that miserable anticipation
of the end. Wile still in the wild and with
work to do its possible to stay in the moment, but the last day blues are right
on the edge after such a perfect trip. The back track up the pass was simple enough, sans a couple of rock slide crossings. We recruited at the pass with photo ops and bouldering the adjacent 20 foot outcroppings to view the panorama of the trails we'd hiked. We chatted up a nice young couple from Fort Collins and on the switch backs down- the ones that made Beth thankful we'd chosen the three forks/ middle popo agie route to the lakes, we met two other groups for who's lives we feared. A couple from Chicago, wearing little fans to keep the skeeters off their faces, a new 70lb Kelty pack with a broken strap and riding right on the good gentleman's shoulders and accompanied by two old couch dogs who's epitaph Beth pronounced as we left them,
"hear lie the chihuahua and the sharpie,
whose city slicking owners the wind river thought said dogs could slay
but alas all table scraps and ample double chins
cost them their lives on the slopes of the mighty Winds."
The second outfit was a young family we passed on the meadows, before nary a switch back. Three small kids with little packs and rods, hiking in sandals and the good natured dad already carrying lil sissy's back in his free hand. It may not end up on "I shouldn't be alive" but it could end up in divorce court. But maybe we're wrong, maybe they have the patience of Job and backs of the mule.
Our pace was slow as we savored the last few miles, it was only 7 miles or so down, but it took us a full 6 hours- what's the rush, right? Beth and I stopped at a small bridge of a small stream just past the the big meadow bridge and soaked our tired dogs and taped our tender toes one last time. We crossed the shallow roaring river just below roaring lake, exactly at a spot where I'd photoed Hondo in full waders casting to eager 4" brookies some 8 or 9 nine years ago. The final push to the truck was easy peasy and with in the hour we were bathing in the sink of _____ while our burgers, pizza and nachos were cooking and we toasted a successful maiden trip for the lasses and another notch in the belt of the Unguided.
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