Final Stashes & First Tunnels Try On SPlatte 19May23

Breck announced it's closing this WE so I headed to Summit and over to Breck a couple times for some spring skiing in the alpine. I got to lap Whale's Tail last time (just a pic of the run above me) but today Imperial was closed and I could not get there. I skied the Peak 7 bowls and Pk 6 today ~ it was fine but Breck made the right decision to close. On one run I was on a narrow ribbon of snow for 1/4 mile. I skied in shorts today ~ I love the spring skiing in Colorado.

After several runs on the cool stuff that was still open, I loaded into the car and headed to COS "the back way" so I'd pass Tomahawk on the Middle Fk of the S Platte and the 11 Mile Canyon section of the S Platte. There was snow & sleet over Hoosier Pass and South Park was pretty rainy so I passed right by Tomahawk ~ the rain subsided closer to Lake George so I turned up to give 11 Mile a try. I haven't yet this season fished "the tunnels section" of the river and with arrival late at 2pm, I stopped there. I caught gobs of fish in a brief outing but as expected there were more browns and all the fish were 14'-17" vs the larger ones closer to the damn. Flows had dropped a smidge but still >100cfs and the weather was overcast, and then turned to rain. As I arrived a great BWO spinner fall was occurring but I don't often fish those and went deep nymphing with a mayfly rig. The Perdigon lead fly caught 60% of the fish! It was a blast with the RFT3 and I made a full pass in ~2hrs with ~20 fish. I am sporting new Simms G3 waders, which supposedly are more rugged; they are a nicer fit than the Patagonia (which do not leak but are now backups) but they need to prove mettle.