My big bro Brown and I 1st hit Angry James for some pops and live tunes on Wed after his arrival to the Lodge and my 'freedom' from not receiving the camper replacement faucet via FedEx. Hey, who else notices that FedEx info systems now often mis-predict ~ weird at one point they were the best and now, for me, they are the worst. Whatever. We met a local artist that night, he sang a ton of covers, capably, and one original while we were there... AJ's beer was good. Bro Brown's music training continued that eve on The NestMT, after separate dinner plans. A strong start to the WE.
We rested decently and headed out to tackle the climb to (effectively) the Pacific Crest in the 10 Mile Range ~ ok, the base of that. Yeah... the uppermost Mohawk Lks via Spruce Ck trail; this is just over the ridgeline from another fav hike, Mayflower Gulch hike. Anyway... I drove the Crusher Too up the gnarly 4WD road from Blue River to a spot 300 yds below prior capable scaling... the forest service has now blocked the road for the final climb, which is likely a favored stop for Kala, who didn't like that last part "at all."
We donned our fishing and hiking gear and set out ~ literally just 300 yds from the TH we used to set out on prior. One other car was there but just two others as well on return. It is still not easy and bro Brown was pleased the Crusher Too was on point this day. Completely GR8 8mi/1600ft hike today in fab weather. I gave some meager instruction to less aware fishermen today (Steve asked 'why' but I say 'why not' ~ they heeded despite their lame plan and caught up to us on the way back pre-storm: "go deep I said." Steve & I passed snowfields and awesome waterfalls quickly and often: "do you wanna glissade?;" "he might be dead (DD/GL circa some yrs prior)."
There were a decent # of folks on the climb, but not past Mohawk #3, except finally "my guys" on instruction to 'go deep.' Steve saw them. It is not easy but it is gorgeous. The flowers are out right now... lower down we even saw some columbine, rare on this approach to alpine.
The eastern slope of the 10 Mile Range holds Breck skiing, which we love, especially in spring, and is otherwise gorgeous. We were right in it and we knew it. Here's a "super-pan" coming upon Mohawk #6...
We skipped the randy spawning cuts in the outlet sections of 6 & 7 as we leave them to replicate for future generations. The nature show was completely cool though. Steve nabbed some nice Colorado cuttys from the steep (non-spawning) side of the inlet to #6 and I scored plenty in the same area as well as from lake #7 above. The completely weird CO Fish & Game question is, "why is everything now CO cutty and not greenback" as several years prior? At this elevation, it might be winterkill... size is suspicious. Yet, arrival was very cool, as some mouth-breathing 70yr olds kicked everybody's asses up the trail and on the lakes. This was a very cool hike ~ we needed to eat on occasion to keep strength but mine still waned... snow was still everywhere. Our fishing was never suspect. I used the Rodfather PowerPack 6pc 9ft 5wt built for casting beyond the littoral plane on the alpine lakes... tiny parachute Adam's or Griffith's gnats were the ticket.
Once back down the trail and the rugged 4WD "road" we stopped at Broken Compass for a celebratory ColoRADbro. The vibe there was cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.