Septugenarians Scale Mohawk Lks' Ramparts & More ~ Cool Colorado Cuts On A GR8 Day In The 10 Mile Range 18Jul24

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.

Roaring Fk Fail 14Jul24 & Fix 19Jul24 And Recon Gore Ck 17Jul24

I pulled into the Gateway RV Park in Carbondale on Sun without issue. I filled the BC20X with their water and turned on the pump; I finally noticed that the inside faucet had failed and was leaking all over everything in that cabinet... grrr. After turning off the pump and cleaning everything up I set out to fix the faucet. Unfortunately it's a cheapy and could not be repaired effectively in the field, and really needed to be replaced. I decided to blow the whole thing off and drag the camper back to the Nest to buy, receive, and make repairs. No sticking the Pan pigs on this outing. Camping without water was not gonna be good. The RV park was fine but right on CO 83, so loud. It was almost right on the Roaring Fk too though. Still prefer higher near Aspen at Difficult CG when in this river drainage.

I was bummed and basically am waiting for an upgraded replacement faucet to arrive. That did allow me to binge Stitchers, a decent sci-fi show.

The new faucet did not arrive today via FedEx as expected. I got a folding faucet as needed but went all metal vs the plastic original one. Hopefully tomorrow for receipt and install. Next week is Conejos camping & fishing so I need it fixed.

FedEx delivered faucet the next day and I spent Fri morning installing and testing. Is it bad I had parts leftover? It's all good - in plenty of time for Mogote CG.

Gore Ck is still running pretty high at 127cfs today. I jumped Vail Pass to Eagle Co to recon Gore Ck for possibly fishing it later with Bob. Hmmm... I did catch fish in each of my three standard sections there: the mouth, the west Vail, and the dawg park but the fish weren't big. The main issue is that the creek is still running fast, making wading a bit dicey. I didn't see other fishermen. I caught mostly 12" Scottish browns but did get one 14" rainbow and one German brown. I rigged with a summer Chubby up top, green wired up ice caddis and black DCEZWD40. Subsurface did most of the work with the caddis the main bug though all flies scored. The fish are not spread across the creek yet ~ most of my catches were closer to the edges, with the flows still high & fast. I wielded the Rodfather Brookie 9ft 3wt which was sporting a new trimmed down fighting butt I recently made; it's cool but the length makes it just a bit heavier in the hand than my other 3wts. The RFT3 is awaiting a new warranty section rebuild.

Jason Isbell & 400 Unit Concert ~ Party With Yoho & Bordelons 12Jul24-13Jul24

Kala & I enjoyed a GR8 concert with Brock & Anna and Jim at the Dillon Amp Friday. It was a gorgeous eve but was hot before, in the sun, and chilly after, at night. We dined at Bistro North during the excellent happy hour there; 241 tinis & appys, which the team enjoyed, but I was driving, so dry. We are Dillon Marina slip lessees so get excellent preferred parking, even for concerts. We joined the queue for the GA entry with all our nosh, binoculars, blankets, and chairs about 4:45pm with gates @ 5:30pm. It was nearly clockwork on this eve but we were aced from position A in front of the sound man even with our decent entry time... many chose early VIP entry. NP, we sat center stage just in the grass, staking our rightful spot with all our gear (as do all here when unleashed). It was a great spot and a great concert. Sorry Kala; staring into the sun I seemed to have cut you out of the team selfie pic.

First up was country act Adeem The Artist. Meh.

After a set change Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit began quickly from 8pm, "24 Frames" (1st Grammy) was 2nd song. The sound and the band were very good.

The Dillon Amp was rebuilt several years ago (which the muni is still working off) and features an awesome new $800K sound system worthy of the spot. Several guitar changes were managed and soon many were on acoustic instruments. 2nd Grammy "If We Were Vampires" was played with many other great Isbell songs like "When We Were Close," and others.

They played an excellent 70 minute set and then a 3 song encore for another 12 min. The "Cast Iron Skillet" was in the finale, his 3rd Grammy song just this year. We packed up and headed to the car but traffic was bad and it took us 30 minutes to get out of Dillon. NP really, we rallied at the Nest and enjoyed some nice wines and nosh before bedtime. We all thought the concert was excellent.

In the Sat AM we enjoyed breakfast of Dave's Eggs and some tasty citrus blueberry cake before heading out to Sapphire Pt for a brief hike. On the way we passed the competitors of the Triple Bypass race tooling up Swan Mtn without issue. The views were nice of Summit over the Dillon Rez. We stopped in Frisco after the hike to introduce Bordelons to ORB; always good. We closed out with an audit of the NestMT and Brock easily "stumped my catalog" in naming 5 songs I did not own... good times.

Thanks for coming out Anna, Brock, and Jim!

Jim & Dave On Bill's ~ Nice, Strong Browns 11Jul24

Jim chose the Williams Fk over hiking to Mohawk so we headed up north to Grand County... It's Jim's first time to fish tiny tailwater; flows were a strong 180cfs We weren't the only ones choosing this river... there were lots of cars and lots of fishermen on the river, even down toward the confluence with the Colorado. Unfortunately Jim snagged and lost the tip section of his rod on the final down hike section to the river ~ tried as he did to fish without it he ultimately made the trek back to the car to replace the rod. He was back in a <2 hours and we actually met up about halfway up the river. We saw lots of bug sign including red quills, BWOs and ultimately huge grey drakes. Jim caught some 14"-16" browns on a red copper john (likely during the red quill hatch) and I caught quite a few fish 14"- 18", all of them nice & strong. The small browns from the last several years have grown well. My first fish though was a very big holdover rainbow that unfortunately took the chubby hard, and my whole rig with it. I was pushing use of the leader and it broke at the knot to the 1st tippet ~ after the incidence, I replaced it, and landed the rest. The Rodfathery Cutty 4wt worked great.  No more holdovers for the day but plenty of nice browns with 60% on the UV chubby (worked very well during the drake hatch), 20% on the weighted rainbow warrior (reasonable PMD), and 20% on BHFBPT. With Jim hiking back to the car I neglected to get our team selfie and didn't get my selfie either. They would have been cool as Jim wet-wated and I went with Chota hip waders (bad choice as I danced on the slick rocks just wearing my ultralight boots). I did get pics of most of the fish (but won't show them all) and ran out of battery on the GoPro. As usual on the Williams Fk, there were plenty of mosquitos, but I had deet for us.

I did get the pic of one brown eating a nearby fisherman.

We had a good time and then picked up Kala for an evening at Cove & Craft for Last Chance Pizza and some brews.

July Music Appreciation ~ Just Some Recent Streams 06Jul24

Eline liked my Blodgett headphone kit and now understands the value of external DAC/AMP setups and good headphones. I made some time to listen to some recent releases for July's Music Appreciation. Right after we captured the king in Kubb, an old nordic game of skulls & femurs. Yeah I'm getting the BC20X ready for summer fish-camp outings ~ so there's riveted aluminum in the background.

Sierra Hull “Best Buy” In Manchester, VT 16Jun24 or Sarah Hull In Manchester, VT “ What Do You Say” 16Jun24 ~ Enough said, she’s got every show covered ; how can you work that hard… she’s very cool and accomplished. I love the speed.

Sarah Jurroz “Runaway Train” @ Boulder Theater 16Apr24 ~ Goodness she’s bridged hard to driving country here. And there's still a "mandolin." Very good.

Otnes on Audiotree Live Various 02Apr24 ~ U Illinois to Nashville … cool. 

Ratboys @ WXPN/Philly 09May24 ~ Chicago has it goin’ on. 

Lindsay Lou Roll With Me Baby @ Real Music 26Jun24 ~ Smoking’ good; you’ll get there. Don’t drop the guitar even though your voice alone could take you there. I’ve seen a number of live shows and Lindsay Lou is the real deal… this is really good. 

Knopfler & Emmylou Real Live Roadrunning 20Mar24 ~ Welcome to 90 min of "lost" tape from the killer album… this whole roll is classic… listen through. 

Alainis Morissette Various Live @ The Woodlands 17Jun24 ~ Despite mic cable fails, this is a throwback to killer writing performed by an original is way worth it as she re-emerges.

HARD SHIFT TO CLASSIC FOLK...

Queen Bonobo Becoming OV 20Jun24 ~ The breakneck in time to empires lost is spectacular as is art performance here.

Old Folks @ Stillhouse Sessions @ Crooked Tune Distillery in NSW 23Jun24 ~ My fav today is the interpretation of the fast/past - so good I just start you out but listen to each lead as they present. An old guy on mandolin & chords from harmonium are cool. From down under.

Littler Fling Swing & Turn Jubilee 12Jun24 ~ Gets after history on a Sleeper Cave session.

Skitch On ~ Riding With Kala And Party In The USA 03Jul24-04Jul24

Whoa we got out again where Kala confidently ripped the Skitch. She admits it's a fun game changer.

We walked around in the afternoon and saw ~10 turkeys in the 'hood. We've seen them before but it is weird every time.

We were graced with an M&E visit today to sort through a 14er climb plan and needed gear. We dined  @ Il Vicino and then the kids scored some cool needed stuff at REI. In the PM Kala & I threw an Independence Day get together in COS. There was fine nosh and totties and a rousing game of Kubb... won by the boys. Happy USA day.