We'll have pics in the next few days but the last leg of the journey is over. In the last ten days, we ended up fishing Salida, Cochetopa (second time this summer), Beaver Creek near South Fork, Steamboat area, Rocky Mountain National Park. It's late and we drove from RMNP this morning to Durango tonight so I might have forgotten one.
We paid for three nights camping at Timber Creek CG then another backpacking permit fee then another bit of money for the bears.
I didn't bring my good solid dependable backpack this summer and we decided during the summer to go in search of greenback cutthroats in the backcountry ---- so, I borrowed an inexpensive 4000 cu in pack I bought Amy a couple of years ago. Mac and I packed them with about 40+ pounds of stuff made heavier by the new regs of RMNP --- you must carry a bearproof canister and these things weigh about 5 pounds. We found the river and lake combo we wanted -- Lawn Lake on the Roaring River in the northern section of the park. Six miles of challenging trail, gaining 2500 feet elevation along the way. Tough but if it wasn't, everyone would be fishing Lawn Lake for big cutts.
A mile into the hike, a steep mile at that, the right shoulder strap popped off while I was just hiking, nothing else. We had to tie it to another strap so it fit even worse than it did at the start and that was nothing to brag about. Two miles later, a buckle buckled and I had no chest strap. Four hours from beginning, we made camp. We couldn't get Lawn Lake so we had to camp a mile southeast, at Tilestone Meadows, a mountain lion haven if there ever was one.
We left camp about 5 to fish Roaring River, a stream famous for it's 1982 flood as Lawn Lake's dam broke, flooding the river and it roared to another drainage then onto Estes Park. Two campers lost their lives in the catastrophe (where the river reached crazy heights of 40+ feet.) First cast, Mac caught a 10-inch greenback cutthroat trout, a thing of green and red beauty.
But more about all this adventure later.
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