High Country Winter Wonderland

I met a fly guy through work who expressed interest in hitting a high lake with me. Since it rained during the end of the week in Boulder I expected a little bit of snow up high. I didn't expect snow drifts over a foot high. If I hadn't been up there before I would have been totally lost due to the snow covering the path.

Vaughn trudging through the snow and probably wondering why he is following this psycho through this place.


Breaking trail turned out to be just as exhausting as it ever was. I'm not gonna lie though, I enjoyed it. The air was super crisp and a perfect temperature for hiking.

Got to the lake and photographed some fish porn laying near the bank. The boils on its stomach is rotting flesh.


The fishing at the lake lacked. The water was glass with no hatches to speak of. Lots of small to medium trout sunning in 4 inches of water that would bolt if you farted within 60 feet of them. The water would boil with chain reaction spooks, very frustrating.

We both got broiled by the sun/snow. Should have worn my snowboard goggles.

Very beautiful scenery though.



I like to constantly stalk around the bank in search of trout when I fish high lakes. The deep snow really made that harder and way more exhausting.

The snow combined with the poor fishing made for an easy decision to pack out of there. Vaughn had a place in mind to go catch some kokanee salmon to shake the skunk.

We hike down down down and get back to the truck and drive drive drive to get into some kokes. He caught 3 nice ones with about 4 misses, and I just stunk it up with the ole' skunk. I even copied his rig... then stole his spot... then used his rod/rig in his spot, but nothin!

Didn't take any pictures of the kokes because I was bitter. It was a 16 hour day. I crashed hard when I got home.