we had the campsite reservation months in advance. Come June and it snowed a couple of feet the week before.. the snow fell on dry hot ground, then the winds blew over the sunny slopes, we decided to go anyway.
The campsite had thawed out,



DW (dear wife) took a nap while I went to see a stream about a fish.. the Big Thomson running high wide and cold.



The elk looked on critically as I failed to bring a fish up.



Last cast for the day into a recirculating eddy finally brought up a handsome little brown.



The rod was an impulse buy.. always wanted a Fenwick FF755 though not enough to pay the going price, usually $150 and up. This is the equivalent blank FFL90-5 for which paid $30 plus shipping, could not resist. It's not quite the way I would have built it - plan to remodel the handle and redo the guides, still havering on whether to do Snake brand guides or ceramics. For the moment it fishes well. Reel is my default 5wt CFO III now 43 years old. How'd that happen, I'm barely any older than that myself ..

Next day hiked up to Fern lake through the burns from last year. The burns are frightening, acres of dead black trees spiking the sky and clear evidence of flooding erosion on the slopes and gullies. The moose probably like all the nice fresh green growth on the newly opened forest floor. This guy (bottom L of picture) was resting next to the trail on the way up, I mean a foot or two off the trail. We had to hike up and around to avoid disturbing him.



Fern lake had plenty of snow and people including a few fisherfolk. One had packed up waders and was standing in the middle throwing and stripping in the fly to no useful effect. In years past I'd have joined him. These days I throw out a floating fly of some description and let the wind blow it around. This worked, repeatedly I'm happy to say. These are greenback cutts, though hybridized with the Colorado cutthroat rather than the pure strain. Good enough for me.







Tried again on the Big T in the evening. The day's sun had melted enough snow to raise the river by 6" or so and drop the temperature a few degrees, I didn't see or move a thing.

Next day a nice little walk up to Gem lake, fishless. The ground squirrels/chipmunks were the cheekiest I've ever seen, first trying for a sip of my beer then crawling into the daypack, "you guys got anything good in here ?"





Back down and out to unreal life on the plains..

Fun trip, and terrific pictures. Thanks.

Beautiful place and nice photo captions. That S curve section of The Thompson across the meadow looks like nirvana to me.

Very nice ........Aurelio

Thumbs Up!

Pretty cutthroats, looks like a good trip.

I remember Jannd, too; I have a few of their bike seat packs (for spare inner tubes and so on). I spent some time working in SB, shortly before moving to my current locale. Talk about scarce real estate ...

ha yes all my old gear.. my wife of 32 years says loyalty is one of my good points ;-)

indeed the Jandd pack was made in Santa Barbara, before they got swallowed up by some giant conglomerate corporation..

I have 3 pairs of Italian leather shoes, 2 of those are hiking boots.. these are Scarpa boots from the 90s, the midsoles have fossilized so the boots are hard as rock, still OK for dayhikes though.

Looks like a great time! Thanks for posting the story.

Nice pictures.. how'd the week go ?

Looks like a lot of fun!