Backpacking for Golden Trout in the Wind Rivers

Back in early January I had my annual performance review with my boss.  Part of the performance review includes setting both personal and business goals for the upcoming year.  One of my personal goals was to catch a golden trout.  I've dreamed about it for years, but after 5 trips had ended in failure, it was time to get serious.  So over the winter and early spring, I dreamed and researched.  Books, topo maps, the internet, and a few other sources all fueled the fire.  The best book I found for where to go is John Baughman's Most Complete Guide to Wyoming Fishing.  The best book I found for how to catch them is Flyfishing the Rocky Mountain Backcountry by Rich Osthoff.  With those two books and several topo maps, I finally narrowed my choices to two areas. 

 On a whim, I looked up Rich's Flyshop and called the number.  Rich answered and we had a great conversation. He dropped a tip about a lake that had 5 pound brook trout in it nearby one of the areas.  You don't see 5 lb brookies every day, so that settled it.  Destination set. 

I originally planned to be gone a week in late August, but my wife gave me an easy out.  She said I could go for half a week and not bring her or the kids.  I'd love to bring her, but hauling 2 kids under the age of 3 in addition to all our gear just didn't sound feasible.  If she came, the kids were coming.  When she offered the concession, I jumped on it and called a buddy and after consulting the weather forecast, set the date for July 23-25. 

We drove up Sunday night, with plans to camp at the trailhead and bust in there the next morning.  Signs telling us "No Camping" changed our plans, so we shouldered our packs and hiked in a mile or so to find a campsite.  The next morning we woke up and continued our hike.  The trail was pretty good except for a portion along a gnarly 4-wheel drive road.  

We got to a big lake, took a break, then continued on.  I thought the rotting wood portion of the old dam looked pretty cool.  Through this portion of the hike, we saw several small herds of elk, which spooked as soon as they saw us. 

We hiked on and reached the lower end of our destination lake.  Beautiful!  I couldn't help but think about how the water from this lake flowed to the Atlantic ocean and Gulf of Mexico since we were on the east side of the Continental Divide.  We hiked to the inlet, scouted around a little bit, and found a nice little campsite.  We hurridly set up camp, strung up our fishing poles, then hit the water to catch some fish. 

The first 20 or so fish I caught were brook trout, but then I landed one that wasn't as dark.  Golden Trout.  Success!  My first ever!  It wasn't very big or very bright, but it was a golden!  It was the first of several dozen that I would end up catching in the 3 days we were there. 

We spent the rest of the day fishing the stream above the lower lake.  The higher we got, the brookie numbers declined until all we were catching were golden trout. 

What a beautiful area!  Not as beautiful as some areas in the Northern Winds, but beautiful nonetheless.  Most of the fish preferred royal wulffs on the surface, or a copper john nymph as a dropper.  By the second day, we were looking for other flies to temp the fish with, but we couldn't find others that did the job as well. 

We got to the upper lake and caught a few larger fish.  Goldens as well, but not completely pure.  The guys at the Wyoming Fish & Game said these ones were 98% pure, with the remaining 2% being rainbow.  They weren't as colorful as the stream fish, but they were hard fighters, diving to the depths, the rocketing to the surface for some fantastic jumps.  We fished until nearly dark, then high-tailed it back to camp for dinner and our sleeping bags. 

Tuesday morning, we woke up and after an oatmeal breakfast, we hiked out to look for the big brookies.  We got up to the lake and were nearly blown away by the strong wind.  A half-hour of attempted fishing in the face of strong winds resulted in nothing and there was more winds and storm clouds rolling in.  We turned around and hiked back toward camp. 

Once out of the wind we hiked around, soaking in the beauty, and  continued fishing.  A rainstorm rolled in and it rained pretty heavily for half an hour or so, but blue skies came again. 

I really liked this picture.  The Wind Rivers are beautiful! 

I  had to post a few more pictures of the golden trout from the streams.  So colorful!  Some of them still had their parr marks, like the one above.  Others, like the one below, didn't have them anymore.  Their reputation as the prettiest trout seems well reasoned to me. 

Wednesday morning I woke up, had a quick breakfast, then spend a few hours catching golden trout.  Three days of golden trout.  I think that I'm the one hooked!

We broke camp, loaded our packs, then headed down the trail.  We stopped along the way and fished a few lakes and streams.  My friend caught 30 fish in half an hour at one spot.  It was pretty amazing.  I was trying to catch 2 at once, but couldn't land both. 

Farewell Winds!  I shall return!

Nearest City: South Pass, WY
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: More- always more!
Difficulty: Strenuous
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Quest for Golden Trout in the Uintas

The second weekend in June, we headed up to the Uintas to attempt to catch the rarest trout in Utah.  Golden Trout are also rumored to be the prettiest trout out there.  I've had them on my list for probably 10 years now, but something always comes up- as if there is a conspiracy to prevent me from realizing my dream.  I've been to the Wind River Mountains several times, but each time something has happened to steer me away from the hallowed waters where goldens dwell.  The most comical, glaring, extreme (searching for the right word here) example was a few years ago the road to the Dickinson Park trailhead, which crosses the reservation, was closed because someone had ticked off one of the reservation dwellers.  We couldn't do anything about it other than change our plans.  We had a beautiful trip to the Cirque of the Towers, but were kept out of anywhere near a golden lake.   

We headed up to the Uintas on Friday night, camped over, then met with some friends in the morning who also had a golden hex to defeat.  With the low snow year, and timing for shortly after ice out, we hoped to tilt the odds in our favor.  There are only two lakes in Utah with golden trout.  One is an 18 or so mile backpacking trip, the other lake is accessible via a 4 wheel drive road that gets a little gnarly.  We planned on the drive, but knew that brook trout outnumber the goldens by about 1000:1.   Maybe our timing could help even the odds. 

We found the lake and had a great time fishing around it.  There were a lot of smallish brook trout, but the goldens proved elusive.  We didn't see anything in the small streams that feed it.  The north side of the lake was also slow.  The south and east sides had the best fishing but the fishing was cyclical- sometimes it was really hot, but then the bite would die down.  We kept several of the pretty little brookies and cooked them for lunch.  If we couldn't catch a golden, at least trimming down the brookie population and enjoying a good lunch would be of benefit. 

 The brookies tasted incredible!  I filleted them, then fried them in butter with a sprinkling of garlic salt and some onion powder.  It's the best way to cook high-country trout.  Too bad they were so small. 

Toward the end of the day, I saw a fish that definitely was not a brookie.  Golden!  Things got even better when I coaxed him to inhale my fly.  Fish on!  Two flips and he was off.  I don't know what's worse- not having a golden trout on, or hooking one and watching it flip off.  I was successful in hooking two goldens, but both times they threw the hook.  There's nothing quite like turning gold into lead.  I'm the one that was hooked even more deeply- I will catch a golden trout one of these days!  I think I prefer having hooked a golden trout and watching it flip off to not even having one hit.  At least it's closer to realizing my dream.

If catching golden trout was the sign of a successful day, my day ended in failure.  But I wasn't the only one there.  My friend hit a jackpot and landed a nice 8 or 9 incher.  You can see the golden trout he caught on his flickr page.  Congratulations deadeye008!

Nearest City: Kamas, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: all day
Difficulty: Difficult
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The Burr Trail - or The Most Expensive Trip Yet

After hiking Headquarters Canyon, and having a quick lunch at the Muley Twist Trailhead, we continued on.  The plan was to drive the Burr Trail to Boulder, then either hike to Calf Creek Falls or drive the Devils Backbone Road, or something else.  As fate would have it, we ended up doing something else that was entirely unplanned. 

A little background- our car has had a little problem for the past 3-4 years.  It burns oil. There's nothing on the ground, but sometimes after a longer drive, it would leave a nice thick plume billowing out the tail pipe for the first little while after starting it up again.  We'd had it looked at with no luck, and other then burning oil, it hadn't had other problems.  It even passed emissions tests.  So, I kept an eye on the oil level, and kept driving it.  Finishing up graduate school was more of a priority then chasing a ghost somewhere in my car's engine. 

At some point, the deferred maintenance catches up to you. Our point was driving up the switchbacks on the Capitol Reef end of the Burr Trail. We lost some power and the "Check Engine" light started flashing.  Oops!  We were glad my brother-in-law was driving right behind us. I wasn't going to stop on the slope, so we pushed up to the top, found a parking area, then looked over everything and couldn't see anything wrong.  I wasn't going to wait out there for a towtruck, so we limped on to Boulder, in hopes of finding a mechanic there.  The Burr Trail was really pretty, but I was more concerned about the car then looking at scenery.  We got a few pictures of Peek-A-Boo Arch above the switchbacks, but that's it. 

We made it to Boulder.  No mechanic.  They do have one in Escalante.  Not wanting to go further from home, and seeing that we'd made it as far as we already had, we opted to drive over Boulder Mountain to Torrey, in hopes that there would be a mechanic there.  As it ended up, we found a mechanic in Bicknell who looked the car over, said he couldn't fix our car (we pulled in a little after 5 on a Friday and they close at 6 for the weekend), but after looking over it, he said we'd be able to make it home alright, but there was a misfire in one of the cylinders.  We made it home, dropped the car off at the mechanic, and picked it up last week.  The car's all better, but now my wallet hurts. 

Nearest City: Boulder, UT
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Time Needed: 45 minutes-1 hour +
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
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Headquarters Canyon

We spent the Friday of our vacation at Headquarters Canyon.  Since it's in the far south area of Capitol Reef, it took a while driving to get there.  We drove through the park, then down the Notom Road.  As we drove, we noticed a few construction vehicles turn off at the Fremont River Falls area.  Apparently the falls are now shut down indefinitely. 

It's a pretty drive, but I had to wonder why the section of the road in the park was the section of the road that was worst maintained.  The drive on the east side of the Waterpocket Fold was really pretty and remote.  We made it to the trailhead after about 30 miles of dirt roads, and had it to ourselves.  We loaded up, then started hiking.

Along the way, as we walked through an area where the water has eroded a small ledge, a dove quickly flew up and away.  It appeared to me a defensive distracting measure that mother birds often do to distract predators from their young.  Of course we looked and found the nest!  There were two young doves sitting on a small shelf.  We approached, took a few pictures, then left them otherwise undisturbed. 

Around a turn or two, of the wash, the canyon slotted up really quickly.  The kids really liked the narrows, but I found them a little bit short.  We played around and practiced stemming for a while before looking further up the canyon.  The canyon opens up, and while remaining narrow, is no longer a slot canyon.  We walked up it for a while before deciding that the best part was behind us. 

We turned around, then headed back to the slot for more monkeying around.  We played for a while, but the wind picked up sand as it passed through the slot, so we decided it best to head back to the cars for lunch.

Nearest City: Boulder, UT
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 2-3 hours
Difficulty: Generally easy. 
Kid Friendly: Kindof
Additional Info:  Bring your own water.  If you break down, don't count on your cell phone working, or other people coming along frequently. 

Red Canyon

Driving back from Bryce, we stopped in Red Canyon. The red rocks here are firey! We hiked up to a small arch, and caught a lizard.

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Bryce Canyon National Park

The Mossy Cave Trail.

Fairyland Point.

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Willis Creek and Bull Valley Gorge

Willis Creek and Bull Valley Gorge are two slot canyons in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument of Southern Utah. They are fairly accessible slot canyons, located a few miles south of Cannonville.

Willis Creek is the most known of the two. It has a large parking lot, is family friendly, and has some sculpted narrows, and follows a creek. I enjoyed the hike, but the narrow sections were fairly short- interrupted by wider areas. There were also people on horseback that rode through in several groups.

A mile further down the Skutumpah Road is Bull Valley Gorge.

BVG is a lot narrower and deeper, and is without the crowds and water that Willis Creek has.
I think it's definitely more awesome. Several points had logs we had to downclimb.

The old jeep lodged in the slot, just below the road is definitely cool!

I didn't have as much time at Bull Valley Gorge as I would have liked to have. I'll definitely be back!

Nearest City:
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Time Needed: Several hours
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Kid Friendly: Willis Creek, Yes. Bull Valley Gorge, older kids.
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The Waterfalls of Panguitch Lake

Right below Panguitch Lake are 3 waterfalls. They're all accessible from 4-wheeler trails that go off of the main road north of the lake. You can see the first waterfall from the road, but not the other two.

The first waterfall.

The second waterfall

The last and biggest waterfall.

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Mammoth Cave Lava Tube

A dozen miles or so south of Panguitch Lake is the Mammoth Cave Lava Tube. The tube is about 1/4 mile long, and can be explored from end to end. Bring some flashlights and watch your head!

The entrance is mostly barred off, but has a few bars purposely left off to allow people access. This is great fun for average sized people and kids. If you're large in stature, you might not make it through.


Once inside, you can explore the cave. Be sure to watch your head, and to be mindful of where you put your feet as well.

We got a little muddy!

Nearest City: Hatch, UT; Duck Creek Village, UT.
GPS Coordinates: N 37° 34.103 W 112° 35.275
Time Needed: 30 minutes to explore
Difficulty: Moderate
Kid Friendly: For some.
Additional Info: Exploring the tube requires some squeezing through small spaces. Not recommended for the claustrophobic! Banging your head or shin is pretty easy to do in there. You may be crawling through mud. Some people may want a jacket inside to cave.