Lucky for him, he didn't know what he was getting himself into, this trip pushes the limits on a day hike/fishing trip from Salt Lake City to the Uinta Mountains with out staying the night. If he had known the terrain like I did, he might have said no. But I am glad he came, it is best to share the outdoors with friends and family than by oneself. This was one of the more memorable ones for me, and a trip I won't soon forget.
There aren't many things I get up at 4am for, I am not a morning person, never have been. But for a fishing trip, 4am isn't too bad. Mike and I met up in Park City and heading towards our destination.
3 hours later we reached the trail head and started our hike. It's pretty much up hill the entire way to the lake. But that's not the worst of it. About half way, we need to leave the trail and go cross country. There is no trail to this lake. If you have ever been the Uinta Mountains, going off the trail is daunting, there is so much dead fall from fallen trees. It's impossible to walk in a straight line, and the log hopping fatigues the body quickly. Combined with the uphill, the going is very slow.
After 3.5 exhausting hours we reached our destination. It was noon and we had roughly 4 hours to catch as many fish as we could before we had to head out to beat the sunset back to our vehicle. We quickly rigged up our rods. Mike went with an olive crystal nymph and I went with a black dry fly hoping to get some on top.
After Mike had landed his 12th Grayling to my 0 Grayling, I decided it was time to switch up. I rigged up my Echo and put on my yellow/gold/orange UV nymph. It did well up here last year, and does at pretty much any other Uinta lake. This year was no different. I immediately starting getting into fish. I did try that leech pattern I tied up the day before with no luck. They wanted to the nymphs.
The fishing was red hot for the first two hours. Mike and I both were bringing them in every 2 or three casts. It really doesn't get any better than this. We landed a few fish in the 16" range, but no big one yet (well none of the BIG, Grayling. I will take 16" Graylings all day long haha).
I waded out to a shelf where most of the fish were holding and started to work the area. I landed a half dozen fish or so. The next fish hit my fly pretty hard and felt bigger than the others. I pulled it in and it appeared to be one of those slabs that resides in this lake. And it was. It was a BRUTE, not only did it measure to 18", it was thick. This sort of fish makes all the effort coming out to an area like this worth it. I was very satisfied. We took a few pics and let it go.
It was starting to get late so Mike and I reluctantly decided it was time to head out. We started to make our way around the lake when we walked up onto some gear. Two camouflage bags, an empty canteen, 3 sleeping mats still rolled up lying on the ground, a box for a tent that was no where to be seen, a box of matches and a box full of Bear Load rounds...
Well, this was a head scratcher. The gear was wet, from the rain that had fallen the night before so it had been here at least 24 hours since it hadn't rained today. Where were the owners? We hadn't seen or heard any evidence of any other people up here including tracks. This kind of gave us the willies. Who leaves gear like this, especially an expensive box of rounds? The bags were pretty much empty other than a few clothes and other odds and ends. It's as if it was abandoned. We looked around to see if we could see anyone and couldn't, after awhile we decided to leave it and move on.
We got to the other side of the lake and headed back down the stream where we came from. About a mile from the gear we found, we found more gear that we had missed on the way up. This time it was 2 big sleeping bags still rolled up, what appeared to be 3 tents still wrapped up in the stuff sacks as if they had never been taken out before ie straight out of that box we found earlier, a big pack of AA batteries, a hatchet and a half dozen unspent 357 rounds on the ground...
Like the first set of gear it was wet and seemed to have been up there for at least a full day. This gear really gave us the creeps. Both Mike and I had some crazy scenarios going through our heads. I mean we either expected to roll up on some dead bodies or be shot.
Basically there were some people who completely bugged out for what ever reason and left a lot of gear up there or they are lost and stranded somewhere and were unable to get back to their gear. There wasn't really much we could do at this point so we continued on our hike.
We chatted a bit about this whole thing and we were a bit on edge for awhile. But as we walked on, the tension eased up a bit. Being all alone in the middle of nowhere is pure bliss, until you come across something like that. Than your imagination kind of gets the best of you.
3.5 hours later with 1 hour of sunlight left, we make it back to the Pathfinder. Mike and I were completely exhausted and couldn't wait to get off our feet. All in all, it was a great trip.
I did call into the ranger station the next day to report what we had found. They found it very odd and a bit concerning as well. They actually had someone going up in that area already so they were going to check it out. Hope nothing comes of it and it's just abandoned gear.
Photo by Mike
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Photo by Mike
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Photo by Mike
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Photo by Mike
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Photo by Mike
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Photo by Mike
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great trip scott. you wrote a novel compared to me. i just got done mapping out the other lake we had talked about
ReplyDeleteAwesome, can't wait to get up there.
ReplyDelete