Memories of the West

"There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm."

President Theodore Roosevelt

My wife and I have a love affair with the West.  When we met, one of our first conversations was about the antique Colorado license plate that I had on the front of my truck.  She learned that I loved to fly fish in an area that she and her family loved to hunt elk.  Needless to say, when I found a drop dead gorgeous girl who had taken an elk with her bow and shared my love of the outdoors and my faith and values, it wasn’t long before I asked her to marry me.

We honeymooned in Yellowstone.  The first night of our trip, we stayed in Red Lodge, Montana with plans to cross the Beartooth pass into the northeast corner of the park the next day.  That night, we got almost 10 inches of snow and the Beartooth was closed.  While she packed, I scraped the snow from the hood of our rented SUV.  Somehow, during the clearing of the windshield, my brand new wedding ring slipped, unnoticed, off of my frozen fingers.  I didn’t realize it until we were miles down the road.  Of course, I turned right around and went back to where we had been parked and began sifting through the snow.  Realizing the futility of the search, I crossed the street to an inn and asked for a bucket of water.  I went back and melted the snow with warm water and there was my ring!

We had a magical time in Yellowstone that week.  Early October meant that the crowds of summer were long gone and we had the park virtually to ourselves.  We were treated to a version of the park that most visitors don’t see.  Fewer park visitors meant empty roads and uninhibited access to all the wonders of Yellowstone.  This trip was so special, I knew that our first trip into the West would not be our last.

I had visited some pretty special places in the West in my quest for trout, so with a couple years of marriage and several camping trips into our local national park, the Great Smokey Mountains, we began to plan another western trip.

We wanted to camp in primitive campsites and do some fly fishing and I had a couple places in mind that might serve as a backdrop to making some lifelong memories.  We packed our car on the 4th of July and in the early morning hours, with fireworks still echoing off the mountains, we headed west.

Our first destination was New Fork Lake in the Bridger-Teton National Forest northeast of Pinedale, Wyoming.  I had camped here a few years prior with some fishing buddies and the beauty and relative isolation of the place made an impression on me.  We would be car-camping, but just because there’s a road to somewhere, doesn’t mean it necessarily has to be crowded.  We had the campground and the fishing almost to ourselves.

I had packed our float tubes for some lake fishing and New Fork lake offered us the opportunity for rainbows, brookies and lake trout.  After establishing our camp, we inflated the tubes and started trolling baitfish imitations in the deep, cold water.  My wife supplied us with dinner that night; a large rainbow that she hooked deep and we cooked over the coals.

Not content to lazily kick around in float tubes all week, we headed out into the Green River valley.  The Green was still flowing high and off color from snow melt, so we consulted a map, picked a tributary appropriately called Fish Creek and headed upstream.  Amanda caught her first trout on a fly rod in this creek.  The water was very cold and swift, so I tied on a nymph rig with an indicator and she commenced to clean the creek out of 8 inch brookies.

The thin air at almost 8,000 feet and total absence of light pollution made for some of the best stargazing skies I’ve ever seen.  Nights were cold and we enjoyed each other’s warmth around the campfire.  Days were sunny but cool and the wildlife and wildflowers were abundant.

Fishing can be hard work.  Sometimes it's nice to slow down and just relax.

After a few days at New Fork, we turned south for warmer weather in Colorado.  We headed to one of my favorite camping destinations, Trappers Lake in the Flattops Wilderness of northwestern Colorado.

I visited Trappers Lake on my very first trip to the West.  The man that taught me to fly fish had told me stories about the place, and when I first planned a trip out west, it was naturally on my list.  It has a special place in my heart, so of course I wanted my bride to experience it with me.

The area around Trappers Lake had been burned almost a decade before when a large wildfire swept through.  Thousands of acres of already dead pines, victims of the pine beetle infestation, provided dry tinder for a massive blaze.  But fire is a natural part of the life cycle of a forest ecosystem and Mother Nature quickly fills in the void left by fire.  Soil left bare and covered in ashes quickly gives nourishment to an abundance of wildflowers.

Trappers Lake is home to the largest wild population of Colorado River Cutthroats in the world.  Fishing in the lake itself is best experienced from a float tube, either trolling baitfish or leech patterns or by sight fishing to trout cruising the shallows.  In an effort to protect spawning grounds, fishing in the tributaries of the lake is prohibited within a half mile of the lake.  But fishing above the half mile mark can be amazing.   Small water doesn't always equal small fish.

Amanda's first ever cutthroat was one to remember, a 17 inch Colorado River cutt in spawning colors.

After spending half the day fishing the small, tumbling waters of the tributary, we found it hard not to take a break and just enjoy the scenery.  The meadows, once scorched by fire were now so vibrant with color, neither words nor pictures can accurately convey the scene.

This trip will forever hold a special place in our hearts.  We got to do what we love with the person we love the most.  I was thrilled that my wife got to experience some of what makes the West so special to me.  Unbeknownst to me, she had been hiding a secret from me for most of the trip.  On our last night in camp, she told me that she was pretty sure she was pregnant with our first child.

This trip made such a lasting impression, we’re planning on taking our children and retracing our footsteps this summer.