By Tom Cross-
With the uncertainty of the current plague, the trip out west to see our son and his family seemed distant at best. But with travel restrictions easing up in June the possibility of a trip to Utah begin to take shape. The one mandate I had was a side trip to Utah’s Green River, easily one of the top five trout river in the U.S., and besides what’s a trip out west without some trout fishing thrown in? It isn’t always the scenery that draws us out there; in this case it was family.
We arrived in Eden, Utah just before the Fourth of July and watched a dazzling display of fireworks from the back deck of our youngest son’s house. By the following Monday we were already in route to Utah’s Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the Uinta Mountains. All I knew about the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam was what I had read. I picked up a map at a fly shop in the little mountain village of Dutch John and headed to Little Hole on the Green River which was about eight river miles from the dam. On the road to Little Hole was the US Forest Service Dripping Springs primitive campground and we signed up for a three-day stay. It’s a high desert campground at 6,000 feet in which the campground host said he had already killed two rattlesnakes with a weed-eater. We stayed at campsite #14, a treeless site with sagebrush and a wide open view of the high plains with the occasional mule deer. At night the desert skies were so clear you could see every star and it’s the first time I’ve seen the Milky Way in a long time.
That evening our son Patrick joined us as we watched the moon rise over the canyon with the flickering flames of a small campfire being the only other light.
Up early before sunrise I put a pot of coffee on and scoped the canyon below for any wildlife. A forest fire there 10 years ago had had wiped out the junipers and pines for as far as I could see. Only sage and desert grasses grew here now. Forest fires are a very real thing out west, like flooding and thunderstorms are in Ohio.
My pioneer wife Judy fixed breakfast after which we jumped in the truck and headed a few miles to the river. The river is clear as tap water and from the high bank you could see trout swimming as if in an aquarium, and some of the trout were big. Mostly browns, but a fair share of rainbow trout too. I tied on a #14 caddis with a yellow belly and was soon into my first trout who sipped the fly off the glassy surface with hardly a ripple. At that time the hatch on the water was on and Yellow Sally’s and Caddis flies were landing on our shirt sleeves and the back of our necks with some regularity. Likewise the trout were jumping out of the water to catch the emerging insects. It was a sight to behold. Many times Patrick and I had trout hooked at the same time and Judy was busy photographing all the action.
Little Hole is where we were and it has a developed a boat launch with restrooms and a nice picnic area, but not at all crowded. You didn’t have to walk far to find a spot to yourself. The trout were everywhere. The brown trout were the picky but hungry and would take off downstream in the current when hooked. If you hooked one of the legendary monster trout, and I saw one of them, I don’t think you would ever land it; they are just too strong.
It’s one of the few times you don’t quit fishing because the fish quit biting, you call it a day because you’re tired of catching fish. In the late afternoon we would nap in the shade of the campsite shelter and come evening we would catch a few more trout before retiring to the campfire and watching the starry skies and listening to coyotes in the distance.
After a few days of catching all the trout we wanted, we said goodbye to Patrick as he headed back to Eden and we left the Green River and headed deep into Utah’s Uinta Mountains.
A small forest service campground with a trout stream and a spring for drinking water became our home for the next five days. The wildness of the area was evident when we spotted a mountain lion just above our camp. I did not want any trouble with the neighbors, including the bears and rattlesnakes, so I always kept a .357 strapped to my side . This was wild country.
Our site at Deep Creek Campground also came with a Rufous Hummingbird nest and two eggs. The female hummingbird seemed nervous at first when the new campers arrived, but within a day she settled down when she knew no harm would come to her. The little hummingbird sitting in the tiny nest was our consent companion while we were there.
The camp had a couple of trout streams, Deep Creek and Carter Creek, and a spectacular view of the canyon walls. We would walk every evening up the dusty forest service road, across the small bridge over Carter Creek, and up the mountain to view the canyon and the mountains in the fading sunlight. Our campsite sat at the junction of Carter and Deep creek at an elevation of 7,800 feet. The snowcap mountains of the High Uinta’s Wilderness were plainly visible. The Uinta Mountain range tops out at 12,000 to 13,000 feet and is laden with back country lakes.
Every morning after coffee and breakfast we would load up the Yeti cooler and head for the high country trout streams, the mountain meadows and snowcapped peaks, looking for mountain views, wildlife, and trout. The streams held mostly brook trout; on Carter Creek it had rainbows, but because of the high elevation of Middle Fork of Sheep Creek it held native cutthroat trout. By the time we had packed up camp at Deep Creek I had caught all five species of trout that inhabit Utah; brown, rainbow, brook, cutthroat, and tiger trout, which is a hybrid between a brook and a brown trout. On our last day at Deep Creek I caught a nice 16-inch rainbow that provided us a with a trout dinner that night, cooked over the campfire.
With less than a week left we turned eastward and headed into Colorado. It was sad leaving Deep Creek and the little hummingbird sitting on the nest we had grown attached too. Some places you’d like to think you’ll return too but in reality you probably never will.
Taking Route 40 east out of Vernal we headed into the Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado. The next day we made Steamboat Springs where I got my Stetson hat cleaned and reshaped and purchased a five-day fishing license from a fly shop along the Yampa River. Later we split a steak at the 8th Street Steakhouse in Steamboat Springs all the while practicing social distancing and then afterwards headed out of town toward Rabbit Ears Pass where we spent the night. The next morning we headed for Walden and the Arapaho Wildlife Refuge. There is a nice fly shop in Walden and we spent a few hours in town catching up on phone calls and business since cell service was so sketchy everywhere we had been. I could have stayed an extra day or two in Walden with so many trout streams around. In the wildlife area pronghorn, prairie dogs, and waterfowl were abundant, so were views of the snowcapped mountains of the Rockies.
Just beyond Milner Pass at 10,759 feet was Willow Creek where we saw our first bull moose and I caught a handful of rainbow trout. I saw fresh moose tracks along the stream and while slinging a dry fly to a small mountain pool I raised my head and there he stood in the bank side willows looking at me 30 yards away. I dropped my fly rod in the weeds and snapped a few pics and whistled for Judy who came with her telephoto lens and got a few close-up shots.
After that excitement we headed for Rock Mountain National Park, and had to go through Granby to get a coffee and then north toward the park. You can’t imagine the traffic we hit and road construction, luckily we arrived at the park just before 5 p.m. This national park has become so crowded you now need a reservation to see it. Most of the campgrounds are closed because of COVID-19. Luckily after 5 p.m. you don’t need a reservation to drive through the park. Our original plan was to camp in the park at Timber Creek Campground for a couple of days then head back to Ohio but that campground was closed. Nevertheless the drive through the park is spectacular with views of snowcapped mountains and elk everywhere.
We headed to Aspen, which was a last minute decision, and traveled Interstate 70 which was bumper to bumper at 75-mph through mountain passes. A drive I’ll never do again. Aspen was a disappointment, it too was bumper to bumper through a small ski-town with everybody wearing face masks but not much social distancing. We tried to drive to Maroon Bells but again one needed to make a reservation through the Aspen Chamber of Commerce which they said it was unlikely we’d get a seat on a busload of tourists which is the only way to see Maroon Bells these days, or by horseback through an outfitter. With that we headed east toward Independence Pass. The governor of Colorado has pretty much closed all campgrounds, yet the tour busses through Aspen were full of people. That didn’t make much sense to me.
We followed Route 82 up into the headwaters of the Roaring Fork River where I caught a few nice brook trout and just below the 12,000 foot peaks was a pull off and the stream meandered through a high mountain meadow that looked like a trout could be hiding in there. And yes, there were a few brookies that I caught. We continued to climb the mountain, the road was narrow in many places and the driving not for the faint of heart. We finally ascended to a height of 12,095 feet at Independence Pass and stopped to stretch our legs and take a picture. The snow was here and there, stretching across the mountain peaks, some of which top out at over 14,000 feet. The high mountain meadows well above the tree line are nearly bare of any vegetation except for some pockets of grass and sparse vegetation
We left the pass and headed down into the North Fork of Lake Creek drainage. At about 11,000 feet we pulled off the blacktop and onto a dusty dirt road that led down to the stream and set up camp for the very last time. Nobody was there except us. From camp we could see Independence Mountain, Quray Peak, Star Mountain, Casco Peak, 13,646 feet Mount Champion, and behind us the 14,336 feet La Plata Peak. In front of us was the stream, and several mule deer watched us from a distance. What remained of an old log building lay across the stream in the high mountain meadow nearly covered with willows. I caught a few brook trout that that evening and Judy fixed a light supper with a side of applesauce.
The next morning I was up early and brewed a pot of coffee and after a few cups decided to give the trout one last opportunity to make a fool out of me, which they did. That morning we packed up the truck and left the Rockies behind for the rolling hills of Adams County.
