June 18-19, 2013
Tuesday
We leave our beautiful campsite on the Gunnison and head
up to the tiny town of Almont in search of breakfast and wifi, so we can blog
and check our email. The breakfast turns out to be greasy but tasty and it
comes with great wifi. Since Jack fulfilled his Gunnison River trout goal so
quickly, he decides he wants to check out some of the other world-renowned
trout streams in the area, even if they aren’t on his Top 100 list. He heard
good things about the Lake Fork River, and wants to fish it. So after a
whirlwind souvenir-buying spree in a little gift shop (Carol doing the souvenir
buying while Jack works on the blog), we head off looking for the Lake Fork
River and a suitable camping spot.
More beautiful scenery along the way—it’s amazing how the
Colorado scenery can completely change from one bend in the road to another. We
finally come to a BLM campsite and decide to make it our home for the night. For
those who may not know, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a U.S.
government agency that oversees all the public lands in the U.S. that don’t
fall under a national park or national forest, which are managed by other agencies.
Most of these public lands—millions of acres—are in the West and are leased to
ranchers for grazing or to mining or other companies to extract the
“resources.” Some of the areas are also open to recreation and primitive
campsites are provided by the BLM at some sites, like the Lake Fork River. The
campsites are basic but usually well-kept, like this one: we find a level,
shaded site right by the river. Our cost for a night of camping here in a
pristine wilderness: $2.50, which is half price due to our Golden Ager national
park pass.
Jack quickly grabs his fishing rod and heads for the
river; I putter around in the van, thinking about working on my latest book
project or going birdwatching. I saw some bluebird boxes on fenceposts along
the gravel road driving in, and I’m hoping to spot a mountain bluebird for our
birding list. (At last count, we only had 66 birds on our list for this trip,
so we need to step up our birding activities if we’ve going to reach our goal
of 100 species of birds identified!)
I decide to go check on Jack—read his section below for
what happened next.
After that excitement, I grab my binoculars and start
walking down the road. Sure enough, as I creep up on the nearest bluebird box,
about a half mile away, I see a pair of mountain bluebirds flying in and out of
the box, obviously feeding their young ones. These bluebirds are a sort of
turquoise blue and don’t have the rusty red breast of our Eastern bluebirds. A
very attractive bird and I’m glad to “bag” it for our list.
There’s only one other group of campers at our campground
and they’ve been off somewhere since Jack and I arrived. They return around
suppertime and I introduce myself to them: Linda and Ron, a retired couple from
Phoenix, Arizona and Linda’s brother Rex. They are friendly and invite us to
join them later at their campfire, which we do after our spaghetti supper. We
have a congenial time telling camping, fishing and traveling stories and
watching the fire.
Next, Jack will fill in his fishing tales.
I wanted to take a look at
the "Lake Fork of the Gunnison" River because it originated in a lake
(Lake Cristibal near Lake City, CO) and emptied into another lake (Blue Mesa
Reservoir that dams the Gunnison River downstream of Gunnison, CO). I
reason that just maybe I would find some dry fly action.
It takes us about an hour to
get to a nice BLM campsite that's right next to the river. On the way I see no
trout rising to take flies on the surface. Oh, well, I tell Carol I'll not suit
up, I'll just tie on Big Gaudy with the purple prince dropper. Carol says she's
going to birdwatch or work on her book, and I head down where I can stand on a
few rocks with my regular shoes. I cast upstream and almost immediately Big
Gaudy goes under the water. I tighten my line and set the hook in a large trout
that runs downstream with my reel screaming. The trout pulls hard and has the
heavy river current working for him. I fight him for about 3 minutes, but can't
get him to turn upstream. I figure he must be a big brown because he never
jumps out of the water (like rainbow do). He's on the little purple prince and
pulling very hard. Carol hears the splashing and comes down to watch.
At this point the tip of my
rod is almost bent 180 degrees. Suddenly, the trout gets off and my line
springs back into a tree behind me, creating a big tangled mess. I figure he
broke my line where it is tied to the purple prince. As I start cutting out the
tangles, I note the purple prince dangling in the tree next to Big Gaudy. The
trout had pulled this small nymph out of his mouth. Ouch! With Carol's help, I
cut off my flies and tie on a new leader. I tell Carol that I brought down my iPad and laid it in the grass. Just in
case, I asked her to stand by with my iPad while I cast once more.
One more cast upstream and I
hook another trout. This one immediately jumps out of the water and runs
downstream. He's not as big as the first trout, but he's a fighter. This time
Carol is able to take pictures all during the fight. I land this trout ( a
rainbow) and Carol and I both decide that we should definitely stay here for
the night. Where else, we agree, can you find a trout river where you catch two
trout after two casts?
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This is the one that didn't get away. Note that I am not in my waders and boots. |
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In the net. |
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In hand. |
As it turns out, I fish for another two to three hours. I hook three more
trout and net one. I make a heck of a lot more casts than just three more.
Fishing has a way to bring you back down to earth just when you start thinking
you might be getting very good at this sport.
Wednesday
Where is this week going? Seems like time is speeding up
as we get nearer to our deadline for returning home (by June 30). It’s been a
chilly night, colder than usual and I get up in the middle of the night to put
a blanket under me as well as over me—our air mattress is usually very comfy
but tonight it feels like a block of ice underneath me (Jack is snoring away
and doesn’t seem to notice the cold).
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Having breakfast with the Lake Fork river in the background...still sleepy after cold night. |
After breakfast, we rearrange a few things in the van this morning, to
make it less crowded (we plan to do some remodeling after this trip). We say
goodbye to our friends at the next campsite and head off to explore Black
Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 60 miles northwest of here. First,
we need to buy some propane since we’re almost out, and find an RV campground
to spend the night, since we need to empty our tanks. Jack has bought a new
hookup for our tank emptying process that he thinks will work better, and we want
to try it out.
We head for Montrose, the only town of any size near the
national park, and succeed in finding both propane and a great RV park, in a
quiet, green oasis practically in the middle of town. Then we head for the
canyon.
We’ve seen a lot of marvelous canyons on this trip, and
the Black Canyon is certainly one of them. With sheer 2000-ft walls and a
roaring river below, it’s jawdropping to see. We drive around the south rim,
stopping and taking short hikes to various viewpoints, each with its special
geological feature or sweeping vista.
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Carol with the visitors center in the background. At this point the Gunnison River is 2300 feet below down a sheer cliff. |
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This photo hardly does this canyon justice. The top of the canyon wall is half a mile away. The tiny stream you see at the bottom is the Gunnison River, 2300 feet below the canyon rim.Click here for a panoramic view of the Canyon. |
We’re especially eager to spot a
peregrine falcon, which we’ve been informed are nesting at a certain viewpoint,
the Painted Wall. We need it for our list, and we also have seen some great
documentaries on this bird and would like to see it in flight.
We luck out—as we approach the spot where the falcons are
supposed to be, we spy a pair of them wheeling and circling overhead. We don’t
get to watch them for long, but long enough to identify them. I also spot
another new bird for our list, the green-tailed towhee, an olive-green bird
with a rusty red cap. Good! We’re homing in on that 100-bird count!
Back at the campground, we hook up the new tank-emptying
equipment and have a successful dump—no pun intended.
Tomorrow we’re driving to Denver, where we’ll see our
dear friend Kelly, who we haven’t seen for several years!
Bird species count: Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture,
Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal,
greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer
tanager, *prothonotary warbler, *yellow-breasted
chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff
swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s
oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested
titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove,
*canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher,
Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow,
*cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded
cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, American crow,
Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay,
mallard, common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike,
Audubon’s warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged
blackbird, redtailed hawk, American dipper, *yellow warbler, tree swallow,
osprey, mountain bluebird, peregrine falcon, green-tailed towhee
State count: 14 [Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado]
Odometer count:
Surber, VA: 107,435
Montrose, CO: 115,215
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