Happy Trails

Sylvia and I decided to go up to Rainy Mountain and get in a good hike for this week. It's been a while since we hiked a trail, and the weather was just too nice to pass up a day on the mountain. We picked a new trail we haven't seen to explore. Yeah, it's a beautiful area. I did take a fly rod with me, but this was more about a hike and spending time together in the outdoors. I love it when we're on a trail together!

This trail joins a stream about a mile out, just before it enters a beautiful canyon, with a narrow meadow between the canyon's rocky walls. The stream eventually runs down the mountain where I typically fish for brown trout and that rare Rio Grande Cutthroat trout. However, in this location, I didn't see any signs of trout. I caught a couple of sucker fish, and that is the only thing that hit the dry fly. Nope, this isn't a place I'll be interested in returning for fly fishing...however, it is fabulous for a hike on an absolutely beautiful trail up at high altitude.

I rigged up a 7' 3wt rod that is a vintage Scott F703 black glass fly rod. It was pretty much perfect for this little meandering stream. The more I fish the rod, the better I like it...easy casting, little trout feel much bigger than they are in tight-line moments, and it has that glass feel for fun and an easy day of fishing. The rod is accurate and lays a fly down on the surface ever so gently. Just like a glass rod should.

We visited with about three groups of hikers in the canyon, and then I looked up and noticed the dark grey in the cloud cover. The day started out with partly cloudy cover, and deep blue patches that are so blue at this altitude, you would think God photoshopped our view of it. And, then the storm clouds began to build. That's when we decided to turn back and hike back to the truck. I've learned through the years of fishing up here that a storm can be on top of you much faster than imagined, and that was the case here. As soon as we got into the truck and backed out to depart, the rain began to fall. That's what I call perfect timing. Yup, we enjoyed the rain on our drive down the mountain...and it was beautiful. A good day it was!