CO Trip and Such part 1

Alright, this is the first installment of our totally awesome Colorado trip recently completed. I have a lot of pics and stories and don't want to be on my computer for hours on end so I plan on elaborating only on a few days at a time. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way...

Trip Details: Rob, Danny, Dobby and myself decided to take a trip to CO to see if we cold sustain ourselves in the wilderness for a couple of weeks. We took enough food for ~15 days of breakfast and lunch, for dinner we planned on eating trout with a few side dishes packed. Our packs consisted mainly of a bed roll, food, water, fishing pole/tackle, camp necessities, some booze and a luxury item [Rob: Small tent for emergencies, Danny: Small inflatable kiddie raft and pump for fishing the unfished areas in the secluded mountain lakes, Dizzle: mp3 player and speaker for evenings around the campfire]. Here's how she unfolded...

Sunday, July 8th 2007:
For weeks and weeks we (Rob, Danny and I) have been planning this trip, or at least wasting time thinking about it. All and all, however, we really did not know what we were getting ourselves into. We loaded up the three massive backpacks, Dobby, and some trip provisions into the mighty Impala and left Sunday evening at ~1800 (only 2 hrs later than we would have liked). Spirits were high as well rolled throughout the night through Kansas (Danny did most of the driving).

Monday, July 9 2007:
As dawn broke, we were ~2hrs shy of Denver. By 0830 we reached Vail where we made a pit stop for some last minute items (mainly rob's ultra gay tennis shorts). We navigated our way to Midturn, CO where the ranger station for the Holy Cross Wilderness Area was located. Here we purchased some additional maps and spoke with the attendants about fishing the wilderness (it soon became clear that they knew nothing about fishing in the area). They asked how long we were going to be gone and we sheepishly told them "about 5 or 7 days."

The next stop was the flyshop for some fishing licenses, tips and flys. We tried going into the Beaver Creek Resort but got stopped by an arrogant brit at the front gate who said [in an annoyingly high pitched cracking British voice] "YOU GOT'A DOOWG" and denied us access to the resort. After circling the town a couple of times we arrived at the "Orvis Fly Fishing Outfitters," where we met our "good buddy" Bob. Now Bob seemed to be a real nice guy but later in the trip we found that Bob was a real son-of-a-bitch. Bob got us all lined out on fishing permits (which were hella expensive - 61 bucks), told us where the fishing would be "a riot," what type of tippet we would need ("f***ing cables man, those fish are hungry"), and most importantly, what type of flies ("...stimmys, attractants, XTS's, wooly buggers if they're holding deep in some of those lakes..."). Bob insured us that the fishing would be second to none with hungry under fished trout in every body of water out there. With spirits high, we left Bob's fly shack and headed for the trail head.

We arrived at the Cross Creek Trail trailhead after tearing through a rough mountain trail riddled with large cobbles and potholes around 1030. The mood was a little salmon as everyone changed into the clothes they would be wearing for the next couple of weeks, downed the last of the tasty homemade cookie bars, and tightened up the packs that seamed 50% heavier at altitude. We locked the car up, snapped a quick picture and hit the trail at ~1100.

We hike at a fairly slow pace for 30-40 minutes until we reached a fork in the road, we took the low road because we really weren't prepared to climb any hills just yet. That trail turned out to be just an offshoot that lead down to Cross Creek. This was our first encounter with cross creek (which was sorta our life line for the first portion of the trip). Excited by the site of the roaring stream we had to stop to throw in a line and tests Bob's word. Rob, using his unpresidented Rooster Tailing techniques, managed to pull out the first trout of the trip, a small 5" brook trout beautifully colored. Surprised by this, we were sure it was going to be a great trip. At this point I quickly looked through my bag to insure i had everything while still near the trailhead. Sure enough, I had forgotten my fishing license. Danny, being the stud that he is, opted to run (literally) back to the car a grab it for me (while I remained fishing). He was gone about 20 minutes and retuned with no success. Upon second inspection of my pack, I located my license which I had all along...oops (don't worry, I'll get a chance to repay danny later in the trip).

After farting around for a while we hit the trail again and hiked for until we could hike no longer. We stopped at a small brook bubbling down the mountain side to refill on water and rest for a while. While the water was being treated, Rob and I climbed to the top of a small outcrop and sighted our first campsite which was just below me in the picture. From this site we had a beautiful view of Mount of the Holy Cross, the only 14er (that we will much later climb) in the park, Cross Creek and a small stream fed lake.

We made camp around 1800 that very long day and headed out to fish the small lake for dinner. Bob was right, the fish were hungry and very easy to catch, but i would not quite call it "a riot," the only thing we could catch were 5-8" brookies. After a while we settled on 5 or 6 of our biggest ones, gutted and gilled them and fried them up. Dinner the first night, was a disaster. It was near impossible to fry up those little bastards. We ended up eating what we could off of tiny, boney, half-raw trout carcasses and threw the rest out, needless to say, we all went to bed a little hungry that night. The only other amusement of the day came when Danny's most favoritous survival hammock threw me off to the pleasure of Rob and Danny.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007:

An exhausting first day left us in no hurry to get up the next morning. We rolled around untll ~0900 when we finally decided to get up and make some breakfast, which was nothing more than a couple packets of instant oatmeal and come dried fruit. During the night, danny dreamed up a plan for cooking dinner for the rest of the trip. Since the night before's dinners was nasty and inefficient, danny suggested that we catch the hell out of a bunch of those tiny little brookies, make a bunch of tiny little filets add them to one of our side dishes (usually pasta and rice) and make a sorta "trout casserole." Intrigued by this idea, we all set out to catch a bunch of small trout to try this out for a late lunch.

We conducted the day's fishing in the, now larger, Cross Creek. We spent the morning exploring the falls and slows of about a mile of cross creek catching mainly brook trout, but the occasional cut throat and brown were also caught. The pictures above show, from left to right, Rob and Danny fishing the slows, Danny’s catch at some falls and the "trout casserole."

After our late lunch at campsite 1, we packed our shit up and prepared to head out. With stomachs full and spirits high, we hit the trail at a remarkably slow pace. The altitude was really sticking it to us so we would walk for about 10 minutes then rest for 20. Needless to say, we did not make it that far when we decided to chill for the night at a nice little bend in cross creek that looked like a post card. That night we took a chance a feasted on some already molding pitas and peanut butter for dinner. Afterwards we all relaxed around an "illegal fire" that nearly killed me to build. By that I mean, I was breaking sticks/logs for it with my foot when, on the "this is going to be good," comment by Danny, a log broke in half and, as a stepped-on rake would do, flew up and punched me right in the chest. It knocked the wind out of all three of us, me from the force, and Danny and Rob from the hilarity. That night was a crystal clear night with what seamed like a billion stars hanging 10ft above us. We dozed off watching all the shooting stars and the satelites that had their lights on *giggles*.

There's the first two days, I'll have the next couple posted shortly. More picture from the first two days are available at: http://web.umr.edu/~dmwbnd/