Looking Around and Other Things

After the nice visit from my brother Rick, his wife Kay and their son Billy, I decided to have some new neighbors over for dinner Monday night (the 16th) and shared some of the fish we had caught on Sunday as a family.  Doug, his wife Jeannie, Jeannie's sister Patty and her husband Robby came over for a nice long evening of food and visiting -- Patty stayed later and the others went back to watch some movies about the Pacific battles of World War II.

Patty and I seemed to have a connection as she was born two days less than a year after I was.  We talked until it got dark and a little later Robby joined us after watching one DVD of the series -- we stumbled around and looked at the beautiful night sky full of beautiful stars before all headed back to their places (Robby and Patty are in the cabin behind me).  I went back out later after doing dishes and looked again at the sky and spotted the Big Dipper hanging right over the cabin -- this after Robby had wondered where the Big Dipper was (apparently hidden by some clouds).

On Wednesday, I decided to head out early to hike to the Big Tree near Beaver Creek Reservoir and then to Poage Lake some 11 more miles up the road.  The Douglas Fir is 66 inches in diameter and is the largest tree in the Rio Grande Forest.  The hike is 1/3 of a mile but, I found myself having to stop more than a few times as the hike was a steady climb up the mountainside (at over 9000 feet too).  As I neared the tree, I had a sense that I had spotted it among the other trees around and found that to be true.  There also were some enormous Aspens of some 12 to 18 inches in diameter nearby and more of them on the road to Poage Lake -- whole hillsides of them 50 or 60 feet tall.

The beauty of the surrounding hillsides and the valley were wonderful to enjoy on the easier walk down the mountain from the huge tree.  Didn't see any wildlife or forest creatures other than ground squirrels and chipmunks -- a few birds too.

I continued up the dirt road another 11 miles to park near Poage Lake and hoped I might find another gem here for more fishing.  I had heard from a guy I met at the dam at Beaver Creek Reservoir that this lake had some huge Cutthroat Trout.  He had also said it is about a half mile hike to get to the lake and I didn't know which way to go from the parking area(s) and no signs pointed in any one direction.  So, I made a couple bad assumptions and ended up walking probably more than a mile and a half through two hail storms and some thunder and lightning before finally arriving at this high meadow, shallow lake (with lots of dead, fallen trees in its shallow waters).  No one I met had caught anything of any good size and the only fish I caught was barely twice as big as the lure I caught him on.  Most people seemed to be fly-fishing and were again only catching fingerlings from what I observed.

With my poncho still on and after sliding around in the muddy shores of the lake, the threat of more nasty weather had me heading back to my Jeep after less than an hour of fishing.  Not a fishing spot I would recommend to anyone and there is a 2 fish limit to boot (no one seemed to be keeping any of the fish they had caught -- me either).