My backpacking days were like my Father before me, all fishing driven. My timeframe was the decade between 1974-1984.
Starting off with a July 4th trip to a mostly frozen Found lake in 74 up out of Marblemount
Spent quite a bit of time up there with 3 trips to the Found / Snowking system. One regret was not doing the day trip up to Cyclone. I was right at the inlet stream on Found that flowed down off Cyclone catching nice sized cutt/bows. Up that boulder field about 45 minutes & it would have bought me to lakeside.
The Slide Lake to Enjar to Arrowhead to Whale was a good cross-country test of stamana & route finding. Excellent size cutts in Whale in summer of 76. No Golden's thou my old intel showed them planted there in the late 1940's.
The Swallow lake system were always a favorite destination off the Leland lake trail. As were the lakes to the South off the backside of Leland. Shoal was too shallow to be of interest to me, but Jungfrau was quite scenic. Then on to lower & upper Phoebe, the upper lake absolutely gorgeous setting cupped in a mountainside hanging valley. I have Kodachrome slides of it somewhere that showcase the crystalline blue skys against the green trees & reflected blue of the lake like only that film type can pull off. I've told my Son I wouldn't mind my ashes being placed there. It's that kind of a place.
We were planning a traverse from the Swallow system over the Granite mountain potholes then dropping off granite slabs into upper Klonaqua. This was summer of 77. Plan was to exit off French Creek and out that way. I wound up banging up my left knee to the point I could barely make it out of the 1st set of lakes and back to the truck. So that trip was left aborted. Wound up a few years later blowing up that pattela tendon playing volleyball. I'm sure it was related to the original injury.
I have more of those trips, some just planned some actually executed. These are the ones that come to mind this morning.
All this was inspired by the Golden trout traverse thread. So thanks to author for that post
c/22
Starting off with a July 4th trip to a mostly frozen Found lake in 74 up out of Marblemount
Spent quite a bit of time up there with 3 trips to the Found / Snowking system. One regret was not doing the day trip up to Cyclone. I was right at the inlet stream on Found that flowed down off Cyclone catching nice sized cutt/bows. Up that boulder field about 45 minutes & it would have bought me to lakeside.
The Slide Lake to Enjar to Arrowhead to Whale was a good cross-country test of stamana & route finding. Excellent size cutts in Whale in summer of 76. No Golden's thou my old intel showed them planted there in the late 1940's.
The Swallow lake system were always a favorite destination off the Leland lake trail. As were the lakes to the South off the backside of Leland. Shoal was too shallow to be of interest to me, but Jungfrau was quite scenic. Then on to lower & upper Phoebe, the upper lake absolutely gorgeous setting cupped in a mountainside hanging valley. I have Kodachrome slides of it somewhere that showcase the crystalline blue skys against the green trees & reflected blue of the lake like only that film type can pull off. I've told my Son I wouldn't mind my ashes being placed there. It's that kind of a place.
We were planning a traverse from the Swallow system over the Granite mountain potholes then dropping off granite slabs into upper Klonaqua. This was summer of 77. Plan was to exit off French Creek and out that way. I wound up banging up my left knee to the point I could barely make it out of the 1st set of lakes and back to the truck. So that trip was left aborted. Wound up a few years later blowing up that pattela tendon playing volleyball. I'm sure it was related to the original injury.
I have more of those trips, some just planned some actually executed. These are the ones that come to mind this morning.
All this was inspired by the Golden trout traverse thread. So thanks to author for that post
c/22
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