I do a lot of crazy things in life and this is one of those crazy things. When I told my friend that I wanted to hit Airplane and Arrowhead in one day she asked me why would I want to kill myself. In this case, it wasn't anything near that but it just seemed like that on paper.
Old Hyndman Peak
Arrowhead Lake
Getting to Airplane is one of the hardest and most remote places to get to. Many people get lost trying to find it and the same thing with Arrowhead. Both are very hard lakes to navigate because of the steep area, rugged terrain and only about two miles of trail that really only helps you get up the valley. Airplane and Arrowhead lakes probably receive at the most ten people a year. The lake is not really well known and the risks do not outweigh the rewards at this point because the fishing at Airplane is really not that great, you are lucky if you might see any fish. However I'm very determined to catch a really nice Golden Trout, I caught a 16-17 inch fish last year just as the ice was coming off. On this trip, I was probably two weeks too early. When I got to Airplane it was too frozen and there weren't many places to fish. But the place that I did fish I was able to see a couple of Goldens around 12 inches.
Airplane Lake
Airplane Lake
Instead of waiting at Airplane to catch a fish I headed over the ridge above Airplane to see if Arrowhead was frozen and if that was the case I was going to climb Hyndman Peak (12,009ft). When I got to the ridge I saw that Arrowhead lake was not frozen so the fishing was on. When I got to Arrowhead there were fish everywhere, so I threw on a black ant and slayed the fish. This was a really fun trip and it wasn't as hard as many seem to be so I would definitely do it again hoping to catch fish out of both lakes. Oh, on the way out I finally saw a mountain goat in Wildhorse after many years of looking for them.
Mountain Goat in Wildhorse Creek, Good Luck Finding Him
As soon as I completed all the lakes in the Lost River Ranger District I focused my attention on completing all the lakes in the White Clouds. I have a ways to go but I have a really good head start since I have done a few of the major ones such as the Big Boulder Chain, Little Boulder Chain, and Chamberlain Basin. After looking over the map there are quite a few lakes that sit in certain drainages alone so it's not easy to lump them in a loop or with other lakes, Champion Lakes are one of those drainages.
Champion Lake #3
Lots of Redside Shiners
Champion Creek holds about 6 different lakes but three of the lakes are much bigger than the others and of those lakes two of them have been stocked with fish. Champion Lake #3 is said to have Bull trout (108 stocked in 1993) and IDFG have found Brook and Rainbow trout but I never saw any fish. As I worked my way down the drainage I came across Champion which has not been stocked but IDFG has found Brook trout in the lake system however I did not observe any.
Redside Shiner
Champion Lake #1
I was pretty disappointed in the lack of fish at this point and was wondering if I should even continue to the last lake. Champion Lake #1 has no stocking records and no fish have been observed but when I got to the lake, there was tons of minnows swimming around the lake and a handful of Brook trout. I literally thought that they just stocked the lake just a few day before I got there because there was so many fish. I tried to identify what they were but couldn't until I caught one of the bigger ones. It turned out to be a Redside Shiner which is really uncommon to find in a high mountain lake. I believe if IDFG would manage this lake better some huge fish could come out of this lake because Redside Shiners only get to about 4 to 6 inches and trout can feed on these fish easily. Just food for thought, your move IDFG.
I was hoping to hit some new lakes this summer and I wanted to start out with Langer Lakes. I heard about these lakes last year when one of the lakes were producing some decent size fish, pushing 20 inches. So when I got a free weekend I hit the road and wandered up to Stanley.
Langer Lake
Ruffneck Lake
Langer Lakes is actually a really short hike but with all the lakes in the surrounding area, I thought I would stay the night at Langer Lake and hike around to the others. I believe on Fish and Games Website they stated that all the lakes have been stocked and they continue to stock them however I found this not to be true. Out of Langer, Ruffneck, Island and Rocky Lake, only Langer and Ruffneck Lake held fish and both of them were tough fishing.
Ruffneck Lake
Island Lake
Langer lake held true to its reputation of having big fish, the first fish that I had on was probably 18 inches but he broke me off before I could land him. Ruffneck lake contained more fish but still wasn't up to par with my usual high mountain lake standards. Out of all the lakes that I was most disappointed in was Rocky, Rocky lake is supposed to have a lot of cutthroats but when I went to the lake and looked around the Southeast side of the lake no fish were seen and none were jumping. I would probably do this hike again in the future however I would go up to the Ruffneck Lookout that's only 1 to 2 miles away.
Since spring is here and the skiing is over its time to hang up the skis and dust off the fly rod. I like Swuager Lake because it's the first lake that you can get to in the spring and it's a great cutthroat fishery. Even though this lake is trophy regulated lake meaning you can only keep two fish over 20 inches, which hasn't been done for a number of years. The forest service has tried extremely hard to change this and turn it back around so that is will produce big fish again like it did in the 90s. The last few years they have stopped stocking cutthroat in the lake because they don't live long enough to reach 20 inches. Instead, they have started stocking California Goldens in hopes that the lake will produce a 20-inch fish. In 2013 they stocked 1,700 goldens and in 2014 2,100. The last time they stocked cutthroat was 2011 and when Shayne, Justin and I went up there I didn't think we would find a single cutthroat, I was wrong. We caught high numbers of cutthroat and didn't see one single golden. The fishing was great and it always seems to be but it will be interesting in the next two years to see if any goldens will show up or if the cutthroat will live a few more years with less fish in the lake system. I will defiantly be back next spring, excited to see what I will find.
Here is a video that I shot of the fish in the lake a few years ago.
The whole reason I got into Skiing was to tour in the backcountry. The places that I go and work in the summer I wanted to see in the winter. I also wanted to pick up another hobby in the winter because all I did was fish which was good but sometimes you need a break.
Wildhorse Lookout
Lost River Peak
So when I got my skis in the fall I started looking for places to go for the winter or places in the spring that would possibly have good snow and that were easily accessible to get to. With that being said I found a few spots. In the winter, on my days off I came home and skinned up to Wildhorse Lookout which offers some amazing views of the Pioneers in the winter. It was only an hour drive from my house however it was a long tour and I wasn't able to ski the line down that I wanted due to unstable snow pack.
Lost River Valley
Waiting on Jack
This spring I tried a number of locations and had great success. After my month long road trip, Jack and I tried skiing Lost River Peak which is a 12,000ft mountain. After hiking for about 4 or 5 hours we called it good since the weather went to crap and we were too exhausted to make it to the top in a reasonable time. But the ski down was really good with some great snow, about three inches of fresh snow.
Mt McCaleb
Mt McCaleb from the Saddle
Justin and I were able to climb Mt McCaleb on one of the hottest days this spring but since we had great weather we just took our time and eventually made it to the top. The snow pack was so great there was no doubt in my mind that avalanches were an issue and we could ski about anything that we looked at but we settled for the long route that we climbed up. The skiing at the top was really great but once you got lower the snow was pretty cooked and wasn't too great to ski.
Mt McCaleb
The Lost Rivers
Top of Mt McCaleb 11,682ft
The Lost Rivers
Big Black Dome 11,353ft
Skiing Big Black Dome was one of my favorites to do because of the easy approach and long steep line. I will definitely do this one again in the future and maybe even find a few lines of the back side dropping into Left Fork of Fall Creek.
I really wanted to ski every month this year but it turned really hot in June unless I skied on some really ugly stuff. The last ride of the year was Redbird Mountain in the White Knob Mountains and it was also my steepest line for sure. I'm not sure if I would do this one again unless I had better access to it. There's an ATV trail leading up to the mountain, however, this year there was too much snow on it and I wasn't able to get very close. There were a few mountains that I wasn't able to get to this year but I really want to hit them next year when I have more experience in Avalanches and more confidence in skiing.
I almost like being behind a few months on my blog because I get to look back on all the adventures and great moments that I had. Once the winter season was winding down a few of my friends and I decided to take a month-long road trip to warmer weather. Don't get me wrong I loved skiing, however, it's not as fun when it stops snowing and you keeping doing the same run over and over the whole year.
Arches National Park
Arches National Park
Arches National Park
Arches National Park
So for our road trip, we decided on a route that I have been wanting to do for a few years that included hitting a number of National Parks. After some intense planning, we finally dialed in the logistics and figured out where we would be going and what we would be doing each day as well as the cost of the trip.
Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Kanarraville Falls
Kanarraville Falls
The trip included hitting 10 National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zions, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Redwood and Crater Lake) and a few major cities ( Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Bend). We kept the trip really cheap by splitting the gas, buying an Annual National Parks pass that cost $80, never paid for camping and camped out every night, packed and cooked our own food. We may have been cheap but some days we ate out, usually in the big cities we would eat locally. I believe I spent about $700, which I thought was pretty cheap for the amount of things that we did and saw all within a month.
Bryce National Park
Bryce National Park
Angels Landing, ZNP
Las Vegas
I thought a month-long trip was just right, it wasn't too short and I feel like I could have gone longer but it was probably a good idea to stop since we were all getting on each other's nerves. For example, a few days for the trip ended my two friends got in a fight over a card game.
Marble Falls, SNP
Sequoia National Park
Sequoia Trees, SNP
Half Dome, ZNP
What I learned from this trip is how simple life can be. I didn't get on my phone or Ipad and because I didn't have too. I had time to relax and enjoy the little things in life like reading a book or going for a walk or just simply talking to other people face to face. It was also great that on this trip you only took the essentials that you needed since we didn't have any room for other things. It really made life easy and made you appreciate the little things.
Zion National Park
San Francisco
Giants Game
West Coast
I absolutely loved this road trip and look forward to the next one. I was going to take a road trip before I started my next job if I wasn't going to Chile, I guess its a fair trade. I think that I will go on a road trip in April or May and I'm thinking of heading North, Canada or Alaska?
