9 days in the Winds

[sunsignarcher]

I learned along time ago that if you wait until your absolutely sure that your totally prepared and completely ready to do something… you'll never do anything. Sometimes you need to just jump in with both feet. I've done this probably too often in my life and there have been times where its paid huge dividends and there have been times Ive landed on my face.


This time it paid…huge.


Road trip:


I wont bore anyone with details but a father son(s) road trip should be on everyones bucket list.


I drove us straight through to Mt Rushmore for a quick side trip and then shot down to Casper WY for a much needed hotel stay.


We got up early and headed for the Big Sandy Trailhead. Once we were off the pavement the scenery and wildlife took center stage. The antelope were pre-rut and putting on a good show. We stopped often to put the spotting scope on the lopes and get a closer look at some of the better bucks. Closer to the trail head, further up, a muley doe crossed the road 5 yards in front of us....good start, the boys were pumped.


Sometime before noon we were parked in a very full lot geared up and ready to go...

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[sunsignarcher]

Day 1: Big Sandy TH to Mirror lake




We hit the trail running and it didn't take long for the wind to literally get sucked out of our sails. The altitude put us in our place right quick. The minute we started our first ascent it became clear that our day 1 goals were out the window and our new goal was to simply get through the day and try to log a couple slow grueling miles.


We made fish creek park by late afternoon and were greeted by dark clouds and impending rain. We hustled through the park as best we could and made mirror lake as the skies opened up and gave us our first taste of what was going to be a very regular thing, rain, rain and more rain. We got the tent set up, made camp and crawled in the tent to lick our wounds, medicate our splitting headaches and try to cram as much air into our starving lunges as possible.


It stopped raining right away and my little one wanted to get on the rising fish below us at mirror. My older son was taking the altitude especially hard and didn't move a muscle for the rest of the night. Mirror would not give up a fish so we back tracked to fish creek in the middle of the park to harass the little brookies we saw coming in and get some fish under our belts. A dandelion emerged proved very effective and we took turns sneaking up on the little holes in that 2' wide stream and caught fish non-stop till dark.


That night sucked bad. My headache became a serious migraine and I fought all night to keep diner down.

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[pduane44]

Nice report so far. That's a place I've been wanting to explore for a while now. No fish pics?

 

[sunsignarcher]

Day 2: Mirror to Washikie Creek


Day 2 dawned bright and sunny. We hit mirror for awhile in the morning and could not get those fish to take. I don't know what was up with that lake but it was the only place we couldn't get rising fish to take EVERYTHING we threw at them.


We broke camp, packed up and headed for Dad's Lake. My son badly wanted to make Dad's on day 1 and be able to say he caught his first fish in the Winds at Dad's lake but it didn't happen, not to worry though this gets rectified in a big way later in the trip.



Heres Dads

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Traffic on the trail

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On to Marms

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Leaving the Fremont or CDT and heading up to Hialeys pass, Pyramind lake.

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A look back at Marms and Dads

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A look ahead from the same spot. This is where Pyramid and Hooker first come into view for us. Pyramid peak is to the right and Mt Hooker is center. At the base of Pyramid and Hooker above tree line is Pyramid lake which we reach on day 3. Our goal is to cross the divide near the top of Pyramid on be on the east side of those two peaks for most of the trip.

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Trail pics

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This is our first look at Washikie creek. We had planned to pass this but that plan changed when we saw it. By the time we had the rods set up it started to rain some so we made camp and ended up here for the night. Many a brookie came to hand but nothing bigger than 8"

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[sunsignarcher]

No fish pics?

theyre commin

 

[golden beetle]

Nice report so far. That's a place I've been wanting to explore for a while now. No fish pics?

pduane, the fish pics?

This is the best fishing report I've read on Neff.

High altitude migraines?

This dude has my respect.

 

[golden beetle]

Mount Hooker?

That's real?

Wow. The guys who named it had a sense of humor.

 

[golden beetle]

theyre commin

Don't rush this report.

This is good stuff.

 

[WBDluver]

What altitude were you at? Is the tent a Kifaru? Great pics and report.

 

[golden beetle]

What altitude were you at? Is the tent a Kifaru? Great pics and report.

Agreed.

don't publish any fish pics.

I will do that for you.

Here is a grouper.

 

[JeffK]

Beetle, most of us know what a brook trout looks like, but don't see the Wind River range. Just saying.

Good report. Looks like an awesome place.

 

[sunsignarcher]

Day 3: Washikie creek to Pyramid lake (10,570 ft.)


We woke on day three to a light drizzle and dropping temps. Up until now daytime temps were in the high 50's, low 60's with overnights above freezing. The front we were walking into was going to change that and our fishing trip was about to become less about fish and more about survival.


We got an early start, broke camp and headed towards Pyramid. Our first stop along the way was Skull lake. This lake was boiling over with little brookies and the boys cleaned up in the rain with their wooley buggers.

tweaking the double haul

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Putting it to work

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It worked!

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We continued towards Pyramid as conditions worsened and the clouds continued to roll in.


This is the split for Haileys pass and Pyramid lake.

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Our next stop was Maes lake just below Pyramid. At this point things were getting pretty wet and I was beginning to worry about our gear. I wanted to be safe and drop the tent here, get our gear under cover and continue to pyramid with just our rods. This ended up being a very good move. The climb to Pyramid was no joke and the added elevation along with being above treeline would have made camping at Pyramid a serious challenge with the weather coming in.

Maes

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Pyramid was supposed to be known for its Goldens but you couldn't prove it by us. We walked and fished the entire perimeter which was no easy task and came up empty. On the way up to Pyramid we fished Maes a bit and scouted out a better campsite. We found an ideal location and came back down to relocate camp and get settled in. It was a good thing we tweaked camp and got set up right because we weren't going anywhere for awhile.

Pyramid:

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Found lots of these all over. Anybody got a name for him?

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Camp

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That night the Winds lived up to her name and we got pounded a l l n i g h t l o n g. The wind stuffed the rain through the tiny gaps in the tents zippers and the condensation that would normally be harmless on the tents walls was being knocked back down onto us. Everything was getting wet and temperatures were dropping below freezing...

 

[sunsignarcher]

This is a shot of the first spot we dropped camp. Maes is below us through the trees and to the right of Pyramid peak is Haileys pass where we had planned to cross the divide and spend most of this trip.

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[sunsignarcher]

What altitude were you at? Is the tent a Kifaru? Great pics and report.

Most of the trip we're between 10 & 11k ft.

kifaru everything:thumb:

 

[golden beetle]

This is a great story.

Hell yes.

 

[sunsignarcher]

Day 4: Pyramid and Maes


Day 4 started cold and wet. I got out of the tent early and got a good fire going to get us warmed up and start drying things out. The weather held off a bit in the morning and the wind took care of drying out most of our gear.

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We fished Maes for a bit in the morning but the rains came back and chased us into the tent for awhile. Inside the tent we were reading "Lord of the Flies" each night and whenever we were socked in. I do not think we could have picked a better book for this trip or have read it in a better setting. Im sure the children's island in the boys minds will forever be linked to the Wind River Range and it's features and although the plight of the children on the island was far more dire than ours there were still plenty of parallels to be drawn.


When things cleared up a bit we took a walk up to Pyramid to fish the lake and its outlet Pyramid creek which flowed into Maes. One cutty came out of the creek and the Lake was dead.

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About to catch his first cutty

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We took a walk to the west to see if we could get down to the East Fork River. It was getting late, the weather did not look promising and a 2 mile bushwhack to water that didn't really look all that good wasn't in the cards,we did some map work instead . The boys practiced identifying the topography of the peaks around us on the map, we shot bearings to distant targets and triangulated our position using the landmarks we identified….good stuff.

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We walked back down to Maes and started fishing our way back to camp. Rises were here and there but very sporadic. I caught a rise close to me and ran down the shore to get within casting distance, after a few casts a nice fat brown smacked my humpy and came to hand. We were finally on the board at Maes. Unfortunately I dropped the fish holding it out for a photo and snapped the tippet loosing my fish, my fly and my dropper. No photo

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[IM


Shortly after that brown jr. hooked into a nice laker also on a humpy. The fly was nearly at his feet when the fish came out from under a ledge, casually swam over, examined the fly, opened wide and sucked it down. I wish I coulda saw that kids face watching his fly get taken in slow motion right at his feet. To say he was excited would be a bit of an understatement.

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Face says it all

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The kids badly wanted to fry up a fish they caught for diner and this laker fit the bill nicely. This was their first time keeping a fish and they were thrilled to be eating something they caught for diner that same night, 10 mi. into a wilderness area and completely on our own. Tonight my oldest would be called chief, He fed his tribe and earned his rank and by day 6 would prove a worthy chief indeed.

 

[Rusty Spinner]

Great post. I know I enjoyed having both your boys at our Coldwater Conservation School earlier this year. Both good kids, and it looks like they had a blast!

 

[Oliver10]

You have some lucky boys. That looks like a great trip. Looking forward to the conclusion. I bet hiking in to the Adirondacks made this trip more manageable.

 

[moosekid]

this is great stuff!!! i took a similar trip with my dad when i was about 12 or 13. can't remember the range, specifically but I know it was just outside red lodge, montana... same story -- we'd hike into a lake and it would either be completely dead or teaming with fish. one lake was absolutely fire and i caught 53 cutthroats in a day.

 

[lightenup]

.......and the award for Dad of the year goes to.......



SSA las:...

man I wish I was yer kid....
Nice trip I bet they hold this one in their memories until, forever...

 

[FIN-ITE 34]

I'm already looking forward to the report of your next year trip. Great stuff.

 

[sunsignarcher]

I'm already looking forward to the report of your next year trip. Great stuff.

For next year I wanna pick ur brain n have a switch rod ready to go that I can chuck streamers 90 yards out into the middle of these deeper lakes with.

 

[WBDluver]

Ahh i see your one son is a Kuiu fan. Kid after my own heart. I start to get sick after 9,000 ft. always have one day of nausea and cant sleep. What model and make packs did you use and did you like them or not?

 

[sunsignarcher]

Mine is a 10+ yr old mmr from their military line which will be buried w/me and the boys have new duplex frames w/timberline II bags. They'll be running those for the next 20 yrs.

No complaints. Kifaru's gear for life.

 

[sunsignarcher]

Ohh, and I'm wearing KUIU attack pants.:thumb:

 

[sunsignarcher]

Day 5: Nowhere


Day 5 was a dark day indeed. Ice and rain had been pounding the tent all night and the morning seemed to hint only bad things were on the way. Initially I woke to a break in the weather and I quickly gathered wood to get a fire going. By the time the boys were out of the tent though mother nature had started gearing up for her final push to run our sorry asses off her mountain….bitch.


Ice, sleet and snow ensured there would not only be no crossing of the divide today but no turning back either. We battened down the hatches, layered up and got as comfortable as we could. We were going nowhere.

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Continued.........

 

[sunsignarcher]

Yah,

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[sunsignarcher]

Now when your a father in this situation there are a lot of scenarios swimming around in your head. The reality of the situation is that this is not really a big deal but, the reality of the situation is that this could really become a big deal.


We have the right gear, we're prepared for cold weather but not extended winter weather, theres plenty of food, plenty of fuel and most importantly we have…… "Lord of the Flies"


This book saved my ass. We left off at chapter 6 "Beast from Air" As a figure beneath a parachute dropped down to the childrens island with dangling limbs and a "ruined" face to end up perched atop their mountain in such away that he "bowed and sank and bowed again". The beastie that had been ruled out of existence was now real and my two boys were locked!


We read straight through until "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of mans heart, and the fall through the air of the true , wise friend called Piggy" and they hung on every word.


We talked for hours over our mountainhouse and snickers bars revisiting and rehashing chapter after chapter.


We got through the day in style. With laughter, bonding and great literature. Hopefully the front would move on defeated and leave us be for the rest of the night...

 

[golden beetle]

Now when your a father in this situation there are a lot of scenarios swimming around in your head. The reality of the situation is that this is not really a big deal but, the reality of the situation is that this could really become a big deal.


We have the right gear, we're prepared for cold weather but not extended winter weather, theres plenty of food, plenty of fuel and most importantly we have…… "Lord of the Flies"


This book saved my ass. We left off at chapter 6 "Beast from Air" As a figure beneath a parachute dropped down to the childrens island with dangling limbs and a "ruined" face to end up perched atop their mountain in such away that he "bowed and sank and bowed again". The beastie that had been ruled out of existence was now real and my two boys were locked!


We read straight through until "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of mans heart, and the fall through the air of the true , wise friend called Piggy" and they hung on every word.


We talked for hours over our mountainhouse and snickers bars revisiting and rehashing chapter after chapter.


We got through the day in style. With laughter, bonding and great literature. Hopefully the front would move on defeated and leave us be for the rest of the night...

This is getting better and better...

 

[GARYB]

Great story.............I'm dying, when's the next chapter, lol