A Fishing Story To Remember

On Saturday, my family hopped in my drift boat for a fall fishing session on Strawberry Reservoir.  We wind drifted and trolled flies on a fly rod and two spin rods.  Immediately, we had success, and we were happy.  My 5 year old was using my fly rod.  After catching 4 or so nice big cutts, he lost a bit of focus.  Before we knew it, he had a fish on, and the fly rod went rocketing out of the boat.  I watched as the rod, reel, and orange backing zoomed away through the water.  It was a helpless feeling.  I liked that rod and it had served me well the last 12 years.  I thought it was gone.  My little boy felt bad, and I scolded him and told him it was ok at the same time.  But again, in my mind, I was feeling the loss.

Here's the little guy before the rod rocketed out of his hands.

Almost as soon as it happened, I cast out a spin rod.  My daughter already had her rod out.  I swung the boat around and moved over the water where we saw the rod zoom away.  Nothing.  Then, my daughter said she had a fish on.  We stopped the boat and focused on her fish.  And temporarily, we forgot about the lost rod.  My daughter's fish took a couple dives, but she steadily brought it in.  When she lifted her rod, we expected to see a fish on the other end, because there was a fish on the other end.  But instead, there was just a dark, olive, green, sinking line -- MY FLY ROD'S LINE.  

The line angling down and to the left is my daughter's.  You can see the fly hooked to the fly rod line.

The weight of the fish on one end of my fly rod line and the fly rod itself created enough tension to allow my daughter to pull in my fly line.  I gingerly reached out and grabbed the line, handed the fish-end to my son who brought it in, while I hauled in my rod.  I got it back!

Molas Pass to Durango on the Colorado Trail

A couple weeks ago, Bart and I rode the Colorado Trail from Molas Pass to Durango.  Wow.  It was definitely the coolest bike ride I've done.  It was the full meal deal.  Tight single track. Sprawling and amazing vistas. High elevation.  Rain.  Hail.  Hike-a-bike.  12,000 foot plus mountain passes.  80 miles.  13,000 feet of climbing.  Over 18,000 feet of descent. And to make it epic-er, 25+ miles in the dark with a couple headlamps not meant for biking.

Since I hadn't broken 80 miles on a bike this year, I approached the ride with a bit of trepidation.  But it's something I've always wanted to do, I had a willing partner who is OK on a MTB, and we were in the area, . . . . wait, my bike had just been broken to bits by a Ford F250.  Bart wouldn't let me back out, so he adjusted Rosie's (his wife) bike so that I could ride it.  It turns out that a Scalpel 29er makes a Scalpel 26er feel like a crash machine.  I'm pretty sure that had I been on my Scalpel 26er, I would have crashed 10x more than I actually did (I went over the bars once at about 11:30 pm).

Because we had to break camp and get our families on their way to Durango, we didn't get an early start.  6:30 would have been ideal.  Instead it was more like 11ish.  But we weren't too concerned.  We conservatively projected an 8 to 10 hr finish.  At about 8 to 10 hrs into the ride we still had at least 40 miles to go.  We came to a point where we could bail, but we just rode past it.  The trail was a lot more technical and challenging than I expected.  And the darkness made it even tougher.  Fortunately, the last 25 miles of the ride dropped 6000 feet.  We finished in just under 14 hrs total.  It was after midnight.

Looking toward the Needles and Chicago Basin

Bart would stop, I would catch up.  Then he would get ahead.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

After 2500 feet of climbing . . . 

We topped out at some pass (forgot the name).  It rained and hailed for a while, but not too bad.

Bart was chomping at the bit to "shred" something.  And he did.  This was a long descent, which meant that we'd be climbing again soon.

Climbing out of Cascade Canyon.  

 

The Lizard Head and Uncompahgre in the distance.  

Topping out on another long climb.  Forgot the name of this pass too.

See those mountains clear back there . . . yes, waaay back there.  That's where we had ridden from.

Descending again.

The La Plata range in sight. 

Rosie's bike on the Indian Ridge Trail.

Hike a bike section at 12,500 feet.  approaching Kennebec Pass.

And then it got dark. 

Family Adventuring in Colorado

One thing I've enjoyed in the past is driving backcountry roads and exploring new trails.  Before I had kids, I was a fly fishing guide in the Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho.  I spent lots of days driving around the mountains between Cascade, McCall, and Stanley.  It was fun.  And someday soon, I'd like to do the same thing with my family.

For the last few years, I've visited the San Juans each summer in Colorado.  The roads down there are pretty rough and moving the family through those mountains wasn't really doable in our Honda Pilot.  So, with an eye toward more backcountry adventures with the family, I recently bought a 2009 4Runner.  I thought about a Sequoia and a Suburban might have crossed my mind, but for what I've wanted to do, those vehicles are too big.  The problem with the 4Runner was that it didn't have a third row seat, and I need to seat 6 people.  So, after a bit of research and trolling ebay, I found a jump seat, and after some drilling through the bottom of my 4Runner (and narrowly missing the gas tank), I bolted the jump seat in.  Third row seat.

The jump seat took a lot of space, so I modified my Thule T4 bike rack by removing two of the bike holders and bolting on an ATV cargo rack so that I could haul a cooler, an inflatable kayak, and camping gear.  More drilling.  With a Yakima roof box and my modified rack, I was able to carry camping gear and food for six people in a relatively off-road worthy vehicle.  With those gear mods -- drilling into otherwise perfect pieces of equipment -- we set off for the San Juans.

If you happened to notice the blog post below, you might surmise that our adventure through the San Juans was not without difficulty.  I got a flat tire at 12,000 feet, and in my haste to change it (because it was raining and hailing and getting dark), I left my back hatch open. And I lost a handgun out the back hatch.  And some shoes.  Oops.

But before that, because of the rough roads and the decreased departure angle of my T4 rack, which caused my special modified rack to drag on the road, my bike fell off.  And then Bart ran over it with his F250 truck.  He obviously needs to work on his off-roading skills.

  

But those slight trials aside, the trip up Corkscrew Gulch, over and down Red Mountain, up and over Hurricane Pass and Cinnamon Pass and then to Animas Forks was worth it.  Such cool country!

Bart, having a family conference about safety in the mountains.

F250 climbing up Red Mountain.

Switchbacks for long wheel base required some spotting and maneuvering.

Hanging out at 12k.

We drove down that road to find Hurricane Pass.

We had intermittent hail and rain, making things a bit tenuous, but nice and clean.

Looking off toward Ouray from Cinnamon Pass.

The family. 

Cool mushrooms.  Trippy?

A few days later connecting to Durango via Ophir Pass.

Lost Gun Between Cinnamon Pass and Animas Forks, Ouray, Silverton, Colorado

Lost the week of August 12, 2013 on the road between Cinnamon Pass and Animas Forks.  Let me know if you find it.  Reward.

(Thought I'd just put this out there.)

The Grunge: Video by Jason Dorais

Jason and I skied the Grunge a couple weeks ago.  He made a video, which was nice because I'm low on cameras right now (Canon S90 (fell in lake), Canon video camera (run over after I left it on wife's bumper), Sony Nex 7 (accidentally left camera bag open and flung it across garage; did not survive), GoPro Black Edition (junk, took it back).



The Grunge from Jason Dorais on Vimeo.

Spring run in the SLC Foothills

The Avalanche's Gift

One year ago, I nearly died in an avalanche.  Shortly after the incident, I wrote down some of my thoughts here.  In the last year, I don't think that a day has gone by that I haven't thought about that incident.

I distinctly remember my attitude the day I got swatted off the mountain.  I was over confident.  I was cocky.    I was not afraid.  Jason and I had just skied the north face of Mt. Superior.  I had triggered and skied out of an avalanche, and I had laughed.  No biggie.  Just as I thought, just as I would have guessed, and not surprisingly, I triggered it, managed it, and skied out.  I was, after all, a pro skier.  There wasn't much that could stand in between me and what I wanted out of the mountain. . . . or so I thought.

The day I stood on Superior and confidently arced turns on its south face might have been the highest point in my ski "career."  That day, I was standing on what I considered to be a pile of accomplishments: a variety of ski traverses, ski linkups, decent results at some rando races, and a speed ascent (and record) on the Grand Teton.  But as the avalanche swept me off the mountain and into a funnel lined with sharp and merciless rocks, I instantly realized that of the things that matter most in life, my skiing stunts were not among them.

It's odd how time nearly stood still as I churned and  pin-balled off the mountain.  Although my fall likely was less than one minute, I had ample time to reflect on what was happening to me.  I felt overwhelming anger and guilt, understanding that the next bashing might be my last.  I was fully aware that if my life were to end in the next cartwheel, I would leave a family behind.  My family.  That's what made me angry and guilty.

If I had to pinpoint one thing the avalanche taught me, it would be that I was a lucky guy.  I realized that in the years I had been moving in the mountains, I hadn't conquered anything.  I hadn't mastered much at all.  Rather, I had gotten away with things.  The mountains had given me gifts.  I had just gotten lucky.  Timp solo on an unstable day?  Luck.  Scaling the north face of Buck Mountain with one tool and no rope?  Luck.  Triggering avalanches and skiing out of them while skiing off Twin Peaks and Dromedary (in the same day)?  Duh, dumb luck.

This ski season has been a bit weird.  For the first time in years, I haven't had a burning desire to stand on or ski something scary.  I haven't had much of a desire to do much except for safe skinning and skiing.  Standing at the top of a powdery, class-A couloir kind of scares me.  I haven't summitted Mt. Superior since the avalanche.  I now think that the ideal ski day is when the snow is frozen solid.  Seriously, what is wrong with me?

The fact that I have seemed to have lost whatever moxy I used to have has troubled me, slightly.  But I've gotten over it.  I suppose that my old self would say that the avalanche took something away from me.  That it stole my fire.  But now, I don't think of it that way.  The avalanche gave me a gift.  It supplanted overconfidence with fear.  It didn't take away my desire to be in the mountains, but it gave me a healthy dose of respect.  It showed me what might have been without completely divesting me of what I had.  And that too was a gift.