“I said 4 a.m. as a joke…and he didn't flinch...so...”
So…
…we decide on 5:00 a.m., and Sanders beats me out as
hard-core early riser.
I’m impressed.
The monsoon season has finally come around this year.
Better late than never, as it goes with few exceptions. But there are a
few, as with anything – like I’s before E’s. The world is full of exceptions --
the tax code, the online legal documents we all click yes to “agree,” and the
friend I have who likes black olives except when they’re cooked into
food. The wildfires have been put out, and new ones discouraged by the
afternoon thunderstorms. Although, they were a Catch-22 for a while, for the
first few weeks when the moisture came with fire of its own – lightning --
which ignited a few local cabins and a patch of pines just down the hill from
million dollar homes at the base of my canyon. Sitting on the last ridge (or
first, dependent upon your direction), they overlook the front range. At night
they see pollution; during the day, too. I can only assume the reason people
buy a house on that ridge is to be seen. For it certainly isn’t what I would
consider a view.
David had come up with the plan a few weeks ago: a
high lake, sitting at over 10,000 ft. and over 6 miles in. What do you think? he’d
asked.
That I was game, and wondered if Sanders would be too. “Ready and
willing” was the reply. And that’s how we came to find ourselves in a dark
trailhead parking lot on a Saturday morning -- sipping coffee, looking for headlamps, cutting up strawberries...all good to go.
I’d fished with Dave once before. Last fall. And
while we had both thrown out names of long trails leading to high lakes -- in
the end, we opted for something shorter (still, leading to a lake of course).
Because there was that unspoken
I-don’t-want-to-spend-the-entire-day-with-you-until-I-know-you’re-not-a-weirdo
thing going on. Kind of like suggesting coffee on a first-date – so you can get
there early, sit at a back table, and peek over a Denver Post until you
determine if you want to actually meet the man or leave. (I’ve only done that
once. And for the record, I didn’t leave.)
Short hikes and morning coffee. No commitment.
Beautiful things for those uncertain.
Thirteen miles is a lot of walking and talking. It’s
a lot of hours and a full day. But by now, it had been determined that we were
indeed all weirdoes, but of the same sort. So it was all okay.
And then also, there’s that remote possibility of
getting lost – which would mean more hours. Many more. Days, perhaps. So
my general rule stands that I don’t go into the backcountry with people I don’t
like, or with people I don’t trust. You have to, because it really could be a
matter of life or death – perhaps yours. It’s a dangerous business,
stepping out there, one that tourists coming up the trail with no water or rain
jacket or food don’t acknowledge.

But our small fishing party certainly did: Dave comes
with a knife strapped to the outside of his pack (big enough that those not
from farm country would call a machete) “for mountain lions” he said, and for
cream cheese on breakfast sushi rolls, too; me with a map and compass, finding
a shortcut for us on a pack trail; and Sanders with a “jet-pack” (or maybe just two
rod tubes) and enough Gatorade for the entire men’s Olympic gymnastics team.
And on a side note, why do men do floor routines, anyway? They shouldn’t, we
determined somewhere in the 13 miles. Only rings. Only and always rings.
Now, if you haven’t hiked or run hours upon hours (or something of the like before), I can tell you that you get into a rhythm -- into a Zen I’d say,
if I were hipper. You meditate on breath and footfall, wondering how muscles work. And it’s one of the rare
times in life you have to truly think for yourself. Sometimes about how hungry
and tired you are, or how you wish there was someone who could tell you how
much longer there was to go yet; about the world’s problems, pet peeves, and
silly things -- like men’s gymnastics that make you chuckle when you’re
a little bit dehydrated and a little bit tired and you’re always and ever still
walking a little bit uphill.
But as Dave said, holding a can of Red Bull, “I’d
rather be pushing ahead than saying goodbye…do ya know what I mean?”
And we did, Sanders and I both nodding. Catching our
breath.
Which is why sometimes it’s hard to actually reach
the lake, to actually see the thing that you’ve been imagining for the past six
miles and three hours. Because then, then you know what you’ll be missing in
the end. And you know you’ll be lonesome when you go. With the
flowers on the hillside blooming crazy, crickets talking back and forth in
rhyme, blue river running slow and lazy…you could stay here forever. And
never realize the time.

But we do eventually, we have to (despite the perpetual six
miles), and we do see the lake – the end -- windy and cold against the dramatic
back of Longs Peak. The Keyhole, where a few hikers and climbers die every
year. And I can’t help but think about that, and pay my respects in a way, as I
look down to the water.
Sanders leads to the west end, to the inlet (best
fished at ice off the guidebook says, but isn’t it all? he grins, while
making a good point.), and we work around south to a talus field that drops off
deep. Where the water is eerie green with the opaqueness that strangely often
comes from clarity and depth, and where there are teasing flashes of following
shadows, on occasion.
Yet persistently the three of us work down the side,
and repeatedly the three of us miss fish. After fish. Until finally we all
finally hook up and their nonchalance is obvious – they may not be big
cutthroats, but they are of full and filled out frames. The food is plentiful
up here...and they are not concerned. You know, if you aren’t worried about
money, you don’t pick up pennies out of sidewalk cracks.

These trout can afford to let some go and so they do,
rising nonchalantly to our flies – black soft-hackles, bead-head nymphs,
hideously large dries. All different just to make a point posited on the hike
up: that it doesn’t matter what you use, it’s all in how you use it. Like
Gierach says, “The real truth is, convincing a fish to strike is like playing
string with a cat: the exact size and color of the string is probably less
important than how you wiggle it.”
And so the day passes, us wiggling strings and
catching a trout here and there. And eating and talking and laughing good
laughs that come out among friends.
Pushing ahead until it comes time to say goodbye.
Which really, it turns out, is one and the same.
Because I know.....there will be a next time.