My R is still in the shop (grrrrr) so it was a perfect excuse to rent a car for the weekend. I wanted something that I could take to the trailhead and also hold our gear and two rather large dogs, so I "reserved" a Subaru Outback. I hate car rental companies. It's not like I didn't call and specifically ask them if they had any Subaru's and specifically request an Outback. So I ride to the rental place and find out they've "upgraded" me to a Buick Rendezvous (an SUV type thing). (No, they didn't have any other vehicles that would have even come close to meeting my needs.) Great, I'd much rather be driving a tank than a stylin' Subie. Not to mention the fact that it had this annoying storage compartment in the back that made the rear area into two different levels. I was pretty perturbed by the time I got home, until I took a closer look at the dumb cargo thing and noticed a few bolts. I'm not sure if it's supposed to come out, but I ripped it out anyway, along with the rear seats. My garage looked like a Rendezvous chop shop, and I was much happier.
As usual, Kuzca got car sick on the way. I was driving very carefully, and I even gave her two Dramamine (on the recommendation from my vet). My roommate (who works for a vet) suggested Bomine for our next trip. I usually bring paper towels and bags to clean up the inevitable puke, but it slipped my mind this time. We found a bag in the car and used a towel I had brought to clean things up.
When we got to the trailhead, we let the dogs romp around while we got all the gear together. That was a mistake. Kuzca appeared a few minutes later with her neck covered in some random poo! She just can't resist rolling in smelly stuff. Ewww! It was so sick. There was a puddle at the trailhead that I used to clean her up a bit, and when we crossed a stream a little while later I used some of Christine's biodegradable soap to clean the pooch up good.
Kuzca all packed up (and poo free):
Here's Christine and the dogs as we approach the American Lakes, with Static Peak in the background.
The hike made Kuzca so sleepy that she even let me cover her with a blanket.
It's hard to beat the scenery.
A self portrait
On Sunday we took the short, but steep, hike up to Snow Lake. It's a beautiful clear mountain lake. I've been up here a few times before and always tried in vain to catch some of the fish you can see swimming around. These are the kind of fish that swim right by your fly, pause, and just keep going. It's so frustrating. For a while I didn't even see any fish, and I thought maybe the recent cooler weather was keeping them at the bottom of the lake. Eventually I started to see see a few trout come by as I was fishing. It's always encouraging when you can actually see that there's something in the water to catch. I tried some of my usual favorite flies and repeatedly saw the fish check out my fly without hitting it. After about 3 or 4 fly changes I finally found one that was interesting to them, and I even managed to hook a real nice one. I played it for a while in an effort to tire it out enough for me to grab it, but eventually it took a dive to deep water and managed to throw my fly. Crap! I thought that might be my only chance, but I kept trying anyway. A few more fly changes later, I finally returned to the one fly that had produced results and I hooked another one. This time I wasn't wasting any time, and I pulled him in as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure it's a Greenback Cutthroat Trout, which is an endangered species. It was great to finally catch one of these buggers.
We kind of expected the hike back to the car to be rather quick because it's almost entirely downhill, but a couple days of hiking and playing took its toll on Christine's dog, Bucket. At 11 years old, he's an old man in dog years. For a while he was just walking rather slow, but as we got closer to the bottom he started to need short breaks. We felt pretty bad for him, but at 100 pounds, neither of us was in any shape to carry him. We did try at one point to pick him up together and he was clearly not interested in our help. When we got closer to the car, Kuzca and I went on to the car so I could drop off my gear and head back up to help, at least with moral support. We eventually made it back, and after a couple days rest it sounds like Bucket is sore, but back to normal.
What a great way to spend the weekend.
Where did you get the cool topo route image??
ReplyDeleteThe red route on the map was generated by my GPS (which you can see my dog carrying above). I have topo maps for the entire state on CD, and the software for it talks to my GPS and draws my route (or, in this case, my dog's route) on the map. Geeky? Oh yeah. But also useful for planning hikes, and making sure I don't get lost.
ReplyDeleteFor the low low price of 7 blank CDs I can make a copy of the maps for anyone who is interested.
I camped up there a few years ago. Gorgeous valley. And Sadie swam for hours in the lake at the bottom of that cirque.
ReplyDelete