It was August and 100 degrees in Texas but I had on a coat and was sitting around a camp fire at 10,000 feet elevation. My friend and I had spent all day riding horses and mules into the high country. We were in the Rio Grande National Forest in Colorado. About 3 hours into the ride we entered the 488,000 acre Weminuche Wilderness area. I wondered if we had everything we needed for a week’s stay, no convenience stores in this country. We had planned on eating trout and only had meat for two or three days. Three cans of good old Spam would keep us if the fishing was bad.
When we got up to 9000 elevation it started a light rain which quickly changed to snow. I put on my rain coat and gloves. It had been 68 degrees at the trail head when we started, now it was in the 30’s. My quarter horse was getting tired and the pack mule was about to pull my saddle off behind me. My friend Dick said we had about an hour to get to Four Mile Lake. Finally we topped the last ridge and I saw that beautiful mountain lake. Good, nobody was in our campsite. As we got off the horses I saw Dick putting his hands under his arms with a painful look on his face. He had on leather riding gloves and they were soaking wet with melted snow and ice. It was getting dark and we had to picket the 
animals and set up the tent. The ground was white and the wood was wet. I helped Dick get out of those wet gloves and got him into some dry hunting gloves. We set up two picket lines with long ropes between pine trees. They were pulled tight with a ratchet come a long and special metal ties spaced so none of the four head could get tangled together. When we took off the saddles and packing panniers the horse and mules were steaming and shaking. We rubbed them down with dry towels and put a saddle blanket on each one.
Now to get the tent set up, this took about 45 minutes. Dick got the cooking boxes set up in the middle of the tent and got the bottle gas stove lit. I opened two cans of soup and soon steam was rising, we felt better after a hot meal as we only had jerky and snacks on the trail up. We crashed in our sleeping bags soon after. I had a nature call around 3am and I could not believe the stars at that altitude.
The sun came up bright the next morning and I could see trout rising on the lake but the animals had to be fed first. After a quick cup of coffee, I put my 3 piece fly rod together and attached the reel. Walking along the shore of the 5 acre lake, I could see trout swimming along about 30 feet out. On the end of my 8 foot leader of 4 pound test, I tied a black Wholly Bugger. I let it sink about 3 feet, and then gave it a few twitches. The water was crystal clear and I watched a cutthroat trout racing to the fly. At the last minute, the 16 inch beauty turned away. Same thing happened on the next 4 casts. I sit down and watched the water for about 30 minutes, finally I saw a tiny black flying ant do a crash landing on the water and a nice trout inhaled it. I dug into my fly box and came out with a #12 black ant and tied it on the leader. When I saw the next cutthroat trout swimming along, I made a cast about 10 feet ahead of it and let it sink. The trout rose up slowly and sucked in the ant. I raised the rod tip and set the hook. This produced an instant reaction of three jumps out of the water and then a deep dive to the bottom. 
After about a 15 minute fight, I had him in the dip net. Cutthroats are such a beautiful fish with black spots and bright red slash behind the gills. Working my way along the shore, I caught 5 more in about an hour. The door board from the cooking box worked well to fillet the trout on for lunch. Jiffy corn bread mix in a plastic bag coated them and p-nut oil in the camp fire skillet until brown.
After lunch we took a hike and watched a small herd of elk grazing in the valley below camp. That evening we watched storm clouds building in the west. Weather happens fast in the high country and we retreated to the tent. Heavy rain and then hail pounded us for two hours. We didn’t have cots and were sleeping on the ground. The tent had a floor but had leaks and soon our sleeping bags were getting a little damp. During the night we had more rain and we found out the hail had damaged the roof. Water was coming in from several holes. It finally cleared up around mid night and I woke to find Dick outside trying to get a fire started.
Dick is a Vietnam vet and sometimes has some late night issues that keep him awake.
Next morning dawned bright and clear and the trout were rising all over the lake. We both caught our limit in about one hour and had fillets again for lunch. Each morning we would put hobbles on the horses and mules so they could graze. We fed them feed each evening when we tied them up for the night. Dick’s favorite mule was named Sweetheart and she had a bad habit of getting lost. We had to constantly watch her as she could jump in those hobbles about as fast as I could walk. While we were fishing, Dick said “Where is Sweetheart? “ We run up the hill from the lake looking for the red mule. All the other three were eating grass but Sweetheart was gone. We tracked her back down the trail. She was headed back to the trail head. Dick grabbed a halter and rope and took off to catch her. I stayed behind to watch the other three animals.
About 2 hours later, I heard hoofs coming and walked down to meet them. Dick was leading the mule and stopped by a big rock. He got up on the rock and tried to mount the mule. At the last moment Sweetheart jumped sideways and Dick hit the ground. The mule went passed me like a race horse. Dick got up cussing and I was relived he was ok. Not a good place to have an injury. You don’t call 911 in this country.
On the third day we decided to ride over to another valley and fish in Turkey Lake. It was about a two hour ride and we saw several elk along the way. Turkey Lake was full of brook trout and they hit any fly we used. One would grab the fly and two more were fighting him for it. Brook trout are not large but they really put up a fight on a light fly rod.
We had put hobbles on my horse and Dick’s Sweetheart mule so they could eat grass. Yeah, you guessed it; Sweetheart had taken off back to camp while we were not watching. Dick was way down at the end of the lake, so I grabbed the rope and took off to find her. Running up the mountain at 10,000 feet elevation soon had me puffing for air. Finally I spotted her about 500 yards down the back side of the mountain. She was hopping on her front legs but I caught up with her. I removed the hobbles and led her back to the lake. This time we tied her to a tree.
We fished about another hour, catching trout on every cast. We caught and released over 100 Brook trout and I believe that was the first time I ever got tired of landing fish. We kept about a dozen for dinner and headed back to camp. On the ride back, Dick told me about bringing his brother’s ashes to this lake for his final resting place.
Packing into the high country, camping and fly fishing is something you need to put on your “Bucket List” sometime before you kick the bucket.
-Russell Porter, Russell Outdoors
