Navigating the 41 degree waters of the Dutch Springs quarry in Pennsylvania for my SCUBA checkout dives in April at the age of 12 is still the winner for the “Coldest I’ve Ever Been” title, but this weekend has given it a run for its money. Yesterday, I showed up here a bit after nine in the morning, only to find it blowing first rain, then snow, and – sporadically – hail.
Neither rain nor sleet nor – apparently – snow and so on, my buddy and I and the rest of the Trout Unlimited volunteers donned waders and walked the Colorado picking up discarded worm containers, discarded plastic bags and a multitude of cigarette butts (why, smokers, why?). That was cold enough, but after a quick lunch and a quarter and a half of watching Notre Dame get absolutely thrashed, we decided to hit Rocky Mountain National Park for some fishing. Yes it was a couple of degrees above freezing, and yes the winds were high, and yes it continued to snow and hail. But fish we did: first the Colorado, and then Onahu Creek (longer than I would have on my own, incidentally). My catch for the day? One three inch brook trout. The fact that I steadfastly refused to change flies after about a half hour because it was too cold to manipulate my fingers well enough to tie new ones on may have had something to do with that, but even my buddy only caught four.
Then this morning, we headed up towards the Arapahoe Bay campsite, and headed a couple of miles up the mountain towards Arapahoe Creek where we again donned waders for some field work that involved flow meters, laser levels and other assorted science gear. That stuff, unfortunately, is neither light nor compact, as you can see from our packs here (my pack – the one of the left – is distended by a relatively bulky tripod which conveniently whacked me on the back of my head if I turned quickly).
As backpacking veterans will know, carrying significant amounts of weight – maybe 40 or so pounds for each of us, causes one to sweat fairly profusely regardless of what the temperature is. In the summer, this is not much of a problem. In the early fall, however, when the first snows have already fallen and the temperatures are hovering around 36, it’s slightly less ideal. Sitting around for the field work made for a very chilly afternoon.
After trying to reheat back at the place here in Grand Lake, I’m just about ready to head back to Denver. But in the meantime, it’s been a very solid weekend despite the cold. The scenery up here, after all, is tough to beat.
