Wind River 12 days 7-3-23 to 7-14-23

[robertseeburger]

Well.. like many folks on HST, I watched the winter of 2023 with mixed feelings. On the good side..the sierras needed the snow.
On the bad side of course, the heavy winter and cold spring dashed any hopes for an early backpack in the sierras.
I have done a Wind River trip once per year for the last several years ( with one exception). In each case, I have done a Sierra trip first and done a
Wind trip later in the year....either August or September. The winds this year have had an average amount of snow...so for the first time I decided to reverse the order. Do the wind river trip first and then hit the sierras later. The challenges in early season in the winds are similar to the sierras...
snow, stream crossing, and bugs. Actually early season bugs is what people warned me about the most.

My friends Mike and I had a tough trip to the Winds last year. ( posted in HST). It rained. It rained more. It rained a lot more. We bailed.
We decided this year to make it more of just a fishing trip. And we decided to hit some lakes where we were successful before for cutthroats.
Our attempts at goldens in the winds has produced mixed results. At times very good..and at times nothing. So after last year, we wanted a sure thing.
So we planned 12 days, broken up into two pieces. An 8 day trip on the Wind River Indian Reservation (east side)with a focus on cutthroat fishing and then a 4 day revisit to some lakes from the prior year( further south) with a focus on goldens.
We did the same thing we do for early season fishing in the sierras...monitor ice out via Sentinel Hub..and pick a date.
It became apparent that our target lakes were going to begin ice out around July 1st, we set our plans.

So here goes. My friend Gary and I drove from California and met our New Mexico friend Mike in Lander and had dinner 7/2 before we started backpacking on 7/3. We bought our Indian Reservation fishing permits. It was pretty evident that not much backpacking activity had started yet.
We were warned about mosquitoes.

We saw exactly 0 people for the next 7 days. It is kind of cool to have an entire backcountry to yourselves. ( We saw a lot of people hiking in when we hiked out on day 8).

Getting ready for the hike.

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A place called The Meadows

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Over the first pass..Entigo Pass

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The first major stream crossing..Wilson Creek. It went without incident. The rope was there already.

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The next stream crossing Glacier Creek was actually much more difficult but we made it without incident.

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We knew we had some weather the first couple of days. We planned a lot of this trip to be a "base camp and day hike" trip.
So.. Mike brought a light weight tarp. It proved very handy during the almost daily thunderstorms on the first part of the trip.
Some were pretty intense. Tarp and hail.

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Elk signs everywhere..Here is one posing for us.

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It was early season of course. It wasn't just the snow.. It was the mud..soggy hiking.

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Our first camp ( and basecamp) was in snow..but we found some dry space.

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A couple of shots of Lake Heebeecheechee

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And looking down on the lake from above

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End of part 1...multiple parts to follow.

[robertseeburger]

Part 2 of trip

A lake we visited next. Yes it turned out we timed our visit well.. it was partially frozen.

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Hiking around the lake

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Hiking down from the lake above

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A different lake above Heebeecheeche. This one had brookies and lake trout and hybrids

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Another lake we visited . Also partially frozen

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Fishing in earnest here.

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Looking back..

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Another lake. This one almost all frozen, but we found some room for fishing. The cuts were ravenous here.

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We hiked up to a lake that we thought was supposed to have goldens. Here it is. But we turned around before we made it there because
it looked like we were about to get clobbered with a thunderstorm. Oh well. next time.

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A view down to Sonnicant lake

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end of part 2

[robertseeburger]

Part 3

Sonnicant lake from camp.

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It rained here also.. The tarp again useful

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A couple of more shots

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Next lake up.. Lake Solitude

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Surprised to find Lake Trout at 10500 feet

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We had to cross this log multiple times. We base camped and did day hikes.
So 3 times, times twice per day, and three people.
18 crossings total. Mike and Gary were each 6 for 6. I was 5 for six. I fell in (standing) once. Very frustrating. Only stream crossing mishap of the trip.

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We went up to a beautiful lake we had been to before..lots of snow.

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more snow

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And looking down on Solitude.

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End of part 3

[robertseeburger]

part 4

Another view of the lake

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One of the advantages of a basecamp is it makes the camp site a very pleasant experience.
Here is cocktail hour. And we named the rock.. cocktail rock.
Irish Whiskey the choice here.

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A good way to end part 1 of the trip.

Part 2 was a little bit different. ( 4 days) A march in, mainly through trees but the scenery was outstanding when we got to our destination.

First a stream crossing that we worried a lot about..but was not too difficult.

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First lake up..we were here last year.

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And the second lake.. a beautiful lake I think.

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A view from the lake

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This lake was about 75% ice free. Timed well for visit

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Ok.. I mentioned this was a fishing trip..will show some fishing pictures.
For those that like fishing pictures read on.
For those that dont..you can skip.
As I said..this was a fishing trip..and we caught a lot of fish. And a lot of good sized fish.

Maybe it is just me, but I like to see trout swirling in the water.

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Gary with a nice 19 inch cut

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And me with a nice 19 inch cut

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Two on side by side.. ( one on flies, one on lures)

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A big one 20 inches..the picture doesn't do it justice

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End of part 4..more trout pictures in part 5.

[robertseeburger]

part 5...all the rest is fishing..

Another 20 incher.

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An 18 inch cut for dinner

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Fishing a high lake

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Another 20 incher..perhaps the biggest?

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Another in the water

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Mike with a nice cut

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We ate some one Cut dinner and one golden dinner.

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Eating was good.

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Some goldens also on the second part of trip

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more trout pics to follow on next segment.

[robertseeburger]

Gary was the big winner on goldens ( like last year).

An 18 incher..

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and another 18 incher

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a 17 incher

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We measured the bigger ones

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In the net to be released

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Sometimes fishing was really easy..

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A view from camp..

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3 goldens for dinner. 15 15 and 16.
We think that this is the ideal size for eating goldens..

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And .. we think the goldens are the best eating trout..the golden dinner was better than cuts..(orange meat!)

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That is it! While we saw no people on the first part of the trip, we saw several groups on the second part.
The timing was good though. Some snow..not too much.
Mosquitoes were bad at times, but not a disaster.

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A very successful fishing trip as well.

[TahoeJeff]

Robertseeburger you know how to get it done!

[texan]

Best fishing TR I have seen in a long time. Congrats! Nice goldens, cutts, and lake trout. Thanks for sharing. By the way, what was the biggest fish you caught. When I was a kid I read about Elbow lake had huge goldens, but never made it there. Thinking about going there after your TR. Those fish are amazing. Thanks again for sharing.

Texan

[windknot]

Wow! Those are huge cutts and goldens -- congrats on a successful trip to the Winds despite some inclement weather. This is an especially exceptional report considering that much of the Sierra is still inaccessible to fishing.

I keep telling myself that I'll make it out there someday, and this is a good reminder of what I'll be missing until that someday comes.

[robertseeburger]

TahoeJeff, Texan, Windknot....thanks for your replies.

To Texan...I have never been to Elbow Lake, but it is legendary. If you want to watch a couple of videos on catching fish there, go to YouTube and
watch Goldentrout chronicles ( inlet stream), and golden trout porn..
I have heard there are still big goldens there, but it gets a fair amount of fishing pressure and results are inconsistent. (That is the story of my golden trout experience in the winds...some good some bad). Biggest cuts .. I caught 3 that went 20 inches, and many in the 18-19 range. My biggest golden was 16 inches ...and Gary caught bigger 18 inch goldens..

To Windknot..I keep telling people... it is 6 hours of driving to get to the east side of the sierras, and it is 15 hours of driving to get to the winds...
so the difference is 9 hours! It really isn't that much.. (OK, I do it in 2 days, I admit). They aren't as far away as you think!