Middle Fork of the Salmon (Frank Church III)

Some quick parting shots from the crags. (Thanks Henson)

After hiking out of the crags we drove around to the campsite on Marsh Creek right on the edge of the River of No Return Wilderness.  Salmon were supposedly seen running up the river and up the creek.  We fished the creek a little the evening we arrived, but didn't see much and didn't catch anything really over 6 inches. 

The plan was to break camp in the morning, bust it the 5 miles down Marsh Creek to the middle fork, fish the middle fork until late afternoon, then fast pack out before dark.  A full day for sure.

The trail down the creek was nice.  For the most part we stayed right on the water giving it a fairly gentle grade the entire way. A nice change of pace from the crags. Pushing hard, we made it to the middle fork in around an hour and a half (light packs are a blessing!).  More trees and understory at this lower elevation.  It looked like a good spot to spot some large mammals, but only saw a single mule deer.

Saw only one salmon and he wasn't particularly interested in anything.  Totally focused on getting upstream.  However, the trout fishing was outstanding.  It seemed every hole held fish.

I hooked into a couple of heavy 14+ fish in some holes as well, this is when I regretted not having a net.  Trying to land a large fish, with light line, while standing on a rock with little bank, in heavy current, is difficult.  I would work them in, get a hand on them and they would make another run every time.  Both fish broke me off right next to the bank as I tried to land them.  This was quickly followed with lots of swearing and rock throwing... followed by bargaining with the fish and assuring them I would release them quickly, depression as I had to tie on a new fly, then finally acceptance.  After all there was plenty of biting fish. 

Even generally bottom feeding whitefish were hitting dry flies off the surface! They had super tiny mouths, but would hit the large flies.  Fun to catch.



The fishing was spectacular and we eventually did have to pack up and head back.  Great day of fishing and a great trip too.

Frank Church II

The fishing at Heart Lake was decent but not fantastic.  The lakes seemed to be a little fished out.  It was the first really good place to camp on the trail and fish so the pressure here must have been higher then else where.  What fish we did catch here were solid though.  Just had to work a little harder for it

We spent the day fishing Heart and the smaller lake adjacent to it.  We decided tomorrow we would day hike north and check out Bird Bill Lake and a couple of lakes nearby it.  Bird Bill was rumored to have golden trout.

The trail around to Bird Bill traversed around a large peak then switchbacked down it.  In places we had to negotiate the snow pack still across the trail, and erosion leaving the trail nothing more then a sandy foot path traversing a steep slope.

Bird Bill kept with the theme... stunning

It was in the 70's, but we were fishing in the snow in places.  Needless to say I had no complaints.  No Golden Trout out of Bird Bill, but lots of good Cut Throats.



We worked our way to the other lakes that we separated from Bird Bill by small streams and marshes.  The fishing at these other lakes was almost silly.  The fish weren't huge there, but almost every decent cast resulted in a rise at least.  The small streams and marshes had a surprise for me too. Amphibians at 9,000 feet! 



Columbia spotted frog

 Western Toad

We fished the rest of the day in this area before hiking back to camp.  We made the decision to hike out tomorrow and head for Marsh Creek on the other end of the wilderness. 

River of No Return!

Its a lucky thing I did return from the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area, because it was spectacular. 

We arrived in Boise and still not totally sure on exactly what our plan of action was we drove towards the Big Horn Crags section of the Frank Church.  The wilderness area by definition is accessed by trail only so it was a long drive around to the northern section to the crags trail head.  The views were nice though, passing by the Sawtooth Range

After a decent drive on twisty mountain roads we turned off the pavement and headed up.

(nice mail box right?)

After another hour and a half or so of dirt road we finally made it to the trailhead.  But we now actually had to make a decision.  We had essentially one goal, catch fish.  We knew the area would be gorgeous so the goal was simply catch trout.  It was already very late in the afternoon so we decided to hike in about 4 miles to a spring, where we would camp for the night.  The trail in was gorgeous and moderately strenuous.  It was just never flat! That combined with 9,000ft elevation can make things interesting at times. 



We decided the next morning to head for Heart Lake.  It was about another 3.5 miles in but Heart Lake was more or less centrally located so we could day hike to other lakes and fish.  Again the trail was gorgeous.  There was one lengthy climb we had negotiate.  I felt pretty fortunate since the difference in elevation from flag was only around 2,000 feet on average. 

The view at the top was pretty nice.

As we started our descent down the other side we got our first views of Heart Lake.

The trail going in from here wasn't too bad and we made good time.  It also always helps being able to see your destination!  And it didn't dissapoint.  I have found a new happy place...





Trading with Native Americans

Another 8 days on the river.  This time we were further south in some restored wetlands.  Saw some cool birds.

 Saw this Burrowing owl while we were moving between sites.  I chased him around for about 30 minutes. He never went far from his hole, but every time I got into position to take a decent picture he'd take off.  Punk! 

Lots of wading birds on the wetlands themselves.
Black-necked stilts

and White-faced Ibis (ya they don't have a really white face) were around

But the freaking Black Birds were the headache.  Red wings and Yellow-headed.  They were EVERYWHERE, and constantly chattering.

This guy is trying his best to make doing the splits on two small branches look easy.

We were still finding a lot of crawfish in the canals between wetlands, but decided against eating these.  They probably would have been fine, but the water wasn't all that inviting.  These wetlands were much closer to the main Colorado River, so now we were seeing bullfrogs too.  Another introduced exotic species to AZ, they have really taken off and beat the crap out of native frogs. 

Saw a sidewinder one night while looking for frogs.  Lil guys, but that sideways movement thing is pretty fun to watch.  I really liked the horns above the eyes.  They are thought to be able to fold down over the eyes when they burrow in the sand (since snakes don't have eyelids).  I just think it makes them look evil :)

Poked him with a stick for a while then went back to my frogs.  I hope I can spot one in the daytime at some point and get some cool pics of their sidestep through the sand.

We also looked around a bit on an Indian reservation that sits on the river. 

We were checking traps and calling for frogs when my headlight caught something larger run across the trail in front of me!  Middle of the night, in the boonies, with probably some sacred Indian burial ground nearby, of course I chased after it!  I'd get close, then it would sneak away further.  I was pretty sure I knew what I was chasing by this point though, so I pulled my camera out.  At one point I snuck up close enough to smell him (yup a him, and he smelled like he was chasing girls), snapped this crappy pic...

Pretty Kitty!

After taking that pic I backed off and we just watched him with our spotlights for nearly 30 minutes.  I've never been able to watch a bobcat for that long before. 

So the next morning was our last morning on the water for this trip so we were pulling our traps off the reservation.  Well some Native American apparently needed funnel traps more then me because we had four taken in the night.  Do they still trade for stuff?  Cuz that's not how I thought it worked.  Shouldn't I get a blanket, or some beads or something?

Hello Arizona! First weeks on the River

So I have been employed by the State of Arizona to chase ghosts.  Basically my job for the summer is to try and locate two species of frog that have only been seen a handful of times since the 60's on the lower Colorado River.  One of them, the lowland leopard frog, hasn't been seen at all on the main part of the Colorado River in decades, but randomly on a Refuge that seasonally drains into the river.  If you ask me I don't really think that counts, but I'm not the one supplying the money. 

We have completed one survey session to this point, and no target species.  But the scenery on this section of water was rather nice...

This lil stream just kinda works its way around the desert peaks towards the Colorado River.  It never actually makes it though.  This time of year it dries up a few kilometers away.  It actually was growing shorter by several yards every day we were on it.  The further up stream we went though, where the water was permanent, it started to take on an "Apocalypse Now" feel.  I kept looking over my shoulder for Marlon Brando and Hendrix came up all to often on my ipod, for a random shuffle.



Ya it looks fantastic.  You have to keep telling yourself its gorgeous as you wade up the water 3.5 miles carrying 25 pounds of gear, another 45 pounds of funnel traps in 105 degree heat.  Oh and watch the beavers, they will swim right through your legs (ya true story).

No target species this trip, did see lots of other amphibians.  This stream was absolutely full of native Arizona toads and red spotted toads (sorry no pics :( ).  This was nice to see since most of the rest of our study sites are filled with introduced bullfrogs.

We were putting out non-lethal funnel traps for frogs and tadpoles to get a sampling of the species diversity here.  One animal that did turn up in the traps a lot was crawfish.  Now crawfish in AZ are introduced as well, and can make a mess of a healthy ecosystem.  So as standard protocol we... "dispose" of the crawfish whenever we get the chance.  Well the last day we checked traps my field tech and myself had an eureka moment.  "What the heck are we doing wasting these crawfish!?!?"  This is a spring fed stream with rarely any visitors!  So the last day we fashioned a carrier out of a broken funnel trap, a pot lid, and tie wire and collected and carried out all the crawfish from that day.  We ended up with at least 30.  Dropped the make shift cage into the cooler and when we got to our next camp.... BAM impromptu crawfish boil!  Didn't have much in the way of seasoning, but not bad for spur of the moment.  And I felt a little better about the "disposal," since I disposed of them in my belly.

I did spot this guy one morning. 

I was glad to see him (ya I'm odd).  Until this buzztail the only rattler I'd seen was on a golf course.  Really? A golf course?  This state is supposed to crawl with rattlers and the best I can do is a golf course?  Regardless, I was also excited because this is an animal I've never seen before, the Speckled Rattlesnake.  He was pretty quiet and cooperative while I snapped these pics.

The one good part about this particular project, is there is PLENTY of water to look for the frogs.  Hopefully I'll find my ghosts