On Thursday morning we loaded the Ford Fiesta rental car with all of our camping and fishing gear and set off deeper into the mountains. When we stopped at a fly fishing shop to buy fishing licenses and mentioned our planned destination, one of the guides told us that when he went to Boulder Lake last year, he "didn't see a single fish." Trey and I were a little dumbfounded about what to do, as our plans for the next two days had been instantly shot down. Luckily, the guy that had just sold us our fishing licenses was a local and had a great recommendation for a place we could go hiking, fishing, and camping and as a bonus, do a little off-roading in our Fiesta.
The salesman sent us to Mohawk lakes. The Mohawk Lakes are a series of pristine alpine lakes that lie in a valley just above tree line. After some pretty sketchy road conditions and passing many larger vehicles in our little rental car, we made it to the parking area for the Mohawk Lakes trailhead. Trey and I claimed our camping spot, then hiked up the trail, with a goal of exploring the area that we would be fishing the next day. We brought our ropes and climbing gear with us, just in case we found anything to rappel down. The many hikers we passed on their way down the trail assured us that there were tons of great places (though the park ranger we passed questioned us, and informed us it wasn't a great area for climbing and rappelling). After a short hike through the woods, we got our first glimpse of the series of waterfalls that cut straight down the steep valley we would soon be climbing.
We did pass another two guys that had climbing gear, who informed us that the rappelling was indeed great, that they'd just rappelled down through the waterfalls, at one point hanging behind one. Of course, being fed by alpine lakes, the water is near freezing and they had used wetsuits, something Trey and I were unprepared for.
When we got closer to the waterfalls, though, we knew why the fishing shop guide had repeatedly asked us if we'd brought our cameras. The views were gorgeous. My pictures don't even begin to do this area justice.
After gaining 1000 feet over a two mile hike, we made it two the first Mohawk Lake, a shallow alpine like right at tree line. It is a gorgeous lake, and I plan on returning to camp there one day (there were many people camping and fishing on the lake by the time we arrived mid-afternoon).
There were breathtaking vistas in every direction. Check out many more pictures and panoramas on my flickr page (and see the larger versions).
It was late in the afternoon, but the weather was still good, so Trey and I decided to do some rappelling. We found a small cliff above a couple of small abandoned mines and set up our rope. I used my GoPro to take some videos of Trey rappelling, but unfortunately, the moisture in the camera housing had condensed and pretty much ruined the video. At any rate, here's a video of Trey rappelling down the cliff.
There was a neat crack running up the face and Trey decided to try and climb it. I set up a belay from on top of the cliff and despite his less than ideal boots, he made a successful attempt on it. It doesn't look like much in the videos, but it was a 25 foot cliff.
Just as Trey made it to the top of the cliff, we heard thunder on the other side of the ridge and had to make a hasty getaway down the mountain. Luckily, we made it down the mountain with little more than a few rain drops.
Dinner that evening proved to be another challenge. We'd brought hot dogs, baked beans, and a Coleman stove (we didn't bring real meat because of the fire ban). By the time we made it back to camp, Trey and I were both starving, and ready for a warm meal. Upon assembling the gas stove, however, I noticed the O-ring on the gas tank adapter was very cracked and dry. The first attempt to light the stove sent a large fireball right at my face. We tried a couple more times to light only the furthest burner from the leaking O-ring, but each time, the leaking gas eventually made it to the lit burner, igniting and making a secondary flame under the stove. Without a spare O-ring, it looked like we were going to be eating more PB&J sandwiches.
But we didn't give up without a fight. I carry dental floss in the emergency kit of my backpack and decided the waxy floss might suffice as a makeshift O-ring. I removed the dried, old O-ring and wrapped the O-ring track with dental floss until it protruded from the connector about as much as the O-ring had. I carefully slid the adapter back into the stove and crossed my fingers. After connecting the gas tank, we couldn't hear any gas leaking (when we hooked the tank up before, we could hear the gas hissing out). It turns out that dental floss makes a great O-ring in a pinch, and we were able to use the stove for the next two days with no problems. It's a good thing, too, because cold oatmeal didn't sound appetizing.
The next morning dawned warm and clear. We grabbed our fishing rods and set off, back up the trail to the Mohawk Lakes.
We stopped only briefly to admire the first, shallowest lake, then continued up to the next lake, higher than we had hiked the previous afternoon. Our goal was the first of the upper Mohawk Lakes; a deep alpine lake that supposedly held large fish for the taking. With determination, we cast our lines, willing the fish to bite onto the flies tied to the ends. The fish, however were completely oblivious to our flies, and we caught only one measly five inch fish in the two hours we spent ate the lake. The story remained the same as we spent the next couple of hours hiking to progressively higher alpine lakes. We could see the fish, but they wouldn't bite our lines. After spending an hour at the highest of the lakes and again watching the fish glide apathetically by our lures, we decided to head back down the mountain, stopping at each of the lakes one more time to try our luck.
When we arrived at the inlet of the second highest Mohawk Lake, we finally found what we were looking for. We'd found a spot where the fish were practically jumping out of the water to bite our flies. Withing two minutes of arriving at the lake, both of our fishing lines had been broken by aggressive fish (we were only using 5lb leader). As we were tying on new flies, we heard the thunder. This time, we could see the storm rolling through the valley perpendicular to ours. It was a tough decision; stay and finally catch the fish we'd been searching for all day and risk getting caught above tree line in a storm, or get down the mountain, having only caught two fish the entire day. A loud roar of thunder made the decision for us and we packed our poles, once again hurrying down the mountain to a safer elevation. We stopped to fish a lower lake, but again had no luck.
By the time we got back to the car, it was raining steadily and we still had to pack up camp. We did so hastily, as I wasn't looking forward to the rough, wet road ahead in our little Ford Fiesta. Luckily, with only a few bumps and scrapes to the underside of the rental, we made it back to paved civilization.
Though this adventure hadn't proved to be quite what we thought it would and the fishing was less than stellar, we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of our surroundings. And the next two days would more than make up for the lack of adrenaline....
