Actually, Max is 5 years old, but the title sounded good 
We have known for quite some time that Max is a different kind of kid. He has been doing and saying things that amaze us since he started moving around on his own. So, it was an easy descision to decide to take him on a backpacking trip into the wilderness. We left Casper late on Friday night after the first week of school (for teachers). We took a Ranger ride from the truck to the wilderness trail head and started off on our adventure. It was late in the evening when we began the hike, so we made camp quite a bit lower than normal. The next morning we hiked for a couple hours and made a base camp and then headed for Angeline which is a lake that sits just above timberline. Max did an amazing job carrying his pack and keeping up (for the most part). He was able to catch a fish for our breakfast, drink straight from a mountain stream and start our campfire. GOOD JOB, MAX!!
Archive for category fly fishing
Timberline with a toddler
Sep 11
Grand Finale, summer 2011
Aug 13
Every summer we spend a few days with our nieces somewhere in Wyoming on a camping and fishing adventure. We had wanted to take the them to Yellowstone for quite some time now and this year was the year! The circumstance allowed us to spend the week with some good friends as well. On this adventure we slept in 32º weather, caught cutthroats for breakfast, saw a chocolate colored wolf, watched the sun set on the Tetons, witnessed the many amazing colors of Yellowstone, played games in the dark, disected owl pellets, ate many smores (sometimes for breakfast), rafted class 3 rapids on the Snake river, told ghost stories around colorful fires and drove 1,000 miles.
Hopfully these pictures tell part of the amazing story that was one of our best vacations…
Popo Agie
Jul 23
Snow, snow and more snow. Much more snow than we have ever seen before. The mosquitos were pretty numerous too, but good ol’ deet does the trick. If anyone ever tries to sell you some other product to keep mosquitos away, DON’T FALL FOR IT. We decided to try three different alternatives to deet this trip; 1. citronella bracelette, 2. skin patch, 3. buzz off bandanas. None of them even came close to keeping the bugs away. We even had all three going at the same time and still the only thing that worked was the deet.
We stayed the first night at Tomohawk lake and caught severl brook trout for breakfast before heading for Thumb Lake a several hundred feet above.
As far as the fishing, it was more like being in the mountains in June, the fishing was somewhat slow. On the upside, Michelle hooked her first ever golden trout; although it got off just before landing it 
It is still always good to get the backpacks on and live in the wilderness for a few days! On the way back to the trail head, we ran into some friends of ours from Casper, Ken and Amber Christianson.
Top 10 reasons to spend your days off in the mountains!
1. Cooler temperatures. In our 90+ degree mid summer pattern life gets to dragging by, lethargy takes over drive and everyone gets cranky.
2. Have the area to yourself. You don’t have to go to the same place as everyone else. There hundreds of square miles in the State of Wyoming and only 600,000 people; who all seem to congregate in the same 10 places.
3. Quiet. As the day passes the most peaceful sounds surround you when you are in the mountains; birds, lapping water, breeze through the trees… And at night- silence.
4. Great fishing. Often the less pressure a fishery has the easier it is to catch fish. Throw out a fly or even power bait and catch yourself a tasty breakfast.
5. No services. Are we really better off with Internet and TV everywhere we go? We lived without these for most of our lives and what a nice time to live without during our down time.
6. Cooking over a fire. It takes time to get good at making sure you have just the right amount of hot coals under your meal, but if you spend all your off time around the fire you will get good fast!
7. Wild flowers. With the exception of the drive to Pathfinder, you will be hard pressed to find as much color around the well used areas for weekend goers. In the mountains, however, the flowers abound and the varieties are endless.
8. Milky Way. No, not the candy bar. When we spend our evenings around city lights or campground lights we miss the endless stars our sky shines down on us. In the mountains you can see satelites, planets, the space station and even galaxies!!
9. Hiking. Exploration is one of the more enjoyable ‘do nothing’ activities. Climb a hill and look back; you may be amazed at what you see and where your mind takes you.
10. Mosquitoes. Ok, not the best part but look back at this list. Pretty good trade off, eh? And if you bring the deet you will have no problems
Middle Fork
Jul 15
It was about a month later then usual but the fishing was fantastic. With all the above average snowpack and late spring the river was running like it usually does in late June not late July. Fishing was a bit slow from 8:30 till 10:00 on this morning, but once the sun warmed the water the fish got more active and started hitting big dryflys. It was one fish after another from 10:00 until 3:00 when arms were sore and a rough hour and a half hike back down the river and up the canyon trail to get back to the 4 Wheeler was still needed to make it back to civilization.
We left the house around 6:30 to Pathfinder. We had done well Monday night and thought to get a little action in before turkey hunting later in the day. The fishing was fantastic! We rigged up with wooly buggers and were catching or missing fish most every cast. These fish are averaging 20″ this year… Hopefully the G&F figures out some sort of limit exeption or keeping a limit will be out of the question this summer. It will be a shamefull waste of a resource for our families considering these fish will just start dying off.
Later in the day we picked up Katelyn and drove to the mountain to set up and call in some turkeys. We arrived around 3:45 and chose a spot near one of our cameras where we had consistently seen birds feeding and strutting. We got set up and started calling. Within minutes there were birds coming in, the problem was they all came in behind us. Forunately after some time a few toms came down within range of where Kate was facing and fed for a couple minutes. However, they never settled down to strut or concentrate on feeding and were constantly bobbing their heads up and down. Kate never felt comfortable taking a shot and the birds eventually moved away. That is the way of hunting, though. The animals have to come in range and the shooter must feel confident pulling the trigger. We are sure if we can get birds in front of us again, Kate will get the job done!
It is so nice having the sun up until after 7 these days! We took Erik’s parents and headed to Pathfinder after school today. It was quite windy and the wind was cold, but the sun was out and the fish were biting. Michelle caught a few on bait, but they weren’t the biggest of the day. The big ones were all caught on flies this evening. Erik landed at least 6 huge trout and lost several others. Mary fought her lunker for 4 or 5 minutes before the fish finally gave up. It was a great trip!
Cloud Peak Wilderness
Aug 1
This backpacking trip was a 9 mile trek from the truck to our base camp. We entered the wilderness Friday at 1pm. Besides Scout, Gordon (79 1/2) and Chad joined us. We were fortunate to have cool cloudy weather on the way in to this area. We hiked for 2 1/2 hours from the Ranger and made camp at 10,000 feet. On the way to camp we saw elk tracks all along the trail and woke both mornings to cow calls and young bulls. Saturday morning we were able to watch the large herd from a hill near camp. We watched elk and ate coffee and doughnuts before climbing another 525 feet to the lake we planned on fishing for the day. After arriving at the the lake we boulder hopped for another 1/4 of a mile to our favorite fishing spot. The fishing was good as usual on the lake with all the cutthroats between 17″ and 20″ with most being seen before casting to. We fished till mid afternoon and then headed back down to camp and dinner. The next morning we had bacon and fresh trout for breakfast while listening to elk mewing and even bugling in the background. The hike out was uneventful except for some picking of unbelievably flavored strawberries and a 20 degree temperature difference by the time we got off the mountains. Watch the video!
What a great trip of backpacking and fishing. We hiked 12 miles in four days and fished 4 different lakes. Two of the lakes we fished had small but feisty brookies, one lake had big cutthroats cruising and feeding all hours of the day and the last lake had nonexistent golden trout that had already moved deep. Scout made this trip with us for his first time carrying his own backpack. He did a great job of staying with us over big boulders and up steep slopes never slowing down. This year the mosquitos followed us up the mountain further then usual not stopping until we reached nearly 11,000 feet. We used a therma-cell mosquito repeller around camp but it had a hard time working at our main camp at 10,500 feet with such little oxygen in the air. The last afternoon and evening that we were camping we were swallowed up by the clouds and had three different thunderstorms move through with lots of rain/hail, wind and thunder. It was a neat experience making one remember how tiny we are on this planet. We found out when we got home this was part of the same storm that killed a climber and stranded 9 other climbers in the Tetons. Thank you, God for keeping us safe!!!
