My wife Sonja and I like to take one long weekend every month throughout the summer to enjoy the Rocky Mountains. Sometimes we camp with a focus on hiking and sight seeing other times we like to fish. This month we decided to do some fishing at a lake we haven’t visited for nearly five years; Tarryall Reservoir.
We arrived at the lake about 11AM Friday morning and to our surprise, nearly all of the camping spots were taken, including the one I was hoping for. We took the only unoccupied camp spot but were unhappy as it had no lake access and no room for the dog. During lunch, we discussed changing plans and heading up into the Tarryall Mountains and finding a place to camp in the National Forest.
After some rubbernecking Sonja said, “I think the guy in your favorite camp spot is packing up”. At that, I started throwing stuff back into the truck while she walked over to find out for sure. He was leaving and we did move. This is how our wonderful long weekend began. Praise God!
All trips have some difficulty or two that make things interesting. This trips challenge (besides the one mentioned above) was the absence of my beloved coffee pot. Somehow, in the rush of packing it was missed. When Sonja told me of our deficiency, my reaction was one of great horror. How would I survive?
Necessity being the mother of invention; this was a call to action! Cowboy coffee was a possibility but a weekend of grounds stuck in me teeth, not appealing. Looking through our cooking equipment a solution presented its self. A 1 qt Tupperware juice decanter (over 25 years old with the scars to prove it) with a plastic colander (not sure how it made it into the camper but I’m glad it did) placed on top made a perfect brewing device. Place a paper towel into the colander add 1 tablespoon coffee grounds per cup of Joe, pour in boiling water at a rate not to exceed the capacity of the paper towel and presto, piping hot drip brewed coffee.
Molly and I hiked around and explored the area, I enjoyed the wildflowers, sage and walking in the aspens, Molly hunted monks.1 We also found three Geocaches around the lake including one that required a hike along an exposed cliff at the dam outlet. Sonja joined us for a short hike but was really into fishing this trip and didn’t wander away from the water for very long.
I would say that the fishing for the weekend was fair to slow although one evening we slammed them, catching eight stock size trout in an hour. It would have been a great event to get on video. Both Sonja and I had our second rod stamp so we had four poles in the water. All of a sudden all four had fish on. It was truly an adrenaline rush. In the end, we lost one and had three on the stringer. Total for the weekend was a dozen fish; Sonja caught the lion’s share of them.
The lake supports a wide variety of birds including Pelicans, Geese, ducks and gulls. The Pelicans were fascinating to watch as they searched the lake for food. The Gulls watched our fish stringer closely and I wouldn’t have been surprised if one swooped down and snatched the whole thing. All were fun to photograph.
I took time on the way home to find four more Geocaches, bringing the total found for the weekend to 7, and even hiked a bit on the Colorado trail. A great end to a great trip.
Check out some of our photos.
- Term used to describe any rodent smaller than a rabbit that could be consumed or tormented by a dog [↩]
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Tags: Adventure, birds, camping, fishing, Hiking, Molly, photos
