Water Crossing on the John Muir Trail. Yes, my son hikes with a bow tie.. It’s one of his backpacking traditions. His trail name is “Sherpa”. He was packing over 50lbs because he volunteered to carry all our food for the week in his bear canister. Because I was struggling a lot with the altitude, he ended up carrying my pack the last 1/2 mile to the Alpine lake where we would set up first nights camp. He definitely earned the title of Sherpa! The 10,000+ feet of altitude didn’t seem to effect him at all. It was hard to cross this creek without unpacking the fly rods!!!

Notice his pack waist belt and sternum strap are unbuckled. That’s a safety practice for water crossing with a pack. If you go into the water, you can easily shed the pack

We made it to the Alpine lake just as the sun was about an hour from slipping behind the mountain peaks. Reaching this place through Pine Creek Pass was difficult but the initial site of the peaks, snow fields and high granite walls was one of the most powerful feelings I’ve ever experience in my life. It is a site that relatively few will ever see first hand. I am thankful to be able to have shared the journey with my good friend Ray and of course my son.

We set up camp in the stand of pines that you can see off to the right in the photo. You would think that we would be jovially talking up a storm but there was a calm and quiet reverence about that place. We said very little as we set up camp. Individually we were quietly processing the experience. The climb, the physical challenge, the comiradory and gods creation in it’s purist form.

After setting up camp, we unpacked our fly gear and walked down to the banks of the lake. I left my fly gear in camp in favor of my camera hoping to get some good shots of my son fly fishing with his new bamboo fly rod. The experience was profoundly surreal. His fluid long casts accentuated by a backdrop of high granite walls and snow fields. To give you a sense fo the scale, the pine trees near the snow field in this photo below are fully grown. We are like ants to these mountains… insignificant.

The water was almost boiling with rising fish. Small packs of brook trout slowly trolled an easy cast off shore searching for food. High Alpine lakes don’t have nearly the bio density of the low land waters we usually fish. This gave us the edge. The wild brook trout that inhabited this particular lake were eager! It didn’t take but a hand full of casts for Juan Jr. to hook up with his first Alpine trout. As a father, this is one of those images that will be burned into my memory forever. The long fluid cast, the gentle rise of the trout and the lift of the rod played out like a movie highlight. I was there to witness the moment and savor it… forever.

A few fish later the alpine glow from the granite peaks began to dim. We took the very short walk back over to our tents. Prepared dinner in the the dark then weary from the hike and emotional high we climbed into our tents looking forward to fishing the lake thoroughly the next day.