Vanish and FireTiger's 2019 Journal

Hi guys! I haven't been able to keep up with posting due to that job change back in November. Its been a ride! We've been slipping out when we can but I haven't been able to put as much time into planning as usual. If I have to choose between getting out and posting about it ... you guys lose! :D

Last weekend in June


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MMMM...My favorite,Blackened fish on a stick!Good to have you back.
Good looking Fish!!
Plenty of leftover tags in Az. On the Mex. border.Lol! 😎
 
The hunt for big fish...

Ok, not really! We had some intel going in but this trip was more about exploring a mountain range in a place none of us had ever been. We try to do a fishing trip with our CA friends at least once a year, whether its a short one at the holidays or a days long trip during the summer. In past summers, we've done a couple different places in the Sierras, as well as three different trips across Colorado.

We had been preparing for this trip for awhile, so when Friday work ended, it only took a short time to hit the road. We made good time and found ourselves nearly on the Idaho border by 10pm. Using ONX, we found ourselves a piece of BLM and camped it for the night.

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Looking at this photo, I start thinking about how many of the stereotypes I must fit and have to laugh. I really need to pick up a trad bow apparently. Whatever, a Subbie is a capable vehicle and I appreciate the 33mpgs especially on 12 hour drives like this.

Morning comes and its back on the road. We packed everything we needed so no need to stop except for gas, which we only needed to do once, and to uh, use the facilities.

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I had no idea about this place. Pretty cool. So much lava.

We took a little break as we were way ahead of schedule ( CA friends arrived in Hailey ID @ 8pm ) and FireTiger did a little Tenkara fishing at some random SWA.

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We made it to Hailey way ahead of schedule, so we hit the Big Wood River for several hours. Nothing big when it came to fish, but it was hot and nice to get my feet wet.

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We picked up our friends at grabbed a pizza before heading out of town. I think it was a called a "white trash guy" pizza. Bacon, ranch, crushed potato chips, some other stuff. Seemed like a good idea before our big hike the next day.

So ... I failed a little bit here because I thought we'd just pick up a motel room before driving into the mountains, but apparently Sun Valley is a really popular spot. Derp. I should have known. Well, it was fine because we all car camp all the time, so we just drove into National Forest and camped, which meant we were only 15 minutes from the trailhead in the morning anyway.
 
Hike Day 1

This day consisted of about 12 miles of hiking over one pass to get to our destination lake for the next couple of days.

I decided to use the red Gregory pack we picked up at the thrift shop in Grand junction earlier this year. My pack weighed about 53 pounds at the start of the trip, which was about 10 pounds heavier than I wanted. A good chunk of that weight was all the Hank food I was carrying, as we deemed him too old to be carrying all his own food. I don't have my fishing gear, pad or crocs strapped on yet in this photo. I felt bad for Y as C made her carry all her food. o_O

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We made it to camp in the evening in time to eat some dinner and try some fishing. FireTiger lost one but the rest of the fish were way out in the lake.
 
Hike Day 2

The second day was a layover day. The lake we were camped at was rumored to have huge fish. It kicked our butts. They were not cruising the shore like we'd hoped, and fish were not in the inlet or outlet. About half way through the day, Y and I hiked to a close by smaller lake and got into some cutties, but there were obviously not many in their lake. In the evening, we all hiked to a different close by lake and picked up a few rainbows, including one nice runner. C lost a giant that went on a screaming run. So far things were a bit tougher than we anticipated for these alpine lakes. There were definitely fish, but the density seemed lower than we expected.

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I think we made the right call with Hank, as we didn't even hike much this day and he was looking beat.
 
Great pics and story'thanks for sharing,looks a little cold!
110 deg in the Zona' 😎
 
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Beautiful shots and stories. Love the Subbie. I drive a 2006 Forester (after owning three Nissan Frontiers) and am constantly impressed with where I can go in that thing and just how capable it is. And no one suspects the guy in the Subaru at the trailhead to be hunting in there... Stealthy.
 
Absolutely Beautiful Country! Thank you sir and Ma'am for sharing your adventures with us. It makes me very jealous, and the Rockys are definitely on my bucket list!!!!
 

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