For my 2nd hang, I decided to recon a possible fishing spot high in the mountains. Being a cautious sort of chap, I decided car camping was a good way to start hammock camping. For one thing, if things don't work out, I can pull out my 2-person tent, inflatable ground pad, and sleeping bag and still get a good night's sleep. For another, I can carry enough blankets and pads to figure out how much warmth my dogs need without exposing them to a miserably cold night.
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The campground was pretty empty. There are around 10 camping spots and only 3 or 4 of them were occupied. The nearest people were camping about 200 ft away. The first thing I noticed was that campground was exceptionally well kept. The 2nd thing I noticed was that every site had a large bear box. :-o My dogs are around 35-40 lbs each and they probably look like tasty little lunch snacks to a bear.
I found 2 trees that allowed me to stay mostly on the pad and set up my WBRR and SF. The temperature was around the mid-60's but at 10,000 ft the sun is intense. Because of that, I chose a site with a lot of shade.
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Once I had my camp site squared away, I hiked up to the nearest lake to check out the fishing. I deviated from the path at a few points to fish a few of the pools on the stream that runs alongside the path. BTW, this is not a good idea unless you either have a GPS or a detailed topo map, a compass, and you know how to use them. Quite a few people get lost hiking to the lakes according to the guy that was managing the campground.
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Although it's only a little over half a mile to the nearest lake, you are climbing, and at 10,000ft it's a lot harder than you'd think from looking at a map. By the time I got there, I was pretty hot and tired. My dogs weren't because they'd jumped into some of the pools and cooled off on the way up.
I used a bubble and fly set up on my spin caster rig. I tried an ant and a bee pattern but didn't get a hit until I switched to a muddler minnow fly. It was mid-afternoon so I wasn't expecting much. But, I did manage to land 2 rainbows that were around 12 in. My dogs got pretty excited about that. The Kelpie tries to catch fish whenever she's around water. The heeler likes to hunt the little chipmunks that kept popping up from the rocks to watch us.
The hike back was much easier but I was really tired when I got back to camp. I could tell I was suffering from mild hypoxia so I sat down, drank cold water, and read for awhile.
Around 6pm, the sun was still high but the temperature had dropped to where I had to put on a thick fleece jacket and double-layer wool beanie. Every 5 minutes or so, the wind would come up and blow around 15mph for a a few minutes.
When I tucked in for the night, it was around 10pm and the wind had stopped. Overnight, the temp dropped to around 45 degrees. I had decided not to insert the 18in by 6ft reflectex pad in the double layer bottom of my hammock. I had used it previously, on my first hang, when it got down around 40 degrees with 35-45mph winds. That night, I was toasty warm and really pleased with how comfortably I slept in my new RR. I was thinking that I probably didn't need the reflectex pad. Wrong. I froze my butt off until I put on my fleece jacket and beanie and zipped my IMSS black bag (0-30 deg) all the way up with the hood cinched down to expose only my nose. I was too cold and tired to go get the reflectex pad from my car.
Around 6am, a raven flew into the tree I had attached one end of my my hammock to started cawing really loudly. It worked it's way around the whole camp, cawing. They are remarkably smart birds so it wouldn't surprise me if it had learned to wake up campers so they left earlier so it could pick over whatever food they had dropped on the ground.
By then, the sun had started shining on my tarp and the air temp started heating up quickly. I took off my jacket and beanie and fell back asleep for another hour.
At 7am, I got up, made coffee, and started to pack up. I was on the road for home by 9am.
In retrospect, it was a beautiful place. But, the altitude made hiking around far more strenuous than I anticipated. I will probably go back there again once I have tried out a few more places and gotten more acclimated to the altitude. I don't think I will go back when it's snowy and try to snowshoe or xc ski. I prefer a little more hill and dale type terrain with some vistas for those activities. The lakes up there don't really give you much of a vista to enjoy. You have to take a much longer hike over to the glacier to get a view.
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