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Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Some clouds early will give way to generally clear conditions overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.

I arrive long after dark and sit beneath a myriad of stars, sipping a whisky as I unwind from the road, the last several hours spent driving in darkness toward parts unknown. 

Finally fatigue and night’s cooling win over and I crawl into my sleeping bag laid out in the back of the truck. The sound of the stream, until now merely a thin line on a map, pored over and imagined, rises out of the night and up to the heavens.

Summer nights are short, and before long I wake to the lifting of the curtain. Daylight fingers its way toward camp, and countryside that last night stood in dark silhouette begins to reveal its nuance. I fill a pot with water and set it on the burner until it begins to bubble and hiss, then settle into my camp chair, warming my hands around my mug, steaming in the cool of morning.

The exact nature of the stream remains a mystery, its course concealed from view by the gradient of small meadow and stands of pine growing thick along its banks. I dig out my map and revisit the layout of my surroundings, a broken line indicating the trail I’ll follow, noting places where the topo lines bunch together and the countryside rises steeply, and others where they separate and the blue line of the stream flows with, rather than against the grade.

These are the places I am here for, small high-mountain meadows where beaver have been at work over the millennia, slowing the flow and building habitat. There the stream meanders rather than charges its course, taking its time in gentle twists and turns through banks lined with willow, oak and wildflowers. 

I picture a brook trout rising to a dry fly on the inside bend of one such turn, or a brown trout materializing from beneath a cut bank to engulf a hopper drifting among the grass dipping the water’s edge. Best of all, in my imagination, no one else is witness to my presence.

I look up from the map to study the terrain it depicts to see distant stands of pine and fir interspersed with veins of aspen, rich with summer’s green, and beyond peaks etched stark and gray against blue.

By now my mug is drained and the pit of my stomach gnaws for something of greater substance. Bacon being a verified health food above 9,000 feet, I load up the griddle then cook eggs and hash browns in the accumulated grease, a tortilla serving as a plate to keep cleanup to a minimum.

Leftovers go in my pack, along with a 3-weight and the very basics in case I have to spend an unexpected night away from camp. A second pair of boots and dry socks for the hike back. A box of dry flies and a handful of nymphs in case. Rain jacket. Water filter. 

I make sure the beer cooler is tucked out of the sun’s path, shoulder my pack and cinch the straps tight. Clouds already gather beyond the peaks, benign or not time will tell. By the map, the stream issues from a small lake near treeline. Perhaps I’ll make it that far, or maybe save it for tomorrow.

Hayden Mellsop is a Realtor with Pinon Real Estate Group and a former fishing guide. 

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