Sleeping Indian Mesa

                                     The Sleeping Indian

  Last Sunday I hiked up to the top of Sleeping Indian Mesa, a rock formation that looms across the river from my house.  It got its name from the fact that it looks remarkably like the head of an native American in profile, with prominent rock bulges creating a cheekbone and a brow.  At certain angles of sunlight it really stands out. It looks more like a native American than some other racial group due to the red rock its made of, and by the way the less-steep part of the hill collects snow in the winter, giving it the appearance of a feathered headdress. 

                              Archie Ready To Go For A Row

 

  The top of the hill (the forehead) is small and pointed, so its technically not a mesa.  But the name precedes our time here in the valley, and it will be called that long after we’re gone.  The Sleeping Indian is about eight hundred feet high, and creates a big gooseneck bulge in the Colorado River. The view from the top is stunning.  Looking south one can see the thousand acre Colorado River Ranch, and of Blowout Hill, an ancient extinct volcano.  To the west is Big Red Hill, perhaps the least imaginatively named piece of high ground in Colorado.  To the north is the gorgeous red rock canyon that I regularly take float trips through, a piece of river valley I never tire of seeing from any angle, time of day, or time of year.  Looking west are the Flat Top Mountains, home of some of the best fishing, elk habitat, and water quality to be found in America.  To the northwest, the white fang of Porphyry Peak juts out from the surrounding hillsides. Gazing down, one can see the roofs and yards of every one of my neighbor’s properties, including not only my own but the private beach on the river I use for my float business. 

 

                                          

                                

                       Confluence Casting Takeout

 

 The opposite side of the Sleeping Indian is what I see from my shop, and from there eagles can be regularly found hunting for gophers and trout.  A few years ago I got the pleasure of watching a golden eagle being raised and fledged in a nest high up on the rock formation’s flank.  From the top of the Sleeping Indian’s head, its easy to imagine the view that the eagles have looking back down on us. There’s a huge dead tree that the eagle love to hang out in, and underneath that it’s carpeted in eagle poop. 

                       Thomas Ranch and Colorado River Ranch

 

  There is also another tree up top known locally as the Underwear Tree, so named because at some point in the past people started hanging their whitey-tighties from it. There are still some remnants of old underwear clinging to it, but its in serious need of a refresh. Tucked into the roots of the Underwear Tree is a Nalgene bottle with a notebook in it, so that hikers who have made the trip to the top can record their names.

                                       Our Property From Above

 

  The side that faces my house is north, and over the course of the winter snow collects in some of the shady folds.  Once I hiked up there with an old pair of skis and attempted to ski down it, but in the end it wasn’t worth all the effort. The rock skis that I used were only good for mounting on a wall afterwards, or perhaps to make a fence or chair with. 

                                             The Flat Tops and Porphyry Peak

 

  When we first moved here over twenty years ago, our first summer was spent where my shop is now, and I’d often find myself just staring at it for no good reason.   That side of the Sleeping Indian faces due south, and all day long it looks different.  When the sun first rises above Big Red Hill, there are one set of highlights that are lit. That’s when the eagles can first be seen, usually by their shadows moving across the rock face as they cruise back and forth looking for thermals.  In the middle of the day it becomes fully illuminated by the sun, but the late in the afternoon when its setting over the Flat Tops, the colors deepen and the striata become even more dramatic.

 

  Red Dirt Open Space

 

  Ringing the Sleeping Indian's chin is a horizontal line made by an irrigation ditch. It looks like a chin strap holding the headdress on. Its the result of some amazing engineering and extremely hard work done over a hundred years ago. Water is diverted from Red Dirt Creek and moved a couple of miles downriver to the River Ranch, wrapping around the Sleeping Indian in the process. It was finished just after the turn of the century, done the hard way by hand.  Sections were redone in the 1950's to put some of the pipe underground, and old sections of the original pipe can still be seen  clinging to the hillside.  The pipe drops over a hundred feet, and resulting pressure is enough to send the water across the river on an old suspension bridge. The water then goes uphill for almost a quarter mile, and then follows another trench to the River Ranch.  Building such a project must have taken some doing back in the day before heavy equipment. 

 

The Flat Tops

 

  For several nights in the 1970's UFOs were seen hovering around the Sleeping Indian, but since I wasn’t here then I can’t personally verify that.  The closest I’ve ever come is seeing rows of Starlink satellites moving across the night sky. (The first time I saw those it did kind of freak me out). The Sleeping Indian does seem to be the kind of large and unusual rock formation that some ancient astronauts might be interested in.  

 

                                       The View North From The Top

 

  The reason I went up there last weekend was to put some more solar mini-lights back up.  A few years ago I put a couple of strands on the Indian’s chin, and they lasted a couple years until finally dying last spring. The old lights were set to a random pattern that would blink off and on.  They were only visible from our house and the neighbors down the river.  This time, I went further up the hill and wrapped them around a pair of dead trees near the tip of the Indian’s nose, where they would be visible from the entire valley. They are both set to gradually come on in blue and green, then fade out, then slowly come on in red and yellow, then fade out, then all come on slowly, and finally dim, before restarting.  One tree does its routine about ten seconds ahead of the other, and the overall effect is one of a slow pulsing, like a small campfire at night seen from a distance.  So far, the only neighbors who’ve seen it have said that they like it.  Our nighttime sky here is very dark, and among the stars, planets, satellites and Milky Way there is always some celestial display to be entertained with, but this adds a little more color to it, especially on cloudy nights.

                                        One Of The Solar Light Trees
 

  It had been a few years since I made the hike to the top, but once there I lingered for much longer than I needed to after stringing up the lights.  The God’s eye view one gets from the top of Sleeping Indian Mesa helps put our everyday life back into some kind of perspective.  But it won’t be years again before I go back up there again, and maybe I’ll even bring an old pair of underwear with me next time.

                                                     Jack Bombardier

 

 

 

      

Bull Gulch

                                                                               Bull Gulch

Today I took a hike into Bull Gulch with my puppy Ronny, dodging some rain drops but also enjoying the warm sunshine that would emerge in between them.  Bull Gulch is a 15,000 acre BLM Wilderness Study Area (WSA) bordered by the Colorado River to the West and the Castle Peak WSA to the east. Its namesake canyon that feeds into the Upper Colorado River corridor just above Pinball Rapid, and though its beautiful and easily accessible not many people are familiar with it. That’s in partly due to the lack of  signage for it, and the fact that though its plainly visible from the road and river, it really doesn’t look like anything special from thoses vantage point.  But once one begins hiking up into it, a very different scene appears than might be expected.  The red sandstone walls close in, and although not narrow enough to qualify as a slot canyon, it does feel very intimate, quiet, and untrammeled.

 

  When I first moved up here to the Colorado River over twenty years ago, we inherited a number of excellent local maps from the previous owner of our house.  I’ve always loved perusing paper maps, and reviewing the USGS map of the river valley I noticed that the land above our place had not one but four different flavors of public federal land.  Along the river corridor itself is BLM, the land moving uphill into the Flat Tops is administered by the US Forest Service.  Above that is the Flat Tops Wilderness, but along the south side of the BLM for many miles I first noticed the Bull Gulch. It encompasses some of the most colorful red rock country that I’ve ever seen, and I've explored a lot of Utah and Arizona, the gold standards for colorful geology.  The difference between a federally-designated wilderness and a WSA is that the former requires an act of Congress, and the latter is an area that has been defined to have wilderness characteristics but lacks the real protections a formal “wilderness” has.  Pouring over my map, I looked over the dry wash known as Bull Gulch and wondered why the entire WSA was named for it. It wasn’t anything I had ever noticed on my previous trips down the canyon via road or river. 

 

  So one day I decided to check it out.  To get there, you have to either take a boat, and tying up on river left at the alluvial fan near its mouth, or park on the road and use the railroad bridge to get over to the other side of the river.  (Since crossing the railroad bridge is technically illegal, I can’t recommend that method of getting there, but it is quicker and way less complicated). The first time I went I did it as part of a river trip, and the first couple of hundred feet into the canyon I couldn’t understand why, with all  of the other natural wonders found in the area, the WSA would be named for this underwhelming dry wash.  But then I rounded a corner and understood. There was a spot one has to climb up through to get up into the rest of the canyon, worn smooth as a tea kettle spout by eons of intermittent flash floods.  Climbing up through it isn’t technical, but requires all of one’s hands and feet to do. It’s a little bit of a scramble. 

After a big flood a couple of years ago, and large curved log washed down to the spout and got caught just above the spout, forming an arch. Once through the spout, you find yourself in a spectacular narrow canyon with vivid red sandstone on either side.  Venturing further up, the dirt floor transitions to smooth green granite, which only enhances the red walls by contrast. The really pretty part of the canyon isn’t long, perhaps only a half-mile, but what a half mile it is. Continuing on up, the trail eventually flattens a bit, the surrounding walls open up, and soon you are hiking up a normal wash as can be found in remote places all over the southwest. But even though its not long, it is striking enough that it’s a worthy namesake to the public lands it’s a part of.

  Over the years, I’ve hiked up into Bull Gulch many times.  When I do scenic river floats, I’ll usually offer to show it to people who are physically able to clamber through the two tricky spots that must be navigated to get in there.  The first is the water spout at the bottom, and the second a steep, narrow trail that bypasses a cliff which is a little too high to overcome without some technical gear.  Most people who see it are as impressed with it as I am. One thing that I’ve learned about Bull Gulch is that in the middle of summer, it can be somewhat like an oven, as the sun’s heat tends to radiate from the walls and ground. There also tends to be very little breeze to cool things off. Its a dry wash most of the time, until its not.  It drains a pretty large area, so when it rains hard it can blow out and scour the walls pretty high. Bull Gulch can flash flood quickly, and turn the entire Colorado River as red as its sandstone walls, often rendering the river unfishable for a couple of days until the wash becomes dry once more.  Its a good place to hike with a dog, since the steep walls prevent them from running off after some interesting scent or wild critter.  Also, I've never seen anyone else in there hiking, so the odds of meeting someone else doing the same thing is next to nil. 

  After running river shuttles today that ended down at my shop, I had to bring a couple of my drivers back up to Derby Junction.  I stopped by my house to pick up Ronny, thinking that on my way back we could do a short Bull Gulch hike.   Ronny is a perfect little black lab bitch whom I refer to as a “mini-lab”, since she was the runt of her litter. Being an English Lab, none of her other littermates are big, but Ronny is only three-quarters of their size.  For some reason I love Ronny as much as any dog I’ve ever had, and for some reason she seems to love me a lot back. 

 

  On the way back from Derby Junction, it began to rain very hard, and I thought that we’d have to do something else.  A front was supposed to come through in the afternoon, and I assumed that this was it. But then the rain stopped as quickly as it started, and the sun came back out.  I decided to go for it, and grabbed a rain shell just int case.  We parked near the bridge and used the non-raft alternative to get up in there.  Using the rail bridges is something I do often, especially between my home and shop, but I never take them for granted. Two of them have short sightlines, especially to the north, and since the prevailing winds seem to usually come from the south, there is often very little notice given by southbound trains.  When the wind is blowing hard from the south, trains can sometimes be heard from fifteen miles away, after they make the turn north at Dotsero and begin the trek up the Colorado River valley.  But the southbound trains can suddenly just …appear.  Once not long after we moved here, my wife and I were using the tracks to go from our property to my in-laws, which is a mile and half downriver via car or boat, but only a half mile along the train tracks.  As we got the first bridge, we debated whether to cross and wondered whether or not it would be safe to do so.  I decided to try the technique used by Indians in Hollywood movies, and crouched down to put my ear to the rail to listen.  Immediately above the bridge is a narrow gap cut into the hillside by the rail line, and the moment my ear touched that rail that gap was suddenly filled by an enormous yellow Rio Grande locomotive booming towards me.  Not wanting to have my head flattened like a penny,  I flung myself away from the tracks as my wife and I watched the big train roar past.  So much for Hollywood. Now whenever I cross any of the bridges, I run or jog, always expecting one of those trains to materialize at any moment. I've also learned to read the signal lights. 

 

  When Ronny and I crossed, the wind was blowing hard from the south and there would be very little notice of anything coming the other way, so we ran quickly.  Once across, I knew that there was no fresh water in Bull Gulch, so we bushwhacked through the brush to get down to the river’s edge, where Ronny had a quick swim and drink.  From there, we headed back up to the tracks and into Bull Gulch, which is only a couple hundred feet from the bridge.  Once we began our hike, Ronny went straight into happy dog mode, zigging and zagging and experiencing her new world through her nose.  We got the water spout, and after I climbed up she came right behind me without difficulty. She also got through the narrow trail around the cliff easier than I did by engaging her Four Paw Drive. After a few more cold rain drops, the sun came out for real and we walked and walked, past the narrow cliffs and up into the sage and pinion pines above.  Eventually we turned and walked back, and when we got to the section where the green granite floor was I decided to just lay down on it and enjoy the feel of the warm sun on my face. Making a pillow of my rain shell, I lay there watching the fluffy Simpsons clouds speed past set off by the deep blue sky, and took off my shirt, so that the sun could take the edge off my pasty white winter chest. I began to think about the concept of “grounding”, which involves touching your body to the earth, and alleged health benefits that can reap.  That can mean something as simple as just walking barefoot, or laying down in the grass.  With my shirt off I could feel the smooth warm rock at my back, and I kept my arms on it as well with my hands flat to the granite. It occurred to me that the more of my bare flesh that was touching the better, and so I unbuckled my belt and pulled my pants down to my ankles, so that my butt and legs were now “grounded” as well.  I’m not sure whether there were any physiological benefits to doing this, but it definitely made me brain feel good.  Ronny looked at me in a puzzled way, and it occurred to me that dogs are usually grounded all of the time. 

 

  I did think that if anyone happened along, my laying almost naked out in the middle of a public canyon might be taken in various ways, not all of them positive.  But I also knew that the odds of anyone else being up in here was about .00001%, and so decided that it was worth the risk. Just in case, I put my baseball cap over my wedding tackle. Ronny got tired of sniffing and lay down beside me, and seemed to enjoy this new game too, though she seems to enjoy just about everything.  We both lay there for what seemed like a long time, until I felt a couple of stray rain drops land on me, which combined with the still warm sunshine made for an invigorating juxtaposition.

 

Then a big cloud passed over, and it was time to pull up my pants and get back down the canyon.  Bull Gulch would not be a good place to be in a flash flood, and even though it wasn’t raining much overhead didn’t mean that it wasn’t doing further up the canyon. If a wall of water suddenly appeared, scaling the steep walls would not have been an easy or quick option.  Ronny did just fine on the steep trail section, but when we got the waterspout she refused to go down, and so we had to go around on a faint game trail she was much happier with.

 

  Near the mouth of the canyon we could hear the roar of the river, which is in the early stages of runoff. Soon we were sprinting across the bridge, and back in the car for the short ride home.  I feel indescribably lucky to live in such a beautiful place, with the river and mountains and red rock canyons so close at hand.  For many years I lived on the Front Range of Colorado and thought that natural wonders were close by, but over the years as more and more people like me moved to the Centennial State to seek out these outdoor opportunities, the traffic one endures to get to places like this offsets any psychological benefits one derives from finally getting there.  Bull Gulch is one of those special places there are many of in Colorado, and one I don’t mind sharing with others, since the odds of us crossing paths here is minimal.  But just remember that if you ever do make the journey here and come across a nearly naked man along the way, its not anything weird, he’s probably just getting a little closer to Mother Earth.

Jack Bombardier

 

 

 

 

Following Melting Water Downhill

                                       Following Melting Water Downhill  

Its that time of year when the amazing outdoor playground that are the Colorado Rockies transition from winter wonderland to summer paradise. This past winter ended up being a very good one in terms of snowfall and the resulting snowpack, after a very unpromising early season.  It was a very dry start to the past winter, and coming off the last good one we had last year, it seemed reasonable to expect a stinker.  Dry winters often seem to follow snowy ones, and we seemed to be headed for a year like that until the heavens finally opened in January.  The big “atmospheric river” of storms that walloped California still had some snow left over for us once they crossed the Great Basin.

 

  Last Sunday I went to Steamboat for closing day, and conditions were such that it seemed like it could've stayed open for another couple weeks. Today I went to Copper Mountain, and it felt like mid-winter. They got a foot of wind blown snow over the past couple of days, and at 12,000’ it still feels like February. In most ways, March and April are my favorite times of the year to ski.  The base is as deep as it will get, which means my favorite aspen glades are open since all the deadfall is covered. The weather is warmer, so the electric socks and gloves can stay in the car.  My job delivering propane also slows a bit, so occasionally I run to the Beav for a few runs after work. And this late in the season, my legs are as strong as they’re going to be all year.

 

But alas, springtime is here and with it a procession of ski hills closing for the year.  First it was Arrowhead and Bachelor Gulch, next Beaver Creek, and then Vail and Steamboat.  Sometime in May Copper will stop running, and A Basin finally pulls the plug in June.  The end of the ski season is a bittersweet time, especially when you find yourself on top of some run for what you know will be the final time. It'll only be a few short months until November when colder weather and fresh snowfall begins the whole cycle again. Sometimes I wonder how long I'll be able to keep feeding my skiing addiction. Skiing well requires a certain minimum level of physical fitness, one that I’ve been able to maintain so far.  Whether its due to modern equipment or better technique, at the age of 63 I can still ski as well as I ever have, maybe even better.  But I no longer take that ability for granted, for still being able to do what I love is something I treasure and appreciate more each passing year.  I’ve never regretted a single day I’ve ever spent skiing, even on days when I’ve injured myself or endured bad weather getting to or from the mountain. That moment of magic being swept up a mountainside by a chairlift, or carving those first few swoops in the snow, make it all worth it.  I’ve never had the questionable “pleasure” of doing heroin, but whatever hormone that gets released into my brain when making perfect turns on a powder snow must have similar effect. I don’t ski merely because I want to, its something I need to do.  It gives me a high and a rush that I'm addicted to as surely as a junkie who needs their next fix. Sometimes strapping on a pair of skis and flying down a mountainside feels like a superpower, Ironman putting on his suit.  Terrain that would take hours to traverse in a normal pair of boots can covered in just minutes or even seconds. Its an empowering feeling I don’t get from anything else.

 

  The disappointment caused by limited ski options is mitigated by the knowledge that as one door closes, another opens.  And that open door leads to all the local ponds, creeks and rivers bustling with life, ready for fishing or paddling upon. There are two times of year in Colorado when the ski and fishing seasons overlap, November and springtime.  In November you can do both, but there aren't many ski runs open yet and most of the snow is man made. Advantage fishing.  But in the spring, the mountain conditions are perfect and the rivers are still cold and a bit off-color.  The ice on the Colorado River melted off in late March, but until the water temperature gets above fifty degrees I don't even think of fishing the Colorado. Advantage skiing.

  All of those beautiful white frozen snow molecules I’ve spent the winter skiing upon are now in the process of changing into their liquid form, and providing an even more important and lasting benefit. As they melt, it creates the dynamic ecosystems that nurtures life as we in the arid west know it. Healthy rivers make it all possible, and I love the idea of following the melting water downhill, and being its partner, its passenger, and its beneficiary. I hope that I’ll have many more seasons of riding that magic white carpet, but if I don’t then at least I can know that I didn’t leave anything on the table.

 

My dory has been sitting in the Colorado River in my backyard since Easter, and I go for a short float on in it almost every night after work. The dogs love it and so do I, and it’s a good way to build up my strength for when real rowing is required later this year. The Upper Colorado River is already up to 2,500cfs, a level it hasn’t been at since last summer after the runoff dropped. It feels great hanging out next to the river as it pulses past with life and energy. I don’t know if it’s the sound or smell or the negative ions, but there’s something about being next to or on a river that fills the soul, or at least mine.

 

  The two things that make me happiest are standing upon a pair of skis, or sitting between the oarlocks of my boat (and maybe wearing a pair of ice skates should be on that list too).  In all three scenarios, I want for and need nothing else.  The common denominator which makes them all possible is water, whether in frozen or liquid form. Having two good snowy winters in a row feels like more than we could have hoped for, especially after the way this season started. Knowing that there’s a decent snowpack above yet to melt is like having a money in the bank.  I may not have much experience with the latter, but the former is something I’ve learned to appreciate. Even if things turn dry again this summer, having a full aquatic bank account sitting in the reservoirs above means that all of the finned, furred, feathered or skinned creatures who rely the river should have what they need this year to survive and thrive.

 

This leaves me feeling very positive for what the summer of 2024 is looking like.  I hope that everyone reading this gets to spend as much time as possible filling their soul beside or upon a river as well!

 

                                              Jack Bombardier

 

 

 

PS- I've been reading a fantastic book, “The Emerald Mile”, by Kevin Fedarko.  Its ostensibly about the fastest boat rode ever thorough the Grand Canyon, but it also about a lot more than just that.  It’s a book I’d heard of and wanted to read, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. And then this winter, it showed up in my mailbox, shipped from a used book seller without any note as to who my benefactor was.  I reached out to the website it came from, but they wouldn’t divulge the name.

So who can I thank for this?  If its someone who is getting this email, can you let me know so that I can offer my thanks?  It was wonderful gesture, one that I’d like to reciprocate somehow!

Raking Ice

                                                                          Raking Ice

Its that time of year when the Colorado River begins its transition from a frozen, icebound popsicle back to a singing, flowing ribbon of life. Of course, the river never stopped moving, and life was always there, but its out of sight and its easy to forget.  Out of sight, out of mind. Soon it will be warm enough to keep the windows open, and be serenaded by the constant music the river provides.

  Winter isn’t quite done yet, and the mountains are still blanketed in a thick coat of the white gold that we’ll all be reaping the benefits of for the rest of the year.  The powder snow we ski on in February, becomes the whitewater we splash through in June, becomes the water that we and trout swim in come summer.  Snow is the gift that keeps on giving.

Its Leap Day 2024 as I write this, and its been as good of a winter as one could hope for given our warming climate.  The snowpack on the Upper Colorado River basin is sitting at 100% of average, and an “average” year in the Colorado Rockies is better than a good year just about anywhere else.  The river in my backyard froze up well this year, which made for some great skating. The surface I kept clear was over 300’ long, and 25’ wide. The labrador puppies we had a year ago enjoyed their first winter season, and loved being out on the ice almost as much as I do.  We play a version of hockey which consists of me flipping the puck almost the length of the ice, with them chasing it down in a pack. The first dog to the puck is not always the one that catches it though. They usually end up in a big crashing pile, and when they turn around and race back I produce a second puck which I send back to the other end of the ice, and we repeat the process. I don’t know how many times those four beautiful dogs and I went up and down the length of the ice this winter, but it was a great way to spend time and get some exercise.

 But as much fun as it is turning the Colorado River into an ice rink during the winter, at either end it can have a dark side. In the fall when the ice is forming, and in the spring when it melts, the river can be very dangerous.  Fifteen years ago, a dog of ours named Piper went through the ice in a spot that I had walked on myself the day before.  Once the ice begins to melt, it disappears very quickly. When Piper broke through, I broke through twice myself trying to get her out.  If you've never broken through ice and fallen into the water below, I wouldn't recommend trying it.  Being the sole member of an unplanned Polar Plunge Club isn't that much fun. I ended up jumping into the river a third time when I saw her lifeless body emerge from under the ice shelf, being carried away by the current.  That was one the worst days of my life, so now once the ice begins to melt the backyard becomes a “No Go” zone for the dogs, at least until all of the ice is gone.  The dogs don’t know better, and until its safe out there they can’t understand why they can’t go out to play in their own personal Labrador Paradise. 

 

  Once the ice starts to get soft in the spring, I try to hasten the process of getting it gone.  It makes me a bit sad to see my rink go, knowing that its been the source of so many hours of fun. But the sooner its gone, the sooner we can start having new kinds of fun. The dogs love to swim as much as they love chasing pucks, and I get to keep my boat out there all year to row and fish from.  If I wait for Mother Nature to take her course, it might take a week or two for that enormous ice slab to melt away.  But with a little help, I can usually shorten that duration to a day or two. All it takes is to cut a path in the ice along the bank to where the slab is connected.  Once water can flow between the ice and the bank, it doesn’t take long for that separation to grow.  On warm days, in the afternoons the river rises, and lifts the slab up. So on Sunday, I put on my neoprene waders and spent a couple of hours with a pick axe and rake, whaling the hell out of the ice. The rake is one that we inherited with the property, its pretty ancient and unlike any I’ve ever seen.  Its too wimpy to actually move dirt and rocks with, but for moving ice in the river its perfect.

  I start by chopping away the lower end of the slab, then using the rake to drag the broken pieces downstream into the flow.  The key is to get the water moving in the channel I create, and let the flow work its magic.  Chop chop chop rake, chop chop chop rake, and repeat until there is a flowing path all the way up the bank. If anyone happened by and saw me at my task, it would’ve made for an odd site. I was undoubtedly the only person standing in the Colorado River raking ice that day, or on any day. But by late in the afternoon the task was completed, and now there was nothing to do but wait.   

  On Monday morning, I went out to check the river before going to work, and saw that a thin layer of ice had reformed. So I got the rake back out, and broke that thin layer of ice, which was a lot easier than it had been the previous day. When I got home that evening, the entire sea of ice we’d been enjoying all winter was gone, and the river was restored.  One of my wife’s employees saw it go, and said that it looked like an enormous island of ice as it drifted away. In past years, I’ve gotten to see huge slabs break off, and been tempted to jump on and go for my first river ride of the season. But for this year, I was content to come home and see that the Colorado flowing through my backyard again. Another river season has begun, and the cycle of life and of seasons continues. There’s a healthy snowpack above just waiting to melt and flow downhill to bring it all back to life. The dogs and I can’t wait!

 

 Jack Bombardier

Pining For The Piney

                                                                 Pining For The Piney

 Some people may assume that fishing guides get to fish all the time, or at least more than they get to do.  That may or may not be true, it depends on the guide and who they are being compared to.  I know that there are a lot of retired men and women out there who get to fish a lot more than I do, because I've met more than a few of them. I'll hopefully live long enough to be one of them myself someday.

  But between running shuttles seven days a week, driving a propane truck, and being on the water myself floating lucky folks down the river, there's not much time to actually go fish any distant waters, or even those closer to home. Luckily, there are many good places to fish locally. One of these places is on the western flank of the Gore Range, only an hour's bumpy drive from Vail. At the top of that drive is Piney Lake, one of the most photographed spots in all of Colorado. The lake borders the Eagle's Nest Wilderness, and rugged peaks just seem to rise right up out of it. It can be a busy place, but its not unknown to fishermen, so I don't feel like I'm outing a hidden spot that people don't know about already.  They occasionally have a guide working there to offer advice and services, and you see plenty of people toting fly and spinning rods. But for some reason, most of those fisherpeople head to the lake, and a smaller number fish the river above the lake, but I've never seen anyone fish below it. 

 

There's a private concession there with a small restaurant and store, cabins, outfitter tents, canoes, SUP rentals, and a big deck overlooking the lake upon which many wedding vows each year are exchanged. Piney Lake is a beautiful and inspiring place. In late summer,  once the lake levels drop and the algae blooms, moose come out and stand in the shallow areas of the lake slurping up their aquatic salad bar. I've seen moose on most of my fall trips to Piney Lake. Last September, a pair of moose were sloshing around twenty feet away from the deck, right next to where solemn commitments made between two loving people (which may last between forever and six months) are made.

The reason I go to Piney so often is to deliver propane, and I've been doing so for almost ten years.  The whole operation is off the grid, so its powered by a pair of propane generators supplied by a tank farm of four 1000 gallon tanks. When those tanks get low, I go up there with a full propane "bobtail" truck, and fill the four tanks.  This happens about once a month while they're open, which is from around Memorial Day until the end of September. That means I go up there four times a year, and get to see that upper watershed in all of its phases that don't involve being buried under the snow. 

The drive usually takes about an hour plus from Vail, and then I spend an hour filling the tanks. Then, before making the hour drive back, I try to fish a little.  Its usually only for an hour or so, but even just a short amount of time spent along a high mountain stream is mentally restorative. Sometimes being out there trying to fool a ten-inch brook trout feels like one of the reasons I'm living on this earth to begin with.  I often get that same sensation when skiing aspen trees.

 

  The peak that dominates the view from Piney Lake wedding deck is called Mount Powell, named for the famous explorer who made the first recorded trip down the Grand Canyon a few years later. John Wesley Powell was among the first group of white men known to have climbed to the top of the peak that now bears his name.   Whenever Powell's name is invoked, it seems obligatory to mention that fact that he only had one arm, lost to a cannon ball in the Civil War.  For most people, climbing mountains and rowing boats with only one arm wouldn't be high on the list of things they would want to do. Powell was obviously not most people.  It seems appropriate that a mountain which bears his name has waters which flow all the way down to the canyon he first explored. 

The section I usually fish on the Piney is the stretch that runs from the outlet of the lake down to where the road going to the lake crosses the creek about a mile away. The first time I drove up there was over twenty years ago, while dating the sensational girl who later became my wife.  She was looking forward to driving up there to see the bridge which crosses the Piney, which was designed by her dad Jerry years before when he worked for the Forest Service. The Piney is a classic freestone Rocky Mountain stream, not very large but clean and cold and full of small eager brook trout.  Brookies are sometime looked down upon in the Rockies as they are non-native fish, technically an invasive species. When headwater streams are being prepared for the reintroduction of native cutthroats, "cleaning" those waters by using a piscicide to poison the existing fish populations.  These fish are usually the offspring of rainbows, brookies and browns that were put there by well-meaning fish biologists many years ago. But even though brook trout don't "belong' in those waters, angling for them is still one of my favorite ways to pursue fish. Part of that is due to where they live, which are almost always scenic. That's because brook trout love clean, cold, clear water, and that type of water is usually found high up in some watershed.  The other thing is that brookies are among the most beautiful creatures found on this green earth.  Cutthroats and golden trout have their advocates, and for good reasons, but for me brook trout embody everything I love about fishing.  Brook trout have stunning beauty that's almost impossible to capture by either photograph or paint, though many try.  The only way to really appreciate one is to hold one in your hand, while it's still wet. Also, brookies were the native fish from where I came from in New England, so they were our cutthroats. A fly that's well cast and mended on the Piney River will almost always result in a small brookie trying to eat it, even if it's too small to fit in its mouth.  

 

The stretch of river above the lake also has its charms, most noticeably the gigantic mountains that are almost distracting in their presence. There are some deeper pools that form behind beaver ponds here, and the fish tend to be bigger.  Perhaps that's why this stretch sees more anglers on it, but its not crowded and with all the meanders there's plenty of room to spread out. 

 

 

I've never fished the lake from a boat, but have fished the creek's inlet into it. One of these days I'll bring some kind of watercraft up there to do that, or use one of the lodge's canoes.  But I've never been a big stillwater guy, because fishing in lakes and ponds feels kind of boring to me.  Watching a fly or indicator just sit there on the water's surface while waiting for the tug seems very random, and requires little skill beyond rigging the appropriate tackle and depth. No real casting or mending are required.  Being on a lake also deprives one of the sublime music that only a river can make, like some natural Mozart symphony. I love everything about high mountain streams, from how they look and smell, but especially how they sound. You don't get that on stillwater.

 

                    

On my last trip this fall, I drove my truck about halfway to the bridge and pulled over to wet a line. There's really no bad spots, its all fishable.  I rigged up an elkhair caddis and my first decent cast fooled a small trout, but when I set the hook I missed the fish.  Working my way up the stream, I got a rise in every pool and missed them all. Finally I hooked a brookie and brought it to the bank, sticking my hand in the pure water to cradle it. It was only a few inches long but pretty as hell.

 

  What the Piney is like between Jerry's bridge and the confluence with the Colorado River twenty miles away is still a mystery to me.  I did a short hike from the bridge down once and the trail and creek got very brushy. It didn't appear as though there would be room to cast a fly even if there were trout in there worth casting to.  But being able to have the time to better explore that middle reach is on my bucket list.

When I first moved to Colorado,  I spent more time on and around the lower Piney, where it meets the Colorado River at State Bridge.   The Piney flows about twenty miles straight north from the lake to the river, with only one small irrigation diversion. Right above the confluence of it and the Colorado River is a small campsite overlooking it. There was once a great saloon nearby called the State Bridge Lodge, and I'd camp above the mouth of the Piney and walk the mile to the bar at night.  The Piney is a loud, splashy river which barges into the Colorado River creating a huge spinning eddy at some levels. The white noise it creates makes for wonderful sleeping, at least until the middle of the night when some creaky old freight train comes screeching around the corner from across the river.  The train's headlight casts a blinding atomic flash to go with the armageddon soundtrack, which can be slightly disruptive to the great night's sleep you were having only minutes earlier. 

The State Bridge Lodge also became the place I'd meet my wife back when she was still my girlfriend, and it was a magical place.  It was a bar that was open to everyone, from hippies to rednecks to bikers to tourists to fishermen to rafters to hunters to cowboys to bicyclists to campers and to anyone or anything on feet, hooves or wheels. After my now-wife and I made our move the mountains twenty years ago, the State Bridge Lodge was the one place we'd feel comfortable driving to for a night out involving cocktails. Since our drive our home was along the Colorado River Road which has almost no traffic, it felt pretty safe.  Then about fifteen years ago, so lowlife bastard burned the place down, and I hope that a new, lower level of hell was created for him (or her) when they lose their mortal coil. 

The Piney is also notable for another reason, and that is the USGS gauge located just upstream from the Colorado. During spring runoff or during the monsoon season, the Piney gauge gives one a very good window into what the mountain snowpack is doing.  Its a very direct look into how fast or slow its melting, with not much in the way of headgates above it. There are even times when the Piney has a greater volume of water in it than the Colorado, which seems crazy to think about. But in bad snowpack years, when the melting snow is held back and stored in reservoirs on the Colorado, wild streams like the Piney rush and crash down the mountainsides to the waiting river below.  Once in 2002 I camped at my usual spot above the confluence, and from that vantage point the Piney was clearly the dominant tributary. It was during peak runoff and the Piney was flowing at a thousand cfs, while the Colorado River flowed meekly past at a mere 400.  The Piney thrust into the Colorado River hard from river left, its dark turbid flow overwhelming the clear olive water coming from the reservoirs above. The whole river below the confluence was a boiling mass of whirlpools and sticks. 

I got the idea to take my cheap ducky for a ride down the Piney, before hitchhiking up to float the Colorado later. My usual pattern was to stick my thumb out in front of the State Bridge Lodge (where people had to slow down), and catch a ride up to wherever they went. I'd do the same put in as them, inflate the cheap ducky stuffed in my backpack, then float down to my campsite above the Piney. Sometimes that would make for a quick day, if I only went up to Rancho Del Rio.  But if my ride went all the way up to Pumphouse, then I'd be in for a longer float.  I tried to just go with whatever trip fate dealt me.

 I hiked along the fire road which paralleled the Piney for about a mile to the bridge where the USGS gauge and a gate blocking the road was. Along the way, I kept looking at the raging torrent that was the Piney River.  The Piney is officially called a "river", but that's giving it too much credit.  "Stream" is really a more apt descriptor, and "creek" or "brook" also give a more accurate image of it than "river" does.  But on this June morning, river" seemed entirely appropriate. The Piney was basically pure whitewater froth from the bridge to the Colorado River, with both banks lined by stiff brush and rocks, the occasional log or branch blocking one side.  The more I looked down at the torrent, the less of a good idea it seemed to be. I was still young enough to feel invincible, but old enough to know better. By the time I got the bridge, I was hot and tired and didn't want to schlep my pack and paddle back to camp.  The Piney looked cool, refreshing and terrifying.  I thought, how dangerous could a little stream like the Piney be?

I clambered down the steep bank and blew up my ducky using lung power.  One hundred exhales each into the right and left tubes, then fifty into the floor. There wasn't much room along Piney, but once I was ready I straddled the ducky and side-hopped into the crashing water. The ducky shot off and I almost lost the paddle in trying to hang onto my little boat.  The surrounding landscape went by in a blur, and I used my paddle more to deflect oncoming obstructions than to actually paddle.  It seemed as though in any given moment there were ten different things I was flying past which could puncture the boat or me. It was like an arcade game or amusement park ride, but with real potential consequences. The thought of bailing on this hazardous endeavor occurred to me, but even if I wanted to get out there was nowhere to go.  It was Colorado River or bust.  I covered the mile of the Piney in what felt like ten seconds, though it was probably at least twenty. The banks widened and spread apart and suddenly there was the Colorado River, moseying along minding its own business when suddenly this impudent little mountain stream came barreling in with a whooping idiot riding its impatient power. When I hit the Colorado River, I shot all the way across to the far bank, totally missing the takeout to my campsite.  The two flows merged and twisted and I let myself spin around in the whirlpools, laughing.

The Piney River is one of Colorado's treasures, one that I hope to make more memories on in the future.

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For what its worth, as of October 4th 2023, the Lower Upper Colorado River is in as fine a shape as I've ever seen it, and I've lived and guided here for twenty years. 2023 might go down as the best year this river has ever had. The flows are high, the water is cool, the browns are hungry and the foliage color is at peak.  It's heaven on earth, right now. I'm pretty busy already with all of the irons I have in the fire, but if anyone wants to taste perfection on the water now is the time to come here. If I can't find time to take you, find someone else who also knows this stretch or come wade fish it for free. 

  Jack Bombardier