Closing Day Part 2 - Copper Bowl

 

 

                                             Closing Day Part 2 - Copper Bowl

 

 

April 18th was the 3rd Closing Day of our dwindling ski season, following Arrowhead and Bachelor Gulch on the 4th, and the rest of Beaver Creek on the 11th.  On the this Sunday, Vail and the Copper Bowl area at Copper Mountain stopped running their lifts for the season.  Copper Mountain is a place I used to ski when I lived in Denver, and still used skinny skis that were longer than I am.  Once I moved to Eagle County, I pretty much skied just Beaver Creek and A Basin.  But last year, when A Basin switched from being an Epic Pass resort to the Ikon Pass, I switched too.  It was the tipping point between the two pass options for me, and after fifteen years of skiing The Beav I was ready to challenge myself with some new terrain.  Beaver Creek is still my favorite place to ski, but the Ikon Pass offers the opportunity to explore Steamboat, Winter Park, Copper Mountain and the Aspen area resorts.

Of those areas, the one that I've enjoyed the most is Copper Mountain, which has been a total revelation.  Last year when I switched to the Ikon also happened to be the year that Copper opened another lift into the Copper Bowl area called Three Bears. That new lift accesses an entirely new reach of Copper Bowl that was only accessible by hoofing it. When skiing Copper Mountain, I usually spend most of my time in Copper Bowl because I love high altitude above tree line skiing like that. Not only is Three Bears pretty fast, but it has a lot of elevation gain for its short length which takes you up well over 12,000 feet. It's also a three-wide chair, so there's room to lay down on it and relax.  From the top of Three Bears, you can make a short lateral hike over to a run called Boulderado, which is an east-facing run with spectacular views of the Ten Mile Range, the Mosquitos, Fremont Pass and the Collegiate Peaks.  The hardest part of the run is not being so distracted by the views so that you forget to ski.  Since it takes a short walk to get to, and there's a rocky section to navigate to get into the good stuff, not many people do it.  

Most of Copper Mountain was scheduled to close on the 25th of April, but since the lifts servicing Copper Bowl closed on the 18th that became "my" Closing Day.  Due to having a river shuttle to run that morning I didn't get there until almost noon.  I can make it to Copper from my house in an hour flat if I ignore the fantastical stories my speedometer is trying to tell me, and for Closing Day I made it there in 55. After several runs in Copper Bowl alternating between the older lifts and Three Bears, I decided to head over to Boulderado, which from the other lifts looked perfect.  After a short hike over to it, I saw that the gate was closed.  Not one to let a piece of orange rope decide my course of action, I ducked under it, picked my way through the rocks, and found myself atop of one of the nicest runs in Colorado, and that's saying something.  Down below at the more pedestrian altitudes, the snow was already becoming a bit mushy. But at 12,000 feet it was just right , light and soft and ice-cold.  I skied down the upper face of Boulderado, and veered a bit left to get back to the in-bounds area. There were only a couple of other sets of tracks in the next middle section of the run, but they were a day or two old and the wind had already filled them back in.  

 

  That middle part of the run was as great as any I've ever skied, the pitch was steep but the snow had just the right amount of give to it.  Turns were effortless.  At the bottom of the middle section, I looked up and down and saw nary another skier in sight. I couldn't want to get back to Three Bears and run it again.  I pushed off and began the bottom stretch which seemed to go forever, with just some scattered tops of baby spruce trees poking through like green pylons.  I was being totally seduced by the snow and sun and perfect powder, much as I had the previous Sunday coming down from the top of Beaver Creek's Bald Spot.

 Then, halfway down that seemingly endless bottom run my brain turned back on. I looked up the hill at where I'd just skied, then down at where I was going, and in my brain heard the words, Oh. Shit. My thought process changed from, What Great Untracked Powder! to, There Are No Other Tracks Here, Is there A Reason For That?  There was, and it wasn't that I was the only smart enough to have found it, but ecause I was the only one stupid enough to have skied below the point where one could use gravity to get back to a chairlift.  I remembered then that the last time I skied here a couple of weeks before there is a catwalk to get back over to Three Bears. Even the faint tracks I had seen on upper part were gone.  The catwalk wasn't marked with any kind of sign, and in my blissed out state, with endorphins flooding my brain, I had totally forgotten about it. 

  Looking up into the brilliant, high altitude sun I tried to determine how far uphill I would have to hike to get back to elusive catwalk.  My best guess, (now using my brain which was registering some activity once more), it looked to be at least a hundred feet above me, maybe more.  Now I had a decision to make.  Did I hike straight back uphill to the security of a trail that I knew was up there somewhere, or just keep going downhill and hope that there would be some kind of service road or trail that would take me back to Three Bears?  I looked uphill again at would undoubtedly be an exhausting hike, and then down towards the rest of the run that beckoned me like some lascivious, beckoning siren calling to Ulyesses with her legs held apart.  Unlike Ulyesses, I needed wax to cover my eyes and not my ears, for the sight of that lower bit of out-of-bounds run was just too tempting.  Or to borrow a different analogy, would it be the lady or the tiger?  I tried to guess where I would end up if I went downhill.  I knew that Highway 91, the road that went due south from Copper to the top of Fremont Pass would be down there somewhere, but how far? When I visualized that lower part of Highway 91, all I could think of was a very steep wall of rock running alongside the highway. If I skied downhill, would I end up being cliffed out, and have to climb back up the way I came?  I drive that road with my propane truck a few times a year, but I've never contemplated it from this perspective. 

I looked at my phone to see if I had a signal, thinking that it would be a good idea to let my wife know about the predicament I'd gotten myself into.  But of course, I had no signal.  Colorado is a state where you can't drive in the any direction for five minutes without losing your cell phone signal. Something to do with these damn mountains.  In the end, it wasn't that difficult of a choice, but I'm not sure if it was the lady, or the tiger.  Maybe a lady that would change into a tiger? The snow was too good, and maybe there would be a service road, and after all Fremont Pass Road had to be down there somewhere. 

 

So down I went, to the lower part of the run which skied as well or better than the top. I sure hoped that it would be worth it.  I kept looking left, hoping to see some way to get back but there was none.  I was probaly not  the first person to ever skied this, for surely someone must have been this stupid before.  But I might have been.  Nothing new under the high altitude sun, and all that.  But by the time I got to the bottom, there was no service road or trail to bail me out.  I would have to follow the drainage, and see where it ended up.  At first the going wasn't too bad, it became a narrow tree run with plenty of deep snow.  But the fact that it didn't have so much as a game trail was a bit worrisome.  The cliffs closed in on both sides, and my downhill options became more and more limited.  I had to cross Copper Creek a couple of times which was under a deep bed of snow, taking care to keep my skis perpendicular to it so I wouldn't fall in.  Eventually it became too narrow to ski, so it was more like snowshoeing only with very long and heavy snowshoes.  I began to hear the sounds of traffic below, but couldn't tell how far away the highway was. The sound echoed off the steep canyon walls on either side, and the highway could be 500 or 5000 feet away, and there was no way to tell how much of an elevation drop there was.  Then the snow ran out, so I had to take my skis off and shoulder them. The ground was pretty soft though, so the hiking in my ski boots wasn't too hard. 

The ground began to level a bit, and the canyon walls opened back up.  Through the tops of the trees I saw a movement and a heard a truck roaring up the hill, and knew I was getting closer to Fremont Pass.  Some signage appeared, and I hoped that maybe I had found some kind of cat track that I could ski back to Copper Mountain on.  But it wasn't a sign for the ski area, I was at the bottom of the Climax molybdenum mine complex, and was at least a couple miles up the road from Copper's base.  When I got closer to Highway 91, I saw a bridge that went over the road which connected to some kind of trail on the opposite side of Ten Mile Creek.  On a trip through there last summer I saw them installing that bridge, and thought that it was for some kind of bike trail.  Maybe I could ski down that trail back to Copper Mountain. On closer inspection though, the bridge wasn't for recreation but to support a pipeline that ran underneath it. With skiing back to Copper not being an option, I hiked down to the highway and crossed it.  There was a big wide turnout just below the bridge, which made for a good spot to hitchhike from.  The road from top of Fremont Pass was very straight, and gave drivers plenty of time to see me and lots of room to pull over to pick me up.

  The first truck coming down the hill was a brand new Tundra and it didn't slow down a bit.  That was OK, I didn't expect the first vehicle to stop.  There was a gap in time, and then the next couple of vehicles that went by were cars.  Since I was holding skis and we are still in the Time Of Covid I didn't expect a car or SUV to stop.  For them I barely even tried, and would convert my right hand from a thumbs up posture to a wave with a smile before they were even past me.  However there are a lot of pickup trucks in this part of the world, so I hoped that one of them would let me hop in back.  The next truck that came by was a shiny white F-150, but it didn't slow either.  Then came a late model Tacoma, and being a Toyota truck driver myself I thought, surely he would be able to tell that I was a kindred spirit.  Nope, it went past doing at least 80mph.  Next up was a big Dodge truck, but since it seems that Dodge trucks have a higher proportion of assholes behind the wheel than any other vehicle, my expectations were low. He roared past and I thought oh well, confirmation bias.  Then a little while later it was a new Chevrolet pickup, and soon I was zero for five.  It occurred to me that all of these trucks were too new, and that it would probably be an old beater that would finally stop.  The gaps between vehicles became longer, and I wondered if I would get back in time to make another run or two.  But I didn't mind standing there that much, for it was a beautiful day and at least I wasn't somewhere up on the mountain with a broken leg, or headfirst in a tree well. 

 Then a twenty year old red Chevy pickup came into view, and I thought, Oh yeah, here's the guy.  But it was going so fast I didn't think that he could stop even if he wanted to.  My hand changed from a thumbs up to a wave, and as I looked back towards the pass to see what was coming next I heard the Chevy's tires abruptly slow.  Looking over my shoulder, I saw that he had needed all of the turnout to arrest his speed but had done it. I started running down the hill to get to him before he changed his mind, but then his backup lights came on and I knew he wasn't one of those people who look like they're going to pick you up, then speed off just as you get to their car.  I've had that happen to me before, and its very disheartening.  I got side of the Chevy and the heavily-tinted windows opened.  There were Mexicans inside, and they smiled and gestured towards the back of truck.  I tried to explain what I'd done to put myself in that spot, but they just kept smiling and I got the impression that their command of English was probably about as good as my Spanish.  The back of their truck was piled high with trash bags filled with recycling.  I climbed up on top of the bags and gave them a thumbs up, and we were off.  Before long were going down that hill very fast, to the point I could feel my cheeks flapping like I was on a rocket sled. On top of the pile of trash bags I was at the mercy of the wind, so I dug out my goggles and that helped.  Checking my watch, I saw that I should be able to get back in time for another couple of runs, and was going to straight back to Copper Bowl if I had the time. 

  At the bottom of the hill we approached the turnoff for Copper Mountain, and I expected him to pull over to let me out.  But the traffic light was green, and my guardian angel didn't even take his foot off the gas. I leaned over the side of the truck and gave the fender a couple of good thumps with an open hand.  The driver seemed to be a little startled by that. I think that either he forgot I was there, or maybe he was just planning on recycling me too. We were past the light and almost to the onramp for I-70 but again he braked hard and stopped on the shoulder of the road.  I hopped out and waved, and with a couple of heartfelt "Gracias" bid them farewell. 

  It was a hell of a long walk to the Superbee lift, but compared to picking my way down out of Copper Bowl it was a walk in the park, (with ski boots). I was able to get to the top of the mountain again, but was disappointed to see that the backside was already closed.  I finished that with a couple of fast cruisers, playing my single ski pole like a bass guitar. It had been another terrific Closing Day, not exactly what I expected but that's why I won't forget it soon!

  Jack Bombardier

  jackbombardier@hotmail.com

 

Things They Might Not Tell You In Guide Class...

 

                                Things They Might Not Teach You In Guide Class

Its springtime in Colorado, and all over the Rocky Mountain west young men and women who dream of becoming fishing guides are signing up for Guide Class.  Taking a class with an outfitter is the first step on that road, and its also the way that outfitters recruit new guides for their upcoming season.  Most guides start off doing wade trips, and then over time buy a boat to guide from that.  Guiding from a boat requires a skill set that goes beyond what’s required for a wade trip. Great float fish guides are hard to find, and are both made and born. That’s because the fishing skills needed to be a good guide can only be learned through lots of practice.  But to have a personality that someone will want to spend a long day in a boat with is something you can’t really teach.  There are plenty of guys who are great fishermen, but lousy guides.  Then there are those who customers love to be with, but can’t catch a fish with an M-80 and a large net. 

Fishing from a boat has some inherent differences than fishing from a bank does.  When wade fishing, an angler has time to scope out the river and determine where the best spot might be to find a feeding fish to fool.  You get to think about the current, and what it will do to your line and drifting fly, and how much room you’ll have for your backcast.  You’ve got the time to look into the river and see what insects are about, and what the angle of the sun and direction of the wind is.  If you work a hole with a fly without success, you can try a different fly or presentation.

On a boat, you often get only one opportunity to make that perfect cast or drift.  You need to always have a corner of your eye looking downstream at what’s coming up next, and not at that perfect feeding lie you’ve just floated past. It’s your job a as a guide to remind customers of that. 

Having been a float fishing guide for some time now, I’ve learned a few things through experience that have made me a better at what I do.  For those looking to better their experience while fishing from a boat on moving water, here are a few things to think about that might help.

Getting To Know Your Customer

Before getting on the water, it’s important to know what your customer’s ability, experience, and expectations are.  Are they a newbie, or do they have more experience than you do?  Knowing what their expectations are will go a long way towards making a successful day on the water.  In a commercial setting, a guide will often not meet their client until the morning of their trip, so its important to make the most use of the time you have before you step onto the boat.  If they’re beginners, spend some time on the bank practicing casting before you’re on the water and in motion.  If you’re launching from a busy public ramp, know some spot that’s not too far downstream from which you can have the room to do so.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a fishy hole, the idea is to let them make enough practice casts so that they’re ready for when you do find a spot with fish.  Sometimes the only opportunity you’ll get to pick their brain is on the shuttle ride to the put in, so don’t waste it telling them how great you are.  Use that time to find out about them, and how they fish.  Do they prefer to nymph fish, or use dry flies, or are they from Florida and have only chucked streamers? When I take beginners, I try to make a point of trying each of those methods during our day together to see what they like best, and not just run the same nymph rig all day.  How can they know what they like if they haven’t tried it?  There are an almost infinite number of ways to fly fish, which is one of the things that make it to stimulating.

Before Setting Off

Determine who is going to be in front of the boat and who will be the back.  I typically have the angler who needs the most instruction positioned in front, so I can watch what they’re doing and offer instructions.  If both anglers have similar experience, I’ll suggest that we split the day so that each gets to spend time in front.  The person who is in front typically get the first chance at each hole, so its nice for each of them to have that opportunity.

Its also a good time to let them each know what their responsibilities are.  On a moving river like the Colorado, the angler in front should be casting towards the bank at about a 45 degree angle.  This accomplishes several things at once.  First, casting downstream usually makes for the best presentation.  The fish get to see the fly before the boat or the line, and it also makes for a better drift. Since the water along the edge of the river is usually moving slower than the water in the middle where the boat is, a downstream cast will make it much easier to mend the line.  A second advantage is that by having the front angler making casts that are downstream of the boat, it will keep them looking ahead at the next good spot that’s coming, and not thinking about the one they just passed by. The third reason for the person up front to be casting out ahead is that if they don’t, they force the person in the rear of the boat to cast behind the boat, too. Even if the guide is doing a lot of backrowing to slow down, the boat will still want to overtake the fly. If the person in front is casting directly towards the bank, or even worse behind it, then the angler in back has nowhere to cast but even further behind.  It will be almost impossible for them to get a perfect drift.  Unless they’re tossing streamers, they’re going to have a long day. 

The angler in the rear of the boat only has one thing to worry about, and that’s to watch when their buddy up front is casting, and to not cast at the same time.  Since the angler up front will be looking downriver, they’ll have no idea when their partner out back is casting.  Its up to the rear angler, who should also be looking downstream, to accommodate the person in front so that both casters rigs don’t get snared mid-air. The only thing worse than having to re-rig a multi-fly setup is having to re-tie two. 

Rowing

Fish don’t seem to be all that worried or notice boats too much. In fact, one of the first things they do when hooked sometimes is race towards the boat, and the deep safe-seeming shadow it casts.  But what they will notice is your oars.  Since fish don’t have ears, they won’t hear many sounds from above the water line. You could probably play some hair metal band at full volume on a boombox and they wouldn’t care (but I would, so if you see me on the river please turn it off).  However, they do have lateral lines which are extremely sensitive to vibrations, so learn to be gentle with your oars when rowing.  Try to keep any splashing or unnecessary strokes to a minimum, especially in quieter water. 

Communication

As you make your way down the river, there are times when you’ll want to turn your boat one way or another, or have to move from one side of the river to the opposite bank.  Before you do, let your clients know that you will be doing so.  This gives them a moment to hold off on casting, and will reduce the odds the anglers will get their lines crossed. If you have a boat with an exposed anchor rope, also let them know when you will be raising or lowering the anchor so that their line doesn’t get snagged by it.  

Lefty/Righty

One thing that’s different about fishing from a boat than wade fishing is one person will usually have a more obstructed cast than the other.  In the case of casting from a boat, the obstruction won’t be in the form of a tree branch behind you, but it’s due to the fact that there are three people all sharing a very limited amount of space, two of whom have fly lines looping around overhead.

In a scenario where there are two righthanded anglers on board, one person will usually have an unobstructed cast and the other’s will be somewhat hampered.  For example, if you are in a boat casting towards the right bank, a righthanded angler in the front will have to be aware that a normal cast runs the risk of hooking their guide or partner with their backcast.  However, the righthanded caster in the back of the boat has all the room in the world for their cast.  When fishing the left side of the river, the roles are reversed.  Now the righthanded angler in front casting towards the left has plenty of room, but the person in back has to worry about taking off my hat with his airborne flies. Since in an average day you’ll spend half on one side and half on the other, it all evens out.  

The other scenario is one where there will be one lefty and one righty.  This is great on one side of the river, because both anglers will have room to cast.  But on the other side, both will be obstructed.  So instead of having half your day being great, and the other half not so much, there is one mitigating strategy you can employ, and that’s to go stern-first (backwards) when on what would otherwise be their weak sides.  Thus, if you are fishing with a lefthander up front and a righty in back, you would point your boat downriver when fishing the right bank.  But when you fish the left bank, by spinning the boat around 180 degrees, they can still both have unobstructed casts. This also has the added benefit of giving each anglers an equal opportunity to be in the “front” of the boat.  The only downside to this approach is that as the person rowing, you might get a sore neck from looking backwards for half the day.  But the priority for a guide is to do everything in you can to put your clients in a position where they can be successful. Its not about you, but the people who have spent a lot of money to be out there with you.  A sore neck is what Advil is for. 

Identifying Your Customers Strengths And Weaknesses

Some experienced customers know exactly what they want to do, and how to do it.  They know where the best fishing lies are, have the skills to put their flies there, and can also mend the line just so to get a perfect drift.  All you need to do is keep the boat a consistent distance from the bank, and they can do the rest.  These are my favorite customers to have on my boat (along with attractive females), but unfortunately you may only get one or two of each per season.  The rest will either have some skills, or worse their skills aren’t as good as they think they are.  Some anglers can cast great but not mend, others can expertly mend a fly but only cast ten feet from the boat.  Some will spend all day casting behind the boat, while others will not be able to pause long enough on their backcast to load the rod, and you’ll spend the day untying “wind” knots.  Its important to try and identify your customer’s shortcomings early, and to gently recommend ways to correct them.  Because of this, its almost easier to guide someone who is a raw beginner than it is to have someone who thinks that they’re already great at it.  At least a beginner is open to instruction, where an experienced person might bristle at your suggestions.  I have one customer who is one of the best casters I’ve ever seen but won’t let the fly float long enough to actually catch many fish.  He’ll make an accurate cast and put his fly ten inches from the bank, then make a perfect mend, but will only let the fly float for about a foot before pulling it out and repeating the process. Meanwhile, he’ll miss ten feet of perfect water that pass by while his flies are in the air forming his next cast.  He does catch fish, but about a quarter of what he might if he would just keep his flies on the water longer, (which is where the fish are). As a guide you’ll run into all personality types, and some will take instruction and some will not.  The kind of people who can afford to spend $500 to spend the day fishing when they could do it for free tend to be those who have attained a certain level of success in life.  They probably manage a business of some sort and are used to giving orders, not taking them. On top of the technical skills needed to be a good guide, there is also a certain level of emotional intelligence needed as well.  Learning what you can and can’t control will make the difference between a long day on the water, and one you’ll hate to see end because you’re enjoying it as much as they are.

Getting Them Out Of Their Comfort Zone

Most people will just fish with one hand all day long, because that’s what they’re used to doing.  Fly casting is difficult enough to do with your dominant hand, why would you want to ever switch? If you’re fishing from a boat, there are several good reasons, and the first relates to the aforementioned lefty\righty scenarios. If you can convince your customers to try using their off hand, then no one ever has to have an obstructed cast no matter what bank you are casting towards. This isn’t something that I suggest while clients are fishing multi-fly rigs like nymphs or hopper/droppers, but I do when we are fishing streamers. The reason is that casting streamers are much easier than other rigs, since they’re are weighted and the casting motion is much simpler.  Streamers on a medium sized river like the Upper Colorado often work best being tossed towards the bank or around structure, twitched or stripped for a couple of feet, and then pulled out and quickly cast again.  Fish are usually holding within a few feet of the bank, and not out in the heavy current.  If a fish hasn’t begun to chase your flies within the first few feet, they’re not going to, so there’s no reason to work that fast water that the boat is in.  We’ll usually set up fifteen or twenty feet from the bank, cast towards that soft water along the edge, and swim the flies back until they are in the faster water.  If there is some big brown trout chasing it, then you keep stripping the flies all the way to the boat to stimulate the fish’s chase response. If there aren’t any chasers, then you pull the flies back out, ideally before they’re more than halfway to the boat. This way you begin your backcast while you still have enough tension on your line to load the rod.   In very short order, casting streamers becomes an easy, repetitious motion that’s easy to do with either hand.  It might take fifty casts to master it, but in fast moving water like that you’ll have fifty casts under your belt in just a few minutes. In a half hour, most people can cast streamers as well with their left hand as their right.   

  Then the other advantages to off hand casting become apparent.  For one thing, in a righty/righty scenario, if one angler is willing to cast with his off hand then you are now fishing righty/lefty, so no matter what side of the river you’re on both anglers have an unobstructed cast.  The next advantage might only become apparent after the day is over.  By spending some portion of the day casting with the arm you don’t normally use, you are saving a lot of wear and tear on you regular arm.  Streamer fishing is a very active, tiring way to fish.  If you are doing it correctly, then your casting arm is in almost constant motion.  Every cast you make with your left arm is one less you are making with your right. Finally, your client is learning a new skill, which might serve them well someday if they’re righthanded, and find themselves having to make an upstream cast from the left bank while wade fishing.  I’m still not great at casting lefthanded, but I can if I have to and its because of the time I’ve spent casting streamers lefthanded from a boat. 

The Lift & Drift

There are going to be days on the water when you have to deal with wind, and not just if you fish in Wyoming.  Sometimes I’ll set up in the bottom of the big eddy so that clients can cast upstream with the wind at their backs.  Or I’ll have them try to tune into the wind’s rhythm, and make their casts between the gusts.  But you can’t hold in the same eddy forever, eventually you have to make your way down the river.  Hopper/dropper rigs have one fly that will cut right through the wind, weighted nymph, but the hopper itself is large and unaerodynamic. The two flies have characteristics that are completely opposite, so trying to cast them into the wind is a fool’s errand.

  There’s a technique that I call the Lift & Drift to help mitigate the effects of the wind, and to keep fishing even while in motion.  The Lift & Drift works on the principal that things in the water will float faster then those things floating on the water.  An example of the first would be insects both real and artificial, and example of the latter would be a boat.  The key to making the Lift & Drift work is to identify the thalweg, or the part of the river where the flows are the strongest.  This is typically where the bubble line is, and may have spinners in it if there was a morning hatch.  Even on windy days, the thalweg will often look smooth as glass, even with the water’s surface rippled everywhere else.  Feeding fish don’t care about the wind that’s making things difficult above the water’s surface. Its often just a matter of drifting your flies in that sweet spot and keeping them there long enough for a trout to see them. 

The Lift & Drift works by putting the boat in the thalweg, having the client make a downstream cast, and fishing below the boat. The boat will follow the flies and we use the current to carry the fly out away from the boat. Often in the face of an uphill wind, their cast will just land in a big heap, but that’s OK.  The current will carry the fly or flies downstream over the feeding fish, and that’s the Drift part.  Eventually however the line will run out of slack, and the top fly, usually a big foam-bodied hopper, will begin to drag.  It will first create a v-wake, and then get pulled under.  However, if the angler slowly raises their rod tip as the drag begins, they can lift that fly out enough to put more slack in their line, and then gently lower it again, resuming their fly’s downstream drift.  You do this until it begins to drag again, lift, and repeat the process.  If the uphill wind is gentle, I hold the boat sideways so that the angler in the front and back can each work the bubble line.  If the wind is stronger, then the boat will probably need to be pointed downriver into the wind, and only the person up front will get to do this.  But the Lift & Drift can be a very effective way to keep fishing even into the teeth of a strong wind, by using what the river gives you, i.e., steady current, and not trying to fight the wind.  Also, it’s often the moment when the angler slowly lifts line up to impart slack back into the line that the trout will move in and take the fly, especially when fishing dries. 

Tenkara

Tenkara is an ancient Asian style of fishing originally intended to fish small headwater streams, or what our grandparents would have called cane pole fishing.  A tenkara rod is very long, 11 to 13 feet, and uses no reel, just a long line and leader combination.  Tenkara in its purest form uses specific flies with a forward hackle that are gently pulsed to give the flies a lifelike motion. If you want to really get into it, you could probably light some incense or a candle, and get on your knees and say a prayer before casting.  I don’t bother with any of that, and simply view a tenkara rod as a different kind to fly rod. I rig the terminal tackle exactly as I would a conventional rod, i.e. a hopper/dropper, or nymph rig, or double dry fly.  I’ve even used unweighted Wooly Buggers and caught fish that way. 

You don’t often see anglers using tenkara rods from a boat, and for the life of me I can’t understand why they aren’t.  There are many reasons why you would want to have a tenkara rod or two on your boat.  For one thing, they are telescopic, so they don’t take up any room at all.  I’ve got at least a couple rigged and ready for every float I do, even on scenic floats when we’re not even planning to fish.  The next is that because they are so easy to cast, they’re great for beginners.  One of the things that give beginners trouble when learning to cast is that the pause on the backcast while getting the rod to load is constantly changing, depending on how much line is out in the air. Since a tenkara has a fixed length of line, the pause on the backcast never changes.  It’s a lift, pause, then forward with the rod. Lift, pause, forward.  Lift, pause forward.  It makes casting incredibly easy.  In most cases, beginners are casting beautifully in very short order.  And that ease of casting translates into anglers casting equally well with either hand.  There is no righty/lefty conundrum, for most minimally coordinated people can do it just as well with either hand. 

Now that the angler isn’t having to think about how to cast, they can concentrate on the matter at hand, which is fishing, not casting.  And the fishing part is now easier, because with the longer length of rod, an angler has far more control over their lines and flies than they would with a conventional shorter rod.  Mending is much more important than casting when it comes to catching fish, and beginners (and experts) can mend easier with a tenkara rod.  This mending ability comes in handy when working some of the big, foamy eddies that the Upper C is noted for.  Being able to hold your leader up out of all those spinning eddies keeps flies floating long enough for a hungry trout to see them.

Having a tenkara rod on hand is also a great way to get spin fishermen into fly fishing.  When guiding spin fishermen I’ll usually wait until they’ve caught a couple their way, and at some point will suggest that they try a tenkara. The advantage to it is that in faster water, they can spend more time with their fly in the softer where the fish are, along the bank, and less time with the spinning lure in the heavy water No Fish Zone reeling their lure in readying for the next cast. 

The one situation that tenkara is not good for though is in the wind.  When its windy, you end up with wind drag and not water drag, and tenkara rods a pretty useless. 

There is one adaptation that you need to make to use a tenkara rod to fish from a boat, and that is to make a longer setup than you would if you were fishing some small spring creek.  For a typical 12 foot long tenkara rod, one might have a line and leader combination of perhaps 15 feet to fish small water.  This allows an angler to land their fish by holding the rod up over their head with one hand, and to land the fish with the other.  However, a rig that short would mean that while working one’s way down the river, the boat would have to be too close to the bank to get the fly near the bank, which would spook fish. So to use a tenkara rod on the river, I typically rig a line/leader combination eighteen to twenty feet long.  This is usually just about right to put your fly a foot or two off the bank.  The interesting part comes when a fish is hooked, and it’s time to get it into the net.  Often, we can get a fish close but not quite close enough.  In these circumstances, I’ll hop out of the boat and land the fish beside it.  It’s a bit inconvenient, but its usually easier on the fish and makes it simpler to release it.  Its also a great perspective to take a photo of both anglers when they’re in the boat, and you’re not.  I’ll hold the fish up in my left hand and take the picture with my right, and having the fish in the foreground makes all three subjects roughly the same size. 

There is also one last sneaky advantage for a guide when their customers are using a tenkara rod, and that is it’ll make you feel like you are the one fishing, not just the client.  When I’ve got someone using a tenkara, I’ll typically have them positioned in front, and keep the bow of the boat angled towards the bank. When they make a cast, the fly will only go so far due to the finite amount of length of their setup.   If its not close enough to the bank to hit the seam we’re aiming for, I’ll have them cast again. As they do I’ll turn the bow a little closer, so that their next cast lands closer to where we want it to be.  In effect, I’m the one who is placing the fly in the correct spot, not them. This gets me more engaged in the whole process, since it feels like I’m the one fishing, and they just happen to be holding the rod. 

Conclusion

Guiding fishermen from a boat can be a great way to make a living, since you’ve got the world’s best office.  The longer you do it, the more ways you will learn to improve the experience for both you and your customer.  Just try to keep an open mind and be ready to “go with the flow”!

 

Jack Bombardier

Confluence Casting LLC

jack@confluencecasting.com

Closing Day

 

                                                               Closing Day 

 

Yesterday was closing day at both Beaver Creek and Steamboat, the final time that the general public could ride a lift to the top of either mountain.  It wasn't the greatest of ski seasons, with Beaver Creek only getting 232 inches of snow instead of their usual 300 for the year.  But February and March were both pretty decent, so the season ended better than it started off, and its not how you start but how you finish that counts.  Coming off the heels of last year, where the entire season state-wide shut down abruptly due to Covid, it was hard to complain about what we had this year.  This season, I didn't take any chairlift ride for granted, and didn't even mind the occasional lift line, since it meant everyone spread out getting their own chair.   

 

  I really found myself appreciating chair lifts more than ever this year. After all, last spring the mountains were still there with snow on them.  They didn’t “close”, the chairlifts stopped running.  In most case you could still go skiing, if you were willing to put in the work to hike up the hill.  I did just that on A Basin’s closing day, hiking up from the bottom of Loveland Pass to access the upper lift where they didn’t scan for lift tickets.  After all of the ski areas closed last year, A Basin was the only one that stayed open long enough to reopen, of only for a couple of weeks.  Since there was so much pent up demand from those like me who wanted to get out on their skis or snowboards one last time, they instituted a lottery system to restrict the amount of people on the mountain.  I tried several times without success to get one of those prized slots, and when the last day of the year rolled around I decided to take matters into my own hands, or in this case feet.  I did the hike from the CDOT yard to the lift carrying my skis strapped to my backpack, and was able to get in several runs from the top by accessing that upper lift. A chairlift ride never felt so good.   

 

  The thing about Closing Days (last season being the outlier), is that there isn't just one Closing Day, but several. Among my personal ski haunts, Arrowhead closes first. Since Arrowhead is the closest way for me to get onto Beaver Creek Mountain, so when it closes for the year I notice it. I typically drive to Arrowhead, park in free lot, and make the 5 minute walk to the lift.  Once that closes, the main mountain at Beaver Creek usually stays open another week, but then I have to factor in a pay parking lot and a bus ride.  In this age of Covid, adding a crowded bus ride to the itinerary isn't nothing.   

 

  A week after Beaver Creek closes, Vail and Ski Cooper and the Copper Bowl do too.  Since there is some precipitation in the forecast for this week, they may close with conditions as good as The Beav did yesterday.  That will mark the third and final Closing Day in Eagle County.  But wait, it isn't over yet, there will still be another after when the rest of Copper closes at week after that. Then in early May, it Winter Park's turn, and after that Breckenridge.   If you are keeping count, that makes seven weekends with “Closing Days”.  And finally, there is A Basin, the king of Spring Skiing, whose Closing Day is purely dependent of the prevailing conditions, but is currently projected to be sometime in June. 

    So Closing Day, that most bittersweet of times, happens many times during the spring.  Last year we were spared the many small cuts and lost everything all at once.  About the only positive thing about it was that about the time Covid was spreading, the snow stopped too, and so if you had to choose a spring without skiing, you could have done worse than 2020.   

 

Last weekend, I was probably the last person to ski their way from the top of Strawberry Park and out through Bachelor Gulch.  Those runs that you know are the last ones of the year always have a poignant feel to them.  You are doing something you love for what you know will be the last time in many months, or maybe ever.  There's no guarantee that anyone reading (or writing) this will be around next November to start the whole cycle again.

 

  Yesterday for the final day at the Beav, I got to the Elk Lot late due to running a river shuttle in the morning before heading to Avon.  I was pleased to see that they weren't charging for parking.  I took the bus to the village, and made my way over to Red Tail Camp as directly as possible. On many Closing Days at Beaver Creek, the only lifts left running on are on the front side, but due to the March snowfall the Grouse Mountain and the Birds of Prey lifts were still going. The weather was bluebird perfect, with only the occasional small cloud passing over. I took a fast cruiser down Red Tail, and enjoyed it so much that I did it again. Since Grouse Mountain was still open, I rode that lift and noticed that Screech Owl had been groomed.  Most of the runs on Grouse Mountain are so steep that the snowcats have to be connected to winch cables to groom them.  Screech Owl was smooth and the snow softened by the sun, and very fun to ski.  I did that a couple of times, then went back to the Birds Of Prey lift to change it up. On that ride, I noticed that Golden Eagle had also been groomed, so on my next run I skied that. Golden Eagle is the run where they do the Men's World Cup races, and it usually scares the hell out of me. It's very steep and usually pretty icy, but yesterday it was wonderful.  Like Screech Owl, it was steep and smooth and soft.  I did several laps on that, and on almost all my runs down to Red Tail skied right onto an empty chair with no lift line.  This was my idea of heaven.  

 

  While riding up the Grouse chair for the last time, I was able to get a good look at the Bald Spot, and debated whether to make the hike up to there.  There were some tracks visible on it, but it was hard from that distance to tell how fresh they were. It's been a bad avalanche season in Colorado, with a weak early snowpack barely supporting the late season bounty. It had been a few years since I'd skied the Bald Spot, for its a pretty long hike from the top of the Cinch lift to get to it.  I'd also never done it alone, it would be a bad place to have an accident since its far out of bounds.  But after a year of having very little adventure in my life, I decided to try and make it up there.   

 

  From the top of the lift, I went out the gate past all of the warning signs basically recommending not to do so. At first I had lots of company, for there is a traditional end of season party on the trail to the Bald Spot. The revelry was happening only a ten minute hike from the gate, and was in full swing when I passed by. There were about two hundred people, with loud thumping music, laughter, and smiles all around.  I wished that it weren't possible to actually see those smiles, but since almost no one was wearing a mask the grins were all too evident. It was nice to see so many happy, healthy people out enjoying the beautiful day like last year never happened, even if I wasn't eager to jump into the middle of it myself.  I've had one Covid shot already, with my second is due this week.  Maybe I'll be a part of some Closing Day merrymaking at Winter Park or A Basin, but for now it was just too soon.   

 

  I skirted around the crowd, still plodding my way uphill.  There wasn't anyone else that seemed to be heading above the party, which disappointed me a bit. Every other time I've done the hike, there has always been a handful of others doing so.  The trail from the party site leading up the hill had lots of deep postholes where others had sunk in, so I kept my skis on.  However, doing a walk that far with my heavy old steel Volant skis on was quite the workout.  The distant ridge didn't ever seem to get closer, so I tried to look straight down at my ski tips, and focus on each step. This time last year I was in great shape from playing ice hockey and skiing, but I’ve gained ten pounds since then and none of it muscle.   

 

 

  My efforts were further hampered by the fact that I was using just one pole.  I've got a torn bicep tendon and can't push off with my left shoulder, so all winter I've just been using just one one.  This has been an interesting adaptation.  When skiing through trees, I hold the pole in my right hand as I always would.  If I'm an open slope, I hold both hands on the single pole as if I'm riding a mountain bike, which is a great way to keep my shoulders square pointing downhill.  On the flats, I'll skate ski and hold the pole like its a hockey stick, with my left hand lower than my right.  When skiing fast cruisers I usually have music cranking on headphones, and will hold my left hand higher like I'm playing an air bass guitar. On chairlifts and poma lifts, having just one pole is one less thing  to worry about.  Of course all winter, I've had lifties ask me if I’ve dropped a pole, and do I need another? In those short few seconds before being whisked off I learned to say, "No thanks, just have a bad shoulder!" Someday, when my shoulder is better I'll probably go back to using two poles again, but until then one pole is just fine.   

 

  But on that long trudge up to the top of the Bald Spot, I was wishing that I had two strong shoulders to push with.  I used both hands on the one pole and kept the pole centered between my skis, not off to the side. Its an unconventional style, but it gets the job done.  After an hour of this, I finally found myself on top of the ridge with forever views, and having the Bald Spot all to myself.  It would have been nice to have a partner, but there was no one to be seen coming up the trail below so a solo trip it would have to be. I sat down on a rock and had a beer, not in any hurry to leave. It was an amazing place to be, and with a cold beer in my hand, sunshine on my face and my trusty Volants on my feet I'd never felt better.   

 

  My beer done and my legs rested, it was time to go but hard to do so.  Here I was in a spot visible to the thousands of people travelling each day on I-70, but one that almost no one would ever set foot on. I took one last look around, and pushed off.  The slope was very steep, but the snow was smooth as a pool table and softened by the intense sun.  Perfect. In just a few moments I felt like I was flying, hell I was flying. There was nothing but blue sky and white snow and fresh wind and for that minute or two it took to get down to the trees below I was in a flow state and could do no wrong.  Was it worth an hour of hard work for two minutes of bliss?  It absolutely was.  I've had a lot of great skiing this year, for I was able to pick my spots and ski when there was fresh pow to ski on.  But the run I'll remember most in the future was this one, the last run down from the crest of Beaver Creek Mountain. It was like heliskiing, minus the expense and the helicopter.    

 

  Far too soon, the slope ended and I was funneled down into a narrow maze of trees.  Soon after that, it became an actual trail, with signage but no people.  I wouldn't be the past person off the hill for the year, the party was still going on above me and sooner or later those folks would be making their last run of the year too. But it would be hard to be better or memorable than mine.  

 

  Two Closing Days down, six to go!  

  

 

Jack Bombardier