British Columbia

The first night of our rather short Canada road trip was spent at this luxurious camp in Oregon. A sign in the grungy bathroom said "No haircutting". Is all of Oregon that weird?

One of the huge Washington volcanoes can be seen the distance (Rainier?) Sweet coastline approaching Squamish

The Chief. The Squamish climbers' pride and joy. Good times to be had here.

Absolutey spectacular mountains near Squamish. Summit elevations around 8000 feet, but rising straight from the ocean!

My bro and I

Any steelhead in there right now?

camerman Todd

Not sure what kind of rock it was. Quality area and we barely scratched the surface. Didn't even get to the bouldering around The Chief.

Some of the climbs got real tricky at the end

Whistler Blackcomb. A huge tram now spans that canyon to connect the two resorts

Some impressively large chutes near Whistler. This one looked to be about 5000 vert and consistently steep!

Brit's first time fishing. Unfortunately she got skunked

mmmmmmm

Todd had a nice one slam his bugger at night

Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle looking for a fish snack. Most anglers had a pram like in this photo. They anchored on the shoals and had two rods: one for indicator fishing and one for stripping nymphs

fish on!

Excellent fighting fish and phenomenal jumpers! This one took a black bugger trolled on a clear camo. The vast majority of fish were found on the shoals, about 7 feet deep. Water temp: 61.

Stomach sample: brown chironomids, olive damsel nymph, and something weird.

Roche Lake was reportedly good in the morning, but since my source told me morning fishing wasn't good I slept in and missed it. Doh! The most successful fishermen were using olive & black or brown & silver chironomids. Some used indicators while the guy who was really knocking em' was using a #6 sink and slowly hand twisting up. A crowd of boats was following the chironomid hatch as it popped up in different parts of the lake. I was able to find a nice pod of fish thanks to the finder but couldn't seem to find any fly that worked consistenly. Large black buggers, chironomids of different colors (black w/ maroon rib and brown w/ silver rib), and scuds worked. Most fish were about 16 feet deep. Water temp: 62 One friendly canadian told me he did really well on a flashy scud fished on a 2 or 3 sink. He also mentioned he once did well at Island Lake letting a backswimmer pattern sink to about 40 feet and having fish slam it near the bottom.

Anyway, gotta be more prepared and have more time to figure out these Kamloops lakes. Some seriously big fish and good times to be had here. Hopefully I'll get to hit Dragon Lake one day.

Strawberry with Kyle

I planned on spending all Saturday tying flies for Canada but Kyle wanted to fish and I couldn't refuse. So we got up at 4 and hit the berry (Horse Creek again). Kyle got one soon on a renegade trolling out in the middle, but that was it for him. He somehow managed to fill his waders with frigid lake water (50 degrees) so he quit early.

I didn't do much better. Should have focused on shallow water using damsels, midges, and scuds but I had this craving to just go troll big flies in deep water like a jackass. Hey, sometimes it works really well. Sometimes...

And what a fine chub I dredged out of the depths. Just jigging that conehead bugger right on the bottom about 20 feet deep. Are the trash fish coming back???

After seeing a decent chironomid hatch I had enough sense to fish shallow water a bit before leaving. Picked up two fish quickly just trolling a chironomid pattern (#14, maroon rib, black flash, black bead) through the littoral zone. Wanted to fish more (and fish the chironomid properly) but Kyle wanted out. Pumped one fish- a damsel nymph and some chironomids

Wanting to end the day on a better note, I somehow convinced Kyle to let me check out a small lake nearby for a half hour. Not enough time to figure it out but was impressed by the number of scuds I saw in the shallows - some clinging to my boots. I'll be back to that place in the fall....

Triple Combo day

Started out the marathon day with some fishing at Strawberry. Slept in my car so I could be on the water at 5 a.m. and fished till 7 a.m.. The lake is now totally full, in fact the main trail at Horse Creek is covered. The fishing was a bit spotty-which is about what I'd expect considering the water temp is 44. Cutthroats would not chase my fly but would gulp it as soon as it hit the water. The rainbows did chase and hit hard when I was stripping it fast. 12 inch bows fought harder than 17 inch cutts.

Then it was off to Alta to ski Sugarloaf. I was supposed to catch up to some friends who started an hour earlier but later found out they went to the Devil's Castle/Sugarloaf saddle whereas I followed the Sugarloaf lift.
Timp. The Grunge Couloir is that little slit that comes off the North Summit. The top angle is 62 degrees! It almost doesn't look filled in right now but hard to tell. If I can motivate someone to go maybe I'll do it this month.
Looking down from Sugarloaf. Cecret Lake is finally starting to thaw.
Mineral Basin and Pittsburgh Lake

It was really nice corn skiing!

A look back at Sugarloaf and some nice tracks on the shoulder.

I wanted to go climb in American Fork Canyon in the evening but storm clouds rolled in. So instead I climbed at Momentum with my brother Todd (and I didn't care to take gym climbing pics). Here are the boots of the day.

Main Baldy Chute

Utah white gold melting away

We don't need no stinkin' ski lift!
Baldy shoulder. Where's the crowds?
Skins never cease to amaze me. They can stick to just about any type of snow and hold on pretty steep angles.
Garrett multi-tasking: talking on his cell phone and mountaineering

American Fork Twins

Little Chute looking nasty

The ridge traverse from Superior to Twin Peaks is supposedly 5th class. Family fun!

dropping Main Baldy

Is the black stuff residue from avy control bombs??

Aside from the peppering of rocks and sun cups it was nice riding

Can you spot the butterfly on Superior?