TR: Part II Blackcap Basin Plus

[Wandering Daisy]

Now that I have done the route, I would carry a light, end-of-trip, pack from Rosebud Lake to Crazy Lake. I would also take a short line to lower the pack over a few short cliffy sections. It looks worse than it is. At the top on the right side of the saddle there is an obvious sandy chute that leads to the steeper cliffy section. I first did a descending traverse south, then turned around to head northwest, aiming for rock slabs that are much easier. If you continued to traverse south you would end up in a boulder field. You come out at the north point of Crazy Lake. There are a lot of very sturdy small scrub trees on the hillside that offer good handholds if needed. In fact, one route finding issue is to avoid bushwhacking. It is either class 2+ or easy class 3. You definitely do rock scrambling and a bit of jungle bashing. The rock slabs are moderately steep - not easy if you are not experienced in friction walking on slabs.

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... _Pass_.jpg[/rimg]
Approximate Route

Does anyone know if that pass has a name?

[Tom_H]

Fantastic report, WD, with great pictures. You are an excellent writer. I enjoyed the TR very much!

[giantbrookie]

It has been a challenge this year with only stoves allowed. I only brought one 1-L cook pot. I ended up boiling the fish, then de-boning, and then adding the potatoes. Bottom line - I REDUCE food I bring when I fish, but never totally eliminate a meal.

I eat so much in the high country (I just eat a lot, period) I just don't want to take the chance I will get skunked based on one unpleasant experience of the sort. Once long ago (1987), I took a very much smaller food supply on a trip I figured I'd catch plenty of fish. I caught and released oodles of fish while hiking to my first night's campsite, then struck out at the lake I camped at (reserve dinner food consumed). On my 2nd day, hungry after a long dayhike to climb Mt Rodgers, I descended to places where I had caught and released many fish the day before. Skunk-in-clutch for night no. 2 (consumed remaining breakfast food for dinner). The next morning (fortunately, last of trip), I arose famished and hiked out toward the car. I stopped to fish at Gem Lake on the way, caught some nice brookies (biggest one went 14"), unpacked my stove and pot, and cooked them for a much welcomed brunch. Ever since that trip I have carried enough food to assure that I eat well every day of the trip even if I don't catch fish for 7 days. I haven't reached the point where I really care about weight that much, so the fact that I hike out with excess "reserve" food does not bother me. In the meantime, I get a nice menu variety because I'll usually do part of the non fish meal (pasta or rice dish) along with the fish (will also have a side dish of reconstituted veggies each evening, too). In no-campfire areas, my fish cooking scheme is like this: I cook the fish in the pot with a little bit of oil, just a pinch of water, and some teriyaki sauce. I try to have just the right amount of liquid so that is has mostly boiled off leaving a nice sauce with some crunchiness on the bottom side when done. Given that this takes awhile to clean out of the pot after I'm done, I do the non-fish part of the meal first. In campfire-legal areas, I take one or two folding grills (depends on how large my group is), lightly salt the fish and BBQ them over the coals. That is how I like my fish the best, but it isn't an option where campfires are prohibited. On some trips, I'm set up for both types of fish cooking scenarios. Tunechuck 2008 was an example with part of the trip in no-campfire (above Seki elevation cutoff) and part of the trip below (Woodchuck country).

[Wandering Daisy]

I have reached the point where pack weight matters, a lot. I rather eat less than have my back ache all day and night. I sort of have a total pack weight limit, beyond which I am just miserable. Steamed or boiled fish are fine with me. In fact, if it were safe, I would prefer just to eat fish raw. I love sushi. When my husband goes with me we do take the bigger frying pan and fry the fish. Having two to share the load really helps. If I were to do a 2-3 day fishing trip, then I also would take better cooking gear. Luckily, I have found that as I get older, I need less food, thank goodness because I am not able to carry as much as I would have eaten when I was younger.

Speaking of fire restrictions and smoke, it has been smoky all day up here in Sacramento, from the forest fires, the Aspen fire to the south and a fire on the Oregon border. I am headed down to go out over Kerasarge Pass mid week - sure hope the wind does not shift and blow smoke that way.

[Tom_H]

I have reached the point where pack weight matters, a lot. I rather eat less than have my back ache all day and night. I sort of have a total pack weight limit, beyond which I am just miserable.

X2. Parts of getting old are not so fun. Others are great. I am very happy I can still hike after all these years though! Speaking of which, where did I put that Ben Gay?

[SSSdave]

Yikes indeed, not a fan of steamed or boiled fish but understand how it is efficient and the result is still pleasant. In our case we strongly enjoy the below so much we make the extra effort. During our 9-day trip a week ago into the Great Western Divide we were often catching fish on most every cast so easily had as much trout for lunch quickly as we wanted and in fact had 7 meals like this often with the pan bulging for two of us.

In the below pic of goldens I caught in less than an hour at the lowest Big 5 Lake on a small gold Kastmaster, I used a lightweight frying pan but I can do the same in a billy pot though it is more a hassle due to size issues and will sometimes chop a trout up into smaller chunks during cleaning to more easily fit. Generally I fish little or not at all on solo trips where I concentrate on photography and if so just take just a minimal kit of floating fly line, a few dry flies without pole or reel I can simply attach to a willow stick. Our basic fish meal is well broken up de-boned, de-finned, relatively dried out often crunchy trout flesh chunks mixed in with rice plus a bit of salt.





For decades our simple method of preparing trout in the backcountry has remained pretty much the same. Fried trout of the whole fish intact are preferred front country while road camping but is not practical in the backcountry because of frying pan weight, size of pan/pot, need to carry excessive oil, and an oily mess to clean up and bury. Thus we basicly bake our fish to a somewhat dry state which ends up much like fried and tastes about the same. Trout naturally have a fair amount of oil especially in their skin and mature trout often have a lot. One can bake a trout in ordinary thin aluminum billy type pot but it takes more work. Unlike frying, one cannot plunk a trout into the pan, take a nap, then come back 10 or 15 minutes later and start eating. With a thin walled pot the flesh would unevenly heat and tend to blacken against the pot contact, while the top side would end up mushy, so needs to be moved around more frequently. And I'm aware some people like mushy poached fish, though I can only say yuck. The rice is instant rice and in the above pic was about a half cup we prepare first in a second pot then cover and let sit.

We do use a small amount of oil lightly finger coating the pan/pot with cooking oil simply to reduce fish sticking to pan/pot. Put the trout in per the above pics. Note heads cut off, gutted, washed off. Then cover the pan as a lid with heavy duty aluminum foil for about 10 minutes allowing the fish to cook well. Then remove the foil, flip the trout over, and repeat 5 minutes. At that point remove the foil a second time and get to work.

Will use a needle nose pliers to grab the head end of the decapitated backbone picking it up vertically then using a metal fork to quickly flake off all the by then soft loose flesh. Those are the same pliers always in my pocket while fishing for grabbing a hook on a caught fish, then inverting it to allow trout to be released to unhook. Then will toss the bones outside onto a pile on the ground. Also will use fork and pliers to grab pelvic, tail, and anal fins that are usually loose in the mix and with larger trout some of the sticky skin and toss them into the bone pile. With pan sized trout there are of course a few small bones still left in the mix but I've never met anyone that had an issue with sending them down their chute.

That done will stir the remains around breaking up the flesh into smaller pieces. Then the foil goes on for the third time and cooks another 5 minutes. Each time the foil is removed, with steam venting, the trout flesh dries out more to that nice fried flesh state. We then lift the foil, add in all the rice, stirring it all about, then back on the foil for a fourth and final time for another 5 minutes before turning off the MSR valve. Usually will then just add some salt but occasionally if available maybe some lemon, and or seasoning.