Although the trail was wet and there were still intermittent patches of snow to contend with, I had relatively smooth sailing once I entered Belle Canyon until I arrived at the Ranger Lakes in the late afternoon. I fished a bit, then made camp and enjoyed the evening alpenglow on Silliman.
As I fished the following morning, I spotted a bear ambling around the northwest corner of the lake and disappearing out of view in the vicinity of my camp. I took this as a sign (along with the slow action) that I needed a change of scenery, so I leisurely packed up and hiked over to Lost Lake. For calibration purposes, here’s a view of the snowline across Crowley Canyon.
Arriving at Lost, I sprawled out on a warm rock to eat lunch and sample the abundant brookies in this gorgeous lake.
After setting up camp, I made the quick climb up to check out the beautiful Upper Sheep Camp Lake and found it still partly frozen.
No dice in about an hour of tossing flies, so I returned to my camp, had dinner, and spent the rest of the night reading and assuring myself that the footsteps I heard outside my tent were deer. On Friday morning, I packed up and headed back to Upper Sheep Camp to catch a couple of chunky brookies before picking my way down to Lower Sheep Camp.
From there I headed over to Seville where I caught a ton of brookies to 11" on flies and lures, chatted with the family camped there who expressed their gratitude for the tracks in the snow I had left for them to follow the day before, and then stuffed a few fish in a bag to take to the folks back home before I followed the ducks along the old use trail from Seville up to the pass and pounded back to the trailhead. All in all, it was a great first solo trip! Virtually no mosquitoes, great weather, my first backcountry bear sighting, and a few fish to boot.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
