TR Joys of North Sierra Medley Sept-Oct 2023 part 1

[giantbrookie]

The huge winter led to a lot of improvising in the 2023 High Sierra season for all of us. The higher elevation parts of the Sierra really didn't open up to hiking and fishing until late summer/early fall. Whereas many folks waited for things to thaw out (and for some streams to become crossable) and ran some terrific trips to the higher elevations, my schedule led to me shifting my hiking for the entire season to the lower elevations of the northern Sierra. The northern part of the range lacks the ruggedness of the highest parts of the range, but it has a different sort of appeal, some of which I hope is captured in this thread. This account starts with more of a fishing and eating emphasis then shifts more to the hiking side as the hikes became longer and the fishing success waned.

Part I: Lost Sierra short dayhikes 9/15 and 9/16 while leading geology field trip class.
My fall Sierra season began with shoehorning two short dayhikes in the Lost Sierra while running a 4-day geology field trip class from Sept 14 to 17 (Thursday to Sunday). I planned relatively short "middle days" for the class, so that the class returned to the campground (Gold Lake in Lakes Basin) by 330 pm and 2 pm respectively on 9/15 and 9/16 to give them time to enjoy the area. Some went to the lake to swim, others went on short hiking trips and some fished. I did two short dayhikes with the objective of getting a few casts in. This particular field trip class has the perk of having a cook crew that cooks up hot meals, and really tasty ones at that. I figured if I caught fish I might provide my main course and, if sufficiently successful, might have some fish to share with the cook crew and students.
On 9/15 I hiked a jeep trail and had the unique experience of twice catching up with groups of 4-wheelers. I've had plenty of experience of having vehicles overtake me and pulling aside to let them pass but this is the first time I ran by vehicles through the brush on the side of a jeep trail. One driver in the first group I ran by kindly offered me a ride. I declined with a smile; I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd reach my destination faster without the ride. Whereas lots of vehicles drove the jeep trail and many camped at a campground along the trail, only one couple 4-wheeled to the lake. The last time I visited my destination was in July 2017. This lake is ringed by brush and relatively difficult to get around. Without some sort of watercraft or the willingness to wade, fishing access is somewhat limited so that in 2017 the family and I found ourselves sort of limited in our casting angles and then really cramped when another group showed up and zinged casts into the same cove.

0086shallowlakeinlateafternoon.jpg

This lake is also shallow and I wondered if the stupendous winter had resulted in winterkill. On arrival at 4 pm I found a glassy water surface and no visible sign of fish. The only hopeful sign was an otter busily swimming all over the lake. I figured the otter wouldn't waste its time in a fishless lake. On the other hand, I also knew the lake had resident non-game fish, so perhaps the otter was after those. My first cast verified that trout had survived the 2023 winter; I did not have a strike but I saw a robust brookie trail my lure. The first five casts, however, brought anything but good results and I lost two lures to snags and narrowly avoided breaking my rod when I snagged brush on my backcast. This is a difficult place to fish for a lure fisherman. After the bad start I shifted my position and figured out a reasonably snag-free trajectory to retrieve. One cast received multiple hits and then a nice brookie latched on fairly late. I watched it running below me and saw it was a nice fat one of about 14". Nice size but not big enough to worry about netting, so I casually hoisted it only to have it fall off my hook into the water. Bummer, that one had the size to feed me with a bit leftover to share.
I took several unsuccessful casts and began to wonder if I'd lost my only chance and would skunk. How many times has that happened to us? We lose a nice fish then skunk, so doubt creeps in pretty fast when we get several blank casts after a loss like that. At about the midway point of a retrieve a fish latched on that was clearly bigger and stronger than the one I had lost. When I saw the big fish hugging the bottom below me, I estimated that it was near PB size, so I figured I should play things conservatively. I loosened the drag a bit and it took off in another drag-ripping run, as I reached for my net and started thinking about my finishing angles. After the usual anxious moments--I've lost fish several times during the final approach to the net--I netted the hefty brookie. As it turned out, the fish had fatally swallowed my 3/8 oz Kastmaster and was bleeding profusely, a rare occurrence with trout and lures. My tape measure put it at 17.5" which, with its combination of length and girth, ranked this fish no. 5 on my all time brookie list. Three of my four bigger ones, including my PB, were caught last year (2022), which was clearly the "Year of the Giant Brookie", not only for me but for some other fisherfolk too as shown by posts on Topix; the other one was caught in 1989.

1647giantbrookie.jpg

1648giantbrookielake.jpg

Because of the fatal bleeding, I quickly cleaned the fish and hung it from a bush before firing a few more casts. One of these caught a fat 11-inch brookie. At this point I figured the 17.5-incher would easily make my main course with lots to share, so I released the 11-incher. I looked at my watch and figured I should head back because dinner was scheduled to be served at 6 pm. It turned out that dinner was at 7 pm so I suppose I might have fished another hour (fished from about 4 to 5 pm).
That evening the class' main course was grilled chicken cooked over a huge charcoal grilling set up. Side dishes included various cooked veggies, salad, and baked potato. I seasoned the big brookie (inside and out) with salt and pepper then grilled the brookie on the big grill. I couldn't help notice the fat content of this orange-meated brookie--Plenty of fat flame flashes. The cooking in this instance worked out perfectly at about 15 min one side and 12 min on the 2nd, resulting in a good crispy skin over moist, flaky, and wonderfully fatty meat. I served it with a squeeze of lemon which delivered the finishing touch. I couldn't help notice how greasy my plate got. I've had many delicious brookies, but I think I'd rank this as my best-tasting brookie to date. About a half dozen students were able to get sizable portions of this savory brookie; I devoured about half of it. Several other students scolded me saying I should not have released the 11-incher.

1467GoldLakecampground.jpg

The next day I figured to hike to a place with a better potential rate of return (ie better chance at catching fish) and students reminded me not to release anything of decent eating size. The weather threatened, however. The long-term forecast as of the morning of our departure had said clear weather throughout the weekend, but the morning clouds appeared to say "expect rain this afternoon". Big thunderheads filled the sky as I started hiking with several students. They headed for different destinations. As I set up to fish at my objective, I could hear the distant rumble of thunder. The glasslike surface of the lake revealed a occasional rises, mostly far out in the lake, a much greater rate of surface activity than I witnessed with Lee when we fished this place back in July. Unlike my July trip, however, the fish did not seem inclined to hit my lures. I had something like 35 casts without a strike or at least I think so. One cast seemed to have multiple strikes and a possible late hook up that came off, but that was a shoreline-parallel retrieve where I may have bumped into the top of some submerged rocks. For skunk insurance I figured to visit a nearby lake that apparently has more numerous but slightly smaller fish and as I debated whether to quit and go to the skunk insurance lake, I had a robust hit and soon had a fairly heavy fish on. This fish wasn't in the same league as the monster from the previous day, but this 15.25" brookie was clearly enough for my main course plus some sharing.

1654secondlake.jpg

1657bigbrookie.jpg

After the one successful cast, I figured I should do due diligence and catch more, remembering my students' admonishment from the previous evening, but it was now thundering and dumping a lot of rain on me. I put on my raingear and continued to fish but received no strikes in about 20 more casts, so I decided to hike to and fish a different lake. Whereas the original Plan B gave me the best chance at fishing success, I opted for Plan C which was to fish two or more lakes while hiking back to the trailhead. Those lakes offered a lower chance of success but gave the possibility of really big fish, at least according to DFW gillnet stats. Because I had already caught something I opted for the home run option. As I hiked out in the rain I ran into many groups of hikers. Because these destinations are so close to trailheads (reached by good road), they draw a lot of hikers. I dropped about 10 blank casts apiece into two different lakes, then headed back to meet my students as arranged at the trailhead. I had told them to meet me at the vehicle at 6 pm and I arrived at about 545 pm to find them comfortable in the van and sheltered from the rain. One group had done a significantly longer loop hike than I did that took in much of this part of Lakes Basin.
We headed back to camp where the official main course of the day was tri tip. I enjoyed the tri tip along with my homemade BBQ sauce with the rest of the students and shared the big brookie with several.

[giantbrookie]

Part II September 29. Grouse Ridge solo dayhike.
This solo dayhike took in a different aspect of the north Sierra. Most of the Lakes Basin area is traversed by trails and dense brush discourages much off trail hiking. The Grouse Ridge area north of I80 has a lot of lakes reached by trail that draw crowds comparable to Lakes Basin.

1471FallCrkMtnMilkSButtes.jpg

Heading east from Grouse Ridge is some more open country that allows for some scenic off trail hiking. All or nearly all of the lakes east of Grouse Ridge are now fishless, mostly as a result of termination of air dropping. I am not sure, but this may have lowered the number of hikers headed to those destinations. One lake or group of lakes is reached by a fairly long trail that loses a lot of elevation before regaining it. I worked out an off trail alternative that featured a lot of nano terrain reading, but was relatively easy going, except for a few moderate patches of brush.

1473WendSandridgemoreofftrail.jpg

I had recently been diagnosed as having a hernia (developed about a week and a half before the student trip described above) and I was a bit concerned about aggravating it; I'm now in the process of jumping through the usual level of referral delays to get surgery done as soon as I can. As it turns out, certain hiking moves do in fact bother it, and fighting brush can be particularly painful when one of my legs gets stuck. Overall the hike provided a nice off trail adventure with nice views. Weather threatened as a front was expected to cut loose that evening.

1474GrouseRFallCrkMtn.jpg

1476brushbeyersoldmandonner.jpg

1477beyers.jpg

The main destination was determined by DFW to be non-self sustaining as per a report done in 2014. If correct this would mean the lakes would now be fishless. I had some reasons to question this assessment, but my analysis did not factor in potential vulnerability to winter kill. In hindsight maybe I should have aimed for a different destination, but the possibility of big cutthroat drove me to check the place out myself. I threw about 50 blank casts into the main lake which showed no visible evidence of resident trout. Whereas I encountered nobody once I left the immediate Grouse Ridge environs, there were many well-developed campsites at the lake and a well-worn use trail rings the lake.

1479blackbuttes.jpg

After an extended skunk session, I headed for a Plan B lake much closer to the car. I had hoped to catch some good brookies at the Plan B lake, but an hour and a half of fishing returned only two 8-inch brookies that were summarily released. It was impressively cold and although I brought several layers I could have dressed more comfortably; I was fairly cold. I could see my breath as I hiked back to the car. The cloud ceiling descended and reached ground level by the time I got to the car. It started to sprinkle and I'm sure that turned to snow later that night.

1482roundfallcrkmtn.jpg

[giantbrookie]

Part III. Backpack with Lee in Carson Iceberg Wilderness Fri-Sat, Oct 6-7, 2023.
Back on August 1 I took a dayhike here for the first time and encountered good fishing that provided for my birthday celebration the next day. This time I backpacked with Lee. He had wanted to go to a different lake that required less hiking and held the promise of larger fish, but I didn't want to drive the last bit of road to the other trailhead in my Sentra; my Pathfinder is benched for the time being awaiting an alignment. Lee's prediction of fishing prospects proved to be true. We caught plenty of fish but most of them were terribly skinny in contrast to better quality fish caught in August. I'm not sure why two more months of growing season should result in smaller and skinnier fish, but that's how it turned out. On the flip side we had the lake to ourselves, which almost certainly would not have been the case for the more popular destination that Lee preferred.

With somewhat middling fishing results, the focus of this trip shifted to hiking and camping. Holes developed in the floor of my beloved Quarterdome 3 (in use since the summer of 2014) resulted in Lee buying a new backpacking tent for me, the Half Dome SL 3+. This marvelously roomy tent can truly fit three people comfortably and the full packweight that now includes a built in footprint is barely over 5 lbs. Based on our road test of the tent, I think I like this tent more than any I've backpacked with. It remains to be tested in heavy weather, though. The Quarterdome earned its stripes, sheltering me and Dawn through many fierce rain and hailstorms.
I chose a different route with Lee than I had taken on August 1. On August 1 I hiked out of Highland Meadow, whereas this time we hiked out of Ebbetts Pass. In hindsight I think the Ebbetts Pass route is a smidge longer but much more scenic. The Noble Canyon reach of the PCT is a beautiful stretch of trail. The "crux" of the hike in common with both Highland and Ebbetts approaches is the climb over the saddle at the head of Bull Canyon. This trail is unmaintained and the eastern side is particularly faint and is really hard to trace (if a track exists at all) through the soggy meadow at the eastern foot of the pass.

1487inlet.jpg

Although Lee does not do cardio training, he had a clear edge on the steeper uphills, not even breathing hard, as I panted and sweated to keep from falling too far behind. He carried a pack that weighed less than mine relative to his bodyweight but I suspect he would have outhiked me even with a proportional packweight. My hernia bothered me, particularly on the return hike after I tripped a couple of times and really got it barking at me. On the return trip I had Lee carry the tent to partly offset the fact I carried the fish out. Lee is now the first family member other than me to carry the tent on one of our backpacking trips. On this trip he also became the first other than me to pitch the tent and fully set it up, including inflating the sleeping pads; he also became the first to take take the tent down, deflate the sleeping pads and repack everything.

1491tentleecampsitelake.jpg

1492leecarriesthetent.jpg

In spite of his hiking strength, Lee still lacks the same level of patience for long hikes as Dawn has. Lee made frequent references to how tough the hike was. As he has recently taken up some serious strength training and body building, his appetite has increased correspondingly. We packed no fewer than four backpacking dinners for one night; we don't cook fish on trips like this preferring to pack them all out to eat at home. Lee ate one meal on arrival as an afternoon stack, then we split the remaining three dinners that evening as Lee continually questioned how in the world those dinners can claim to be "two servings".

We experienced almost perfect hiking weather with crisp and cool days with a breeze that seemed to come up at the right time while climbing upgrades (unlike the horribly hot weather backpack trip with Dawn back in July). Wildfire smoke diminished the views a bit but not hugely. The smoke did cause my throat to burn much of the second day. The odd nature of the season that began with the thaw of the record snowpack continued with a mild amount of mosquito harassment at our camp--mosquitoes in October?--as well as the novelty of walking on a small snowpatch on the PCT at Noble Lake (~8900') at this time of year.

1495viewNNWfromsaddle.jpg

1498LeePCTNobleReynRaymnd.jpg

1502Leeviewupstream.jpg

Saturday hiked out and "backtracked" to Markleeville so we could eat at Cutthroat Brewing Company again. Unlike our last visit there, neither of us were plagued by stomach issues, so we arrived ready to eat, which we did. I had the Brussel Sprouts as appetizer, the great Sidewinder burger, and washed it town with two pints of Knee Deep DIPA. Lee had succulent chicken wings as appetizer (this was a daily special with a dynamic fusion style sauce) followed by their legendary mahi mahi fish and chips and put that away with two pints of hazy IPA from a local brewery. Cutthroat Brewing Company was bustling. No doubt the word has gotten out about their amazing food.
The trip did not kick out outstanding fishing in terms of quality, but it showed off a lot of the unique scenic beauty of Carson-Iceberg Wilderness as well as the other perks of that region. I only managed two backpacking trips this season but both were enjoyable for very different reasons in vastly different settings of the Sierra backcountry (the other trip being a 6-day NW Yosemite trip with Dawn).

[thegib]

Hey GB, are the geology field trip classes available to the public? Do you teach more than one a year?

[giantbrookie]

Sadly the geology field trip class is only for Fresno State students. We rotate who teaches this class; we teach one each semester. I have done the field trip class in Fall 2006, 2008, 2013 (North Sierra but different emphasis and camping spots; fishing took place at Eureka Lake for some decent brookies), spring 2017 (SF Bay Area), spring 2018 (Sonoma Coast; had saltwater fishing opportunities), and this latest trip. The students and I wanted for me to do the spring 2024 trip but I don't think I'll be able to "swap" with the assigned instructor. I'm probably on sabbatical in Fall 2024 so I'll probably do one again in Spring 2025 with the target being the Sonoma Coast which was actually Plan A for this one but we couldn't get campground reservations where we wanted them. We'll try to reserve further in advance for S2025 and the fishing component of that trip may include poke poling.

[giantbrookie]

OK the fish from the Oct 6-7 backpacking trip fell below mine and Lee's expectations but I figured I'd post a couple of photos. One shows the typical skinny ones (except one which is reasonable robust) and the other shows three with more normal proportions.

1503longskinnyLCTs.jpg

1504threemoremeatyLCT.jpg

[kpeter]

A fascinating look into a part of the Sierra that I have no experience with. And how wonderful for your students! It is easy to tell what a great instructor you must be. My father (an art professor) used to take students into the Idaho wilderness every year on a field trip. There is something about the bonding experience that can occur there that simply cannot be duplicated any other way. It sounds like your students ate better, though!

[balzaccom]

Great report, as always.and man, those big fish are fat!

I fished Carson/Iceberg last week with flies. Caught lots of fish, but like yours they were on the thin side.

[texan]

Looks like a great trip(s) and your description of everything is fabulous. Like I said before you should right a book. I love that area around Ebbetts Pass too. I have been there a few times and the crowds are way smaller than other areas. Thanks again for a great TR.

Texan

[Harlen]

Fantastic John, We love the family aspect to your trips-- nice to see Lee getting out on a long, hard backpack-- he does look strong.
I like the sound of your prospective 2024 sabbatical year-- hope you can pull off a series of long trips-- perhaps even the dreamed of trip east to the Wind River Range. Good luck, and thanks for the great trip report. Ian.