We often do not have firm route plans, and this time that worked out really well. We had a lot of Daisy's 2022 trip report in our heads, and thought of visiting Devil's Punchbowl first, where she had good luck with the fish. But the cross country route across the branches of Fleming Creek looked like an up and down tangle of forest. Talking it over, we realized that though we have all longed to get to Davis Lakes, none of us had made it yet. So this time we resolved to get in there, and that meant a re-route over Hell For Sure Pass, and directly on to Davis Lakes. We also hoped to see Martha Lake again, and get to Lake Confusion for the first time. We would return via the Lucifer Passes, and spend that last few days lower down by Devil's Punchbowl instead. This seemed wise, as by then we might need to cook over a fire, and be warm in the evening. It had been very cold on our first night-- the 21st, and we could foresee the benefit of fires at our last camps.
)We made H.F.S Lake on the second day, and had a record run of small fish fishing-- (damn you windknot). I believe I actually had a 10 straight run of landed fish, and we all were busy catching and releasing the smaller of the small brookies. Average size of the keepers, if I am honest for once, was about 7.5 inches, ....or perhaps a bit less. Is HFS Lake one of those areas where one can keep more than 5 fish each? This small, but voracious fish thing happened to us again late in our trip over in the Bench Valley lakes. We would have to try very hard-- reeling as fast as possible, to avoid catching the little peckerwood fish that were madly chasing our lures! In the past, in my persisting ignorance, I have often retrieved spinning lures ever so slowly, to make it easier for the fish to catch up to them. I now know that hungry fish can catch up to a lure screaming through the water! We learned the painful lesson that cleaning one or two big fish is preferable to fiddling about with a score of little guys. Later on, in the lakes with Golden Trout, we had better results, but still nothing to hold up to windknot, or Robert, and brag about. We met just one solitary person while at Martha Lake, and he happened to be a passionate fisherman-- the Golden Trout emblem on his cap and t-shirt gave me the clue. He said something that I may have to take to my ignominious grave: "I can't seem to catch a fish small enough to keep for dinner."
He had been jigging up 3+ pounders from the deep spots of Martha's rocky south shore, and releasing them for lack of partners to share them with! He gave me one of his favorite lures-- a rubbery, inch-long thing that is slipped around a weighted hook deal. He coats this with some liquid attractant, and lowers it into the deep spots, ala robertseesburger, and teases up these monsters, which he shared the photos of on his cellphone. (And I now have another reason not to own a cellphone-- only small fish to show.) Later on, I lost this magic new lure, either to a giant fish, or the deep rocks.The weather on this 10 day trip was fascinating. We had almost zero wind until the very last day. Any slight breath of wind during the day would cease completely in the evening, and every morning we had glassy smooth lakes with the reflections of mountains in them. Even the giant Davis, and Martha Lakes were dead calm. And after the very first day, and up until the last, the sky was clear and blue. When the hailstorm finally broke on our heads as we walked out to our car, we rejoiced in the new weather, even though our hands were wet and freezing. Carleton here is a Boletus mushroom addict, and couldn't pass a fresh one by; so our walk out under the rough weather took far longer than necessary. All told, we amassed well over 10 lbs.-- perhaps closer to 20! We had already eaten 5 lbs. of boletes with our dinners on the first three nights of the trip. So we actually caught far more weight in King Boletes than Trout, which is a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one.
The good news is that we finally made it into Davis Lakes, and it was wonderful! We also made it up to Lake Confusion, and over Gunsight Pass for the first time, and Carleton and Lizzie got into Evo. Valley and Ionian Basin! All great efforts, and in Ionian Basin, we felt we were lucky to have made our way around icy steep snowfields, and up some pretty cliffy rock routes in order to extricate ourselves from that tricky place. The descent from Wanda Pass was the single sketchiest piece of work, and we hustled to avoid being benighted on cliffy ground. We had been warned away from Ionian by Andrzej/Andrew, the wild solo trekker met on the way to Red Mountain Basin. He was coming back from his ambitious Tunemah Lake trip.. He had a strong desire to explore Ionian Basin, but considered it a bad bet this year, under such lingering snowfields. Andrzej is a sensible solo hiker. We gave it a try ourselves, and though it really was a challenging maze, we were very happy to be in there.
Our final route change was to forgo the camping and fishing at Devil's Punchbowl, and the fun crossing of the two Lucifer Passes to reach there. Instead, we crossed what we are calling "Little Lucifer," which is the lower saddle just west of the real Lucifers. While crossing there, we stumbled into an amazing "quartz garden" which I had once read about. Does anyone know of it? Just an unbelievable repository of all kinds of quartz, from rose to honeycomb, to shockingly clear, and also some unique, water-smoothed quartz, polished by the high western tributary of Fall Creek that runs right over it. It is surely the largest outcrop of quartz we had ever seen! We were happily stuck there-- mesmerized for over an hour. So we had a few adventures, and saw some new and lovely sights. I think we all enjoyed re-creating the route, and watching it unfold as we went. I'd better get on with the photos-- there will be a lot of them, as we were all snapping away, and Carleton has a sharp I-phone camera far superior to our little Kodaks.
