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I think day 3 was my favorite of all…The hunt for Golden Trout!

Happy faces to start off the trek

I expected the altitude to make life difficult for us “flatlanders,” but it wasn’t too bad. Maybe the landscape was just so incredibly beautiful that it didn’t matter!

Trail Panorama (gotta click to appreciate)

Reese was definitely a trooper… The hike was a little longer and had a lot more elevation gain that I had pitched it to her (honest mistake). The last leg was pretty intimidating looking up from below, but once we got on top it was all smiles again.

Can you see the relief??

Just had to drink some...

Snooooooow

After eating some lunch it was game time… Found a good looking spot and managed to get a take (on the dropper) on the first cast.

1st cast

Giddyup

Even more stunning in person... Crazy to see their colors through the clear water

I felt like I was going to have a case of the “fish on the first cast curse” after this one… I made casted to some risers for at least 30 min without even getting a look (that I could see). Threw every dry I could think of, soft hackles, emergers, you name it… couldn’t figure ‘em out. Didn’t want to spend all day on those fish so we moved on to find some others…

Trying to sneak in...

Another dropper victim

Good look from above

I didn’t have crazy success up there, but I did manage to bring in a handful. The winds were consistently strong and made casting the 2wt a chore. I thought I had become pretty proficient at casting in the wind thanks to all my okie fishin’ time, but throwing a 2wt into a headwind made me think otherwise. I don’t know what is considered a “good” day fishing these alpine lakes, but I’m very pleased with the results of this outing. A handful was enough to seem like a lot while still making each fish seem valuable! It’s hard to say which was prettier, the scenery or the fish!

So blue.. and it's not even post-processed!

Catching fish like this everyday would make you spoiled... ha

The hike down was a heck of a lot quicker than the hike up and we made a few pit stops on the way down for Reese to get in some fishing…

Looooks good to me...

"I GOT one!!"

"Cute little brookie!"

Not a bad way to close out a sweet little adventure!

Once we got back to our place in Mammoth it didn’t take long to wind down and hit the sack…. Only we didn’t stay asleep long. We woke up to loud crashing outside and I immediately hopped out of bed and high stepped it over to the window to look out and see if it was a bear. Was so pumped when I looked out and saw it out just across the street trying to get into one of the dumpsters. We got out our cameras and tried to snap some pics of the beast below, it was HUGE (granted I have nothing to compare it to). Seemed like it was as big as the cars down there. Reese’s camera wouldn’t actually take the shot, I guess if it can’t focus it wont snap the shutter (too fancy for me to understand)? My flash didn’t help at all either, but after adding some fill light to the picture you can see the outline of the bear at least…

BEAR... very black

Really don’t know if we could have packed in any more cool stuff in one day…