A Gold Rush at 10,000 ft

A story of anger, trout fishing, and fear

My grandfather once told me that “when opportunity knocks you had better open the door, but you better be prepared for what’s on the other side. Well in the spring of 2017 while I was hanging around the annual fly fishing event at Kiene’s Fly Shop in Sacramento, CA. I was shooting the you know what with a bunch of guys one of which was Joe Vasquez who managed our travel department. He was pitching an upcoming horse pack trip he was hosting into Alger Lakes in the eastern Sierra to fish for Golden Trout. California’s state fish. He mentioned that these are some of the largest Golden Trout to be found in the US. Usually, I go into glassy eyed mode when I hear hyperbole but what he said sounded intriguing and gave some thought about going. Little did I know that four months later I would be Joe’s cohost on a horse pack trip into the Ansel Adams Wilderness; destination Alger Lakes and its gigantic (Joe’s term) GoldenTrout.

Golden Trout are a subspecies of California’s coastal Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and they are indigenous to the Kern River drainage on the west slope of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range that up until the end of the last ice age drained into the Pacific by means of the San Joaquin River. As glaciers receded the volume of water flowing down the Kern decreased to the point that it no longer reached the Pacific. From that time on the Goldens were isolated from the Steelhead (Rainbow) gene pool and eventually took on their distinct coloration. Where the coloration of coastal Rainbow Trout is a dark green speckled dorsal area, light colored belly and a bright red stripe along the lateral line, the Golden Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita) has golden flanks, a light olive speckled dorsal area, par marks and and splashes of crimson on the gill plates and belly. The edges of the fins are distinctively white similar to that of Brookies.

Alger Lakes are not indigenous waters for the Goldens as waters on the east slope of the southern half of the Sierra east slope did not have any sort of trout species present prior to the arrival of European Americans in the nineteenth century. They owe their existence in Alger Lakes to a planting by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife in the mid 1930s. Since then the lakes have been planted periodically by air as spawning habitat in its tributaries is somewhat limited.

He went on to say that the strain of fish that is planted in the lake originate from eggs collected in Cottonwood Creek (west slope) that holds Golden Trout broodstock in the Kern River drainage of the southern Sierras. The eggs are then reared in a hatchery and then the fingerlings are planted by air in Alger Lakes. For all practical purposes the fish are considered wild trout. I was surprised to learn that the fish now present in the lake are technically hybrids as at one time Cottonwood Creek Goldens spawned with some Rainbow trout. That being said, the percentage of Rainbow genes in the Goldens is very small.

Anyway back to the story . . .

The irresistible smell of bacon, eggs and biscuits & gravy caressed our nostrils as we drove up to the corral of the horse pack outfitter (the name will remain anonymous as I don’t want to get sued) near Silver Lake on the east side of the Sierra. This is where we would meet our companions for our four-day horse pack trip to fish for Golden Trout in Alger Lakes. As our luggage and gear was being loaded on the mules, we all enjoyed a hearty breakfast and had the opportunity to introduce ourselves to one another. Occupations of my companions for the week varied from a veterinarian from the bay area, a retired neurologist, a nurse. One was president of a Harley club, another a crew member (videographer) on the show “Survivor”, and another was a former owner of an NBA team. Also on the trip was a father and his two teenage sons. For openers it looked like that at the very least, even if the fishing turned out to be lousy, campfire repartee with this diverse group would be interesting. I wasn’t sure if I belonged with such accomplished companions as after all, all I did for a living was write fishing stories for outdoor magazines.

After breakfast, we were instructed to stand in a line side by side out in the coral where we would be assigned our horses. We filed out of the cook shack into the coral and assembled side by side in a line. After several minutes the door to a cabin that had a sign on it that said “Office” opened and out of it marched what I assumed was the owner or someone of importance. He looked like he was 50 something with a distinctive moustache and was wearing Wrangler Jeans, cowboy boots, and a typical cowboy style button up shirt with mother of pearl snaps instead of buttons. Of course he had on a cowboy hat too. He kind of looked like a 1950s version of a B movie Hollywood cowboy. He marched up and down our line of greenhorns giving each of us a look over with a pitiful expression on his face. He then stepped back and began to, in a stern voice, outline the itinerary for the day that would include a five hour trek up to the 10,000 foot elevation lakes. Our gear would be carried by pack mules and once we arrived a complete camp was awaiting us that included a resident cook.

Now was time to assign us our horses for the trip. He then marched to the beginning of the line and called to one of his wranglers the name of a horse after which the beast was led by the wrangler to its rider. When he finally got to me, he called for my horse and a young woman wrangler with the same disdainful look on her face as the boss, walked up with my transportation for the day. As I stood by it, It seemed that the top of my head barely reached the curve of the saddle. I was a little perplexed as I couldn’t figure how I was going to mount the horse as I didn’t think I would be able to lift my leg high enough to get the toe of my boot into the stirrup. Yet I definitely didn’t want to ask for help in front of all of the others if you know what I mean, as I temporarily regressed to my high school persona. On top of that, the pack train was getting ready to leave and I was still trying to figure out how to ascend to the saddle on the horse. I looked around and didn’t see a ladder or a stool but fortunately the lady wrangler was one step ahead of me and lowered the stirrups and then crouched down behind my ass and pushed me high enough that I could get my boot in the stirrup and mount the horse. Once up I was somewhat perplexed as to why I seemed to be the only one of us greenhorns who needed help until I looked around to see that I was sitting higher than my companions so obviously I had the tallest horse. I should have spoken up and demanded a different animal but staying true to my normal unsuccessful method of dealing with these kinds of issues I kept my lips zipped.

We headed out and once on the trail I quickly learned two things that I had forgotten from the couple of previous pack trips I had taken when I was younger. Number one was to always get up to the front of the pack train so you don’t have to spend the day breathing dust, and the other was to bring a scarf or face mask to filter the dust. Now I realized why Roy Rogers always had that silly looking scarf around his neck.

As we gained in elevation we began to cross several rushing creeks. At one of our stops, I was able to weasle into a position aka. cut in line, close to the front of the pack train and just after crossing a creek, and without explanation the wranglers halted the train. No reason was given but we waited for about twenty minutes to a half hour and then we continued on. It wasn’t until we reached camp when I began looking for my duffle bag holding my clothing and gear that I found its contents were laid out in the meadow and with everything being soaking wet. I tracked down one of the wranglers and was informed that one of the pack mules had tripped and fallen into the creek and as luck would have it, my gear was on that mule. I might interject here that no effort was made by the wranglers to notify any of us of this event until I had made an enquiry. The pack outfitters now had earned two strikes against them. I forgot to mention that I had already given a first strike to “Mr. wrangler boss” for assigning me this enormous beast to ride, and also for acting like an asshole.

For the next several hours we continued up some switchbacks and finally reached timberline. When we got to the pass we could look down upon the lakes and before us was a U shaped bowl in which were a couple of glacial cirques, each having a lake behind it. The peaks all around the lakes were covered with snow down to lake level. It was quite an unusual sight considering that it was the first week in August. I could see that our trail disappeared into a snowbank through which I knew from a few earlier pack trips, we would somehow have to coax the horses to cross. The horses were hesitant as we slowly worked along and had to be spurred a couple of times to get them to move. There were only three riders in front of me, one of which was my pal, Brian. Suddenly, I saw his body drop a couple of feet as his horse post holed into some soft snow. That’s not a good thing for a horse to do as often times that will cause them to break a leg and if that happens that’s the end of their packing career or to be honest that’s the end of their life as the common practice is to put a bullet in their head and leave them on the side of the trail for the coyote’s and mountain lions to feast on. Fortunately, Brian held on, the horse was able to recover, and we continued down the trail to Alger Lakes.

To be continued on Friday’s “Bonus Post “

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