Backpacking/Fishing Colorado (Gores and Sangre De Cristo Wilderness)

[Michael K]

I spent about a month on a road trip in Colorado backpacking and flyfishing
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I spent most of my time in the Sangre De Cristo Wilderness and the Gore Mountains. The above two areas were my favorite because of the scenery and lack of crowds. Its ironic after all of the talk of drought that it basically rained or stormed every afternoon. I drove from Texas and I backpacked to 12000 feet on my 2nd day of the trip and I got pretty altitude sick, but by the 2nd night of the 1st 5 day hike (luckily) I was mostly adjusted. Initially, I was very nauseated, easily short of breath, and I had no appetite. I just kept on forcing myself to eat and drink and I got better.

Basically, I backpacked/camped for a week, then I would clean up one day in a cheap motel and in between take showers/baths in strange places (streams etc.) and this cut down on the costs, but I was surprised how much national forests campsites were in the popular areas (like 18 dollars at Gore creek and on the Frying Pan River). I've never seen such expensive national forest sites.

The most beautiful and fun hike that I did was a day hike from Gore Lake to Snow Lake. I did this day hike after I made a base camp at Gore Lake. There is no trail, but its simple enough following Snow Creek a bit after the turn-off to Gore Lake. The flowers and climbing in this valley were great. However, I did get lost on the way back when I followed another creek branch that had formed from all of the recent rain. Getting there is easy following the goat trails and the creek, but the return trip was a bit more complicated with all of the newly formed stream branches from the rains. I was saved by my GPS, which I normally rarely use unless I'm lost.

As expected, the best fishing on alpine lakes were usually on the harder to reach lakes and the gullable stream fish were also the least pressured fish. Despite this, I really enjoyed the Frying Pan River's "Tame" (not so scared of seeing you etc.), yet very wary fish. You had to use very light tippet and small flies on these fish, but their numbers were just amazing and the wading was easy.

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Thank you to people on this site who gave me advice on these areas and for helping me lighten my load to make the trip more enjoyable.

Here is an edited video of some highlights of my trip with an eclectic music mix:

[Tim Drescher]

Thanks for sharing!

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