Traveling thirty miles down a gravel road generally rewards one with a degree of solitude. So it proved as we crested the final ridge and dropped down into the valley to find the little campground free of habitation, human at least. From up high the serpentine course of the stream could be traced by the stands of leafless willow that grew in clusters along its banks. The valley narrowed upstream to the west before elbowing south, where the peaks of distant mountains, dusted with the season’s first snow, mingled with sullen storm clouds.
Ostensibly we’d come to fish the stream, but for me the next few days would be as much about drinking hot tea in the silence of early morning while the sun slowly worked its way down the mountainsides to an icy camp. It would be as much about the aroma of bacon quietly sizzling on the griddle, of a lunch-time beer sipped with feet dangling in the stream, of margaritas and the Milky Way, and of being in a place where a cell phone is as relevant to an angler as a bicycle to a brook trout. It would be about burrowing deep into a warm bag on a frigid night, of the howl of a distant coyote and the purl of the stream overlaying it all.
We set up camp on a small ledge that offered a pathway down through the rocks to the meadow and stream below. From this vantage point we could observe a portion of the stream—a slow, elongated pool that quickened into a riffle and turned down-valley at the foot of the ledge. After dunking my dried-out wading boots in the water to soften the leather, I returned up the path to the ledge and sat, taking pleasure in the ritual of donning waders, cinching boots, choosing a rod, freshening tippet, and sifting through my fly box even though, in my mind, I’d decided three days ago which fly I would start out with.
The sight of a fish rising in the pool below, intermittently but with the persistence of an active feeder, heightened the anticipation.
“Did you see that?” I asked. “That’s got your name written all over it.”
He nodded. “Ah, mate, you’re too kind.”
“Not really. I just want to have a good laugh when you set the hook too quickly and miss it.”
I pulled my attention from the pool to upstream. For at least a mile it zig-zagged its course before the valley dog-legged out of sight toward the mountains to the south, the pull of what lay beyond growing stronger by the minute.
I rummaged through the food cooler, stuffing some cheese and crackers and a couple of energy bars into one of the pockets of my hip pack. I guessed the time as close to noon, and didn’t expect we’d return to camp until after the sun had dipped below the horizon. By then, I knew, my lower back would be aching gently from walking several miles over uneven ground, my legs would be weary, my best friends Advil, my camp chair, and margarita cup.
“Well, mate, shall we?”
He stood, slipped on his fly vest, and grabbed his rod.
“Yes,” I agreed, “it’s time.”
