Fall Trip 2009 Part 5 Colorado's Greenback Cutthroat

It was time for the last new species of the trip, the Greenback Cutthroat Trout. We left the Logan River on Saturday and were camped in the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday night. We went to bed with clear skies but by 3am a thunder storm had rolled in and it was raining hard. Sometime between falling back asleep to the sounds of rain pelting on the camper and 8am when we crawled out of bed the rain had turned to snow. Our morning hike up the Roaring River was only a little over a mile long but a 1,000' vertical. Not a bad way to wake up but the 2 inches of snow on the ground kept clumping on our wading boots. We could only go a dozen steps before having to kick a rock or log to remove the 5 pounds of snow on each boot. By the time we started fishing the snow had stopped falling and blue skies broke through. The Roaring River was a fun little creek to fish but it was running pretty cold. After a fishless hour with a dry fly it was time to put on a nymph and get check this Greenback off the list. What these fish lacked in size they sure made up with their beautiful colors.