Picturebook: Amethyst
Close Calls at the Sleet Creek Reservoir
Close Calls at the Sleet Creek Reservoir
I’d been eager for the summer to come into full swing as the road through Monte Cristo in Northern Utah would open up and grant nearly backyard access to a fishing hole my neighbor had been hyping up over the entire winter season. His little secret spot was two hours away on an inaccessible road during the winter months–likely covered with ice at the time as well–but now was a meager 50 minutes away, and he’d told me dreamlike tales of the fishing he had out on the gentle bends in the dog days of yesteryear. I just couldn’t wait to get out there, so I loaded up the girls and headed for the trail.
We got started on some nice dirt roads with incredible access to beautiful riffles all along the roadside, seeing only two other vehicles along the modestly maintained pathway. Things were looking good, the sun was high in the blue sky, and it was a stunning day for trout fishing. There was so much good that it was hard not to ignore the one glaring problem: There were no trout here. Well, none rising as far as I could tell, a bit of chaco-wading up the river without little shadows darting undercurrent gave the impression that the little dudes might still be deep down in slower pockets as the runoff was still rolling.
So we made our way up the hill and over near the reservoir, the opposite end of which was the promised land, the good place, the dreamy meadows of godly fishing just beyond the horizon. But a lack of a clear trail and a naive belief in Google Maps left me thinking we’d have to access some more tight backcountry, and we were still another hour away from the destination. So we fished a bit, talked with a fella who loved this place since he was young, and listened as a family set off a few rifle rounds into a couple pounds of tannerite: Quite the echo indeed.
Eventually we set off for this other road, but not too long in discovered that this track was only for OHV access, behind a gate that was clearly labelled PRIVATE PROPERTY. “No biggie,” I promised my passengers, “There’s another place we can check out that’s not far from here at all, it looks really similar!” And similar to it did look from 450 miles up in the sky via satellite imagery and hopeful winter dread.
But here in the late Spring, the ass end of Bitch Creek Reservoir seemed an aweful long hike away on a very narrow path. But we vowed to keep it light, leaving the majority of our daypack gear back at the truck and keeping it to a couple of water bottles and my fishing gear. We started along the pathway, more of a game trail than any real walkway, and waddled over towards the other end of the reservoir. The last hundred yards is where the real test of patience began, myself having to hold the dog and my pack, I was slipping and sliding all over the steep shale and mud, constantly slipping into the deep rocky reservoir and having to clamber my way back up, half soaked and chunks of pebbled silt coming to rest between the sandals and my feet.
Once we finally reached the tributary creek, I breathed a sigh of relief and began to head upstream, keeping a sharp eye out for feeding trout in the narrow, clear water. A 15ft tall bank gave us a vantage point that provided the discovery of a few schools of 30 or 40 fries, racing up and down the low water and avoiding every single cast I placed. There were presentations so delicate that they’d begin some five yards ahead of the schools, and the entire family would split like the red sea when my dries and emergers floated past, as if the knew it was something not to fuck with. This led to a desperate attempt to net an entire school with a leap from another 5ft bank into the water, pulling up an entire empty net that the fish probably could have simply slid straight through. Things were looking rough, but I was excited to get up and hike around the rest of the reservoir and head back for the dead, casting as we went, so we left the creek and returned to the larger water. My fiancé did not want to go in a new direction; the way we had come already was annoying enough, and she feared that the new pathway might get nastier. In hindsight, she was more than 100% correct, but in the moment, I was eager for some new views and emplored her to press on.
I had only one opportunity for a larger catch, a fantastic chunky looking Lake Trout that I spied from the trail we were following along the newer side of the res, and of course as I cast a much-too-heavy streamer for this particular rod, in haste, I found myself tangled in a birds nest of fly line as the trout approached with interest, saw no movement, and left annoyed. I called it after that, some storm clouds in the distance seemed to be getting darker by the second, and I wanted to be down in the truck before that thing hit.
Damn, did I miscalculate all that.
It wasn’t more than 15 minutes before the rain started, a sneaky storm hitting us from the North that I didn’t see over the mountains we were hiking on, the opposite direction of the storm clouds I was concerned about. It had swirled entirely around us, the small reservoir acting like a heatsink for the changing air pressure. The pitter-patter was a welcome change from the hot sun at first, the warm air even made the light rain surprisingly hospitable. But as we started coming to an area I thought would have a pathway through turned out to be a lovely barbed wire fence with slits barely large enough to fit through. It’d take us another hour and a half to traverse around the other way, and with the storm present I thought the scrub oak would at least provide us a little relief from any further developments that might come down on us along the banks, so I helped the dog and wife-to-be over the fence, climbing over myself careful not to snag pants or feet, and we started through the thick, whipping branches.
Complaints and angst were mounting now, spirits were becoming dismal in the dreary downpour, and I opted to give wading through the beach–out and around the oak and willows–until we reached a better clearing. This lasted just 20 feet or less, the dog having to swim the entire way and the gal filled with dread wading through murky, unknown waters. She’s got a small phobia of such things, and this was turning into a nightmare for her. I felt terrible, but I needed to get these two back to the truck before the storm got worse, its tempo picking up from a nice drizzle to pelting heavy drops. After the hundred-yard slog through the scrub and leaves, we can to another tributary that banked even further out of the way; We could swim across and be done with this in three minutes, or hike all the way around for another 25, avoiding the water. Thunder in the distance more than confirmed that the latter decision would have to suffice as the “safer” in these circumstances. We finally made it past the inlet, crossing another steep hillside of scree and slick rock, everything now thoroughly soaked through and my Chacos struggling to find purchase while providing grip without my feet falling out.
Looking up, it seemed as if we were at the end: The reservoir was less than a quarter mile away now, and it seemed like we’d just have to cross a narrow pathway next to a rocky outcropping. Just then, a flash of lightning and a loud crash of thunder very shortly after left us with an omen as foreboding as the one you see when you come to the patio of some decrepit bayou house, most obviously haunted. I looked back with urgency and told her that we need to start moving, my poor gal now stunned with fear, and kind of blank nod of an “ok” and a staggered motion towards me. The last bit become more sheer rock and shale, and I told her to wait a moment as I check ahead to see what the pathway was like, the wind now howling and the rain becoming dreadful. As I peeked around the corner of this tall rocky face, our fate seemed to be sealed into a helpless howl in the wind. It was a sheer cliffside that perhaps would make for a fun traverse in the bright summer with friends, unafraid to do a little cliff diving, but in these conditions, and especially with a tired husky, were completely impassable.
Coming back, another crack of lightning hit, and I told Taylor that we needed to get to some low cover to wait out the storm. She was paralyzed with fear in a way I’ve never seen, asking instead to just sit a minute on the barren rocky embankment. “We can stop soon, but we can’t here, we have to go, now.” Taking her hand and the dog, I was able to help her snap out of it and we moved under a small juniper brush, sitting most uncomfortably ontop of a pile of deer shit. She was cold in her tank top, so I took off my sunshirt, soaked but warm enough to ward off the cold wind, and sat a while watching the storm.
Moments like this I pause and take it all in, smiling in awe at just how cool it is to be here, now, alive amongst weather that happens every day in these wild places with all the wild animals, and I like to reflect on how silly our delicate little homes and comforts really are. This is what the world is really like, and we’ve been able to adapt to it in a way that we rarely get to interact with it anymore, many friends I know never having had to sit out a shitty storm, cold without a shirt under barely any cover. The hail that started pelting my shriveled fingers and cold skin helped hammer home the fact. I laughed a little bit to myself–trying not to scare my fiancé who was just starting to shake off the fear she’d built up–saying
“Hey, just so you know, if this keeps up for another hour or so, we’ll just have to go up and over the mountain despite the lightning. Are you ready for that?”
She laughed as well, saying, “Well, I guess we at that point we might as well huh?”
I smiled, and thought how fucking stupid it’d be to get struck by lightning or come down with hypothermia with just a cliff and an eighth of a mile between me and my truck stocked with all sorts of goodies, warm clothes, gasoline and joy.
But it wasn’t more than another fifteen minutes until we saw a little light at the end of the tunnel: a distant patch of blue poked through the dark hazy gray, and grew more and more from the Northwest until the clouds passed us Southeast, and the blue sky and sun kissed the wet ground and soaking faces on the mountain side.
A playful yet quick-paced hike up some 500ft in less than ten minutes and another 600ft descent past the reservoir and back to the truck would have made you think nothing ever happened, and we both ruminated on that. We talked about how, really, nobody had any idea what we’d just been through. Even more, nobody would really care. Maybe that’s the point, to experience the things and take it all in, life in motion, nature in action, the world breathing us in.
But hell, you’re here, and I’m typing, so maybe somebody cares after all.
The Terminus: Posted Elsewhere
Looks like I can’t change the location on a blogpost once it’s drafted with Squarespace, so if you’d like to read my most recent report The Terminus: Fly Fishing the Small Creeks of St. George for Utah’s Southern-Most Boneville Cutts, please go check in out in The Picturebook.
Canyonlands Sunset
Stress, Winter Travel, and Cold Nights Cuddled Together.
Canyonlands Sunset
Stress. There’s stress for some reason now, where once packing for a backpacking trip seemed so easy, so care-free, “If I forget anything, I don’t need it.”
Stress eats away at my consciousness each moment, the itch at the back of my neck, the wicked sensation that tickles your self-doubt, “You don’t need it, but they do”.
Stress that laughs while you drive away, sick to your stomach of the pending court date you never wanted to attend, yet volunteered for.
I’m dying of stress and I can’t think of a goddamned thing other than if I have everything I need in my stuffed-to-the-gills truck, loaded up with all accouterment seemingly important for 9ºF desert campout in Canyonlands national park. It fades for a moment, and the moment melts into an hour while I cruise down the highway with the dog popping her head out of the window on occasion. Warnings from further south about traffic jams, car crashes, and sketchy roads give the trip a sense of pending dread, but once I pick up Taylor that dread fades away, and we indulge ourselves on that most menacing of meals: McDonald's. It’s while we’re eating that the voice of Stress cackles in the back of my head, echoes down my spin,e and makes my hairs stand up, an auditory sigh is the only conscious reaction I can muster at first, followed by “Oh my fucking god”.
I forgot the stove.
Stopping into the last Ace Hardware for the rest of the trip, we pull out a lucky find with a stand-up Camp Chef on sale for nearly half-off the sticker price, and $150 grill for just $85. I snag it and somehow tetris-fit the box and its contents into the shallow allowance of my bed, and then we are finally off on the long drive to Moab, or the next destination for gas and treats. The road winds down corridors that shine a reminiscent veneer of a time not so long ago that now feels to have been a lifetime away; It’s funny to me how even passing through space can bring back ghosts of yesterday, whether they meet Heidegger’s definition of Dasein or lesser than conscious in even some diehard panpsychistic belief. My old Nissan Murano, who would bless me with nightmares any time I’d travel with it, where I nearly died rolling off a muddy hillside with it in 2021. The friend I took here during a turkey hunt some miles up the road. A time when I would cram into the back of a red Chevy S10, Crew Cab, with a single access seat and a space on the floor affectionately titled “the bitch seat”.
Cigarettes come to mind, a long-time favorite of mine during desert camping sessions I used to attend at all times of the year. It’s interesting to look back, at how much of a desert rat I used to be, far down South or in the dry dead West. I wish I could have one, but I know how miserable I feel anytime I even taste one, so the desire fades and I’m back to where I’ve been all along, driving with my fiance and our husky down the wide open, white-out blizzard January roads of central Utah. We’re strung along the road for a few hours before things clear up, and when they do we’re in that long, monotonous drive between Price and Green River with views of the jutting San Rafael Swell can be seen far on the Western horizon. Dust curls on the still air when heavy trailers blast past, leaving a whipping wind of sand and brake dust long enough to spray our windshield.
We make it down to Moab as the sun is setting, but our destination is still an hour out, so we throw on some campfire stories and make our way further into the dark, an anticipatory excitement leaks into my mind as I remember again those days more than a decade ago when I first saw the red rocks of Southern Utah the morning after we arrived. Taylor’s in for a surprise, and I can’t wait for her to see just how much of a playground this vast landscape is.
Setting up camp is a mad dash after rousing an own from its hiding hole, as the temperature outside has plummeted down into the teens, the stars clearer than any other campout we’ve been on in months. Zipping up the vestibule to my rooftop tent to provide a little buffer against the cold is a great idea, and even better is when we get the heater kicked up inside the small room and things get cozy FAST. It’s hard to think about anything but sleep, and we cuddle up for a little while but it’s only about 730, and we’ve still got to eat our dinner on the fancy new stove. I head out and start cooking up some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and all our energy came flooding back, but the temps outside left us opting for quick explorations around our Hamburger Rock campground then swiftly returning to the warm tent to chat, listen to music, and eventually head to bed.
Then the next day would be the one we went on the big adventure, initially planning on hitting Elephant Hill but then opting to run a “moderate” rated trail on a 4-LO drive out to a Colorado River overlook. A little over a mile in, I opted to air down the tires and see if it make a big difference: We’ve aired down before and loved the results, but this trip will be the first time I have a portable air compressor with us that we can pump back up anywhere we need, and I’m eager to see how much my Tacoma–and my skill as an offroad driver–can go. It’s not long before we start having some really fun, bumpy trails with tricky terrain mixups, high hill climbs, and some good old-fashioned hitch kisses. About an hour of driving later, we’re at the loop for the overlook, and we head out over the rocks.
The view here is the same that often leaves one at a failure to describe, and even photos fall short of capturing the sheer vastness of the landscape around you. A chasm nearly a mile wide stretches from where we stand to the other side of a relentlessly tall cliffside, that juts nearly straight down to the icy flows of the low and slow Colorado that seems impossibly far below. I’ve only seen these rivers in warmer weather, and it’s a real trip to be here with just us looking over a landscape that leaves me in awe at each glance, conjuring thoughts of what it must’ve been like to cross or live in these lands during the bloody expansion of Manifest Destiny.
As we make our way back towards the main road, my tires still aired down, I tell Taylor we should at least go see what Elephant Hill is like. I came here once years ago with that old Murano and knew I wouldn’t be doing much else than hiking the 4x4 trail; I’ve seen videos of guys in stock Tacomas running the wild pass, but those guys always have something like 3 or 4 other trucks rolling around them like a brazen tribe of mechanical nomads slugging over rocks that threaten to wipe out their advance from a simple slide. Once we arrive, I feel a burst of confidence when I see the road, and we blast up the stark hillside, only a few cars in the nearly vacant parking lot and not a soul around. Once we hit the first real ascent, Taylor’s insecurity immediately takes hold and there’s a lot of desire from the passenger side to stop now and get out while we can. Begrudgingly I obliged, but in hindsight, the detour was probably the smartest thing I could have done since the sun was beginning to peek down behind the jutting Needles to the West.
We drive back down to our same campsite out East, the sunset at our backs and illuminating the landscape and storms some miles away into a blast of color: Blue-black, hazel, brilliant orange, and blasts of green from the shrubbery dotting the sunny buttes. As we arrive at Hamburger Rock again, we are gifted with one of the most impeccable desert sunsets I’ve ever seen, and again I flow down into a flashback of consciousness. I’ve seen so many breathtaking sunsets in these parts of the world, my typical bewilderment being met with jokes at my expense by friends who’ve already had more than I would drink in a weekend now. But here, this sunset is beautiful, and the company I have with me fills me with joy and warmth as the cool air descends our cozy little campsite once again. After the fire and the tacos and the laughter in the little vestibule room, we crawl into our warm blankets and cuddle up as a family, and I sleep better than I’ve slept in weeks.
Tonight, the stress is gone away.
