Day 7- Lake Virginia and the First Golden Trout

 Monday, June 23

Beginning: Upper Crater Meadow (Mile 64.5)
Ending: Fish Creek (Mile 78.7)
Daily recorded distance: 13.8 miles
Total recorded distance: 88.9 miles
Daily recorded elevation gain: 2,556 feet
Total recorded elevation gain: 21,024 feet

Today was "just another day of hiking," at least for the first part of the day. Bryson spent most of the day ahead of Casey and me, collecting stories from the line of northbound PCTers. Casey seemed to have decided that a slower, steadier pace would be better for his ankle, so we ambled along behind at a comfortable pace. Around the middle of the day, we all stopped for lunch beside a small creek. There I cooked some potatoes while Bryson caught us up on the stories he had been hearing from other hikers. 

"Porter" had earned his trail name by reuniting unfortunate hikers with their lost gear. Every time he found a piece of gear, he would take it town on his next resupply. Surprisingly almost all the gear he found was eventually returned to the original owner. Another elderly hiker was carrying the police badge of his friend who had been killed in the line of duty. They had always dreamed of hiking the trail together, but the hiker was now carrying the badge to Canada in honor of his friend. When he had to leave the trail due to an injury, he asked Porter to carry the badge the rest of the way to Canada.

Another man, whose trail name is unknown, was collecting rare and unusual rocks. Every time he went into town, he would empty his bear canister of the extra weight and ship the rocks back home. Bryson gave him a little yellow duck to add to his collection.

We just happened to be eating lunch right beside the trail junction to Duck Pass. Someone got a kick out of leaving another little yellow duck on the trail sign. Later in the afternoon, it started getting colder, and we were worried that it might start raining. We put on our rain jackets to ensure that it wouldn't rain, but we did encounter a few snow flurries.

At Purple Lake, the outlet had too many fish to pass by. I caught a couple of rainbows before moving on. The steep climb after Purple Lake led to another of my favorite sections of trail: Virginia Lake to Fish Creek. Virginia Lake is high (10,300 ft.) and set in a small basin surrounded by craggy, snow-covered peaks. I really wanted to stay longer to take it all in, but it was starting to get late. After Virginia Lake, there was a steep, chaparral-covered descent to Fish Creek. Every now and then, a pika would dart under a rock or a PCTer would trudge up the trail. This was one time I was glad to be going down and not up.

At the bottom, the trail ducked under the forest right beside Fish Creek. There was a perfect campsite there, but Casey and Bryson were nowhere around, so I had to pass it up to find them. This part of trail was a dream (have I said that before?), smooth, level, beside the perfect creek. I really wanted to stop and fish, but I didn't know how far I would have to go to catch the others before dark.

After another mile, I caught up with them. We found a nice, secluded camp a short ways off the trail. Bryson and Casey, like responisble hikers, set up camp and did their laundry. I, like a fishing addict, dropped my gear at the campsite and headed for the creek. The creek was not as peaceful as it had been further upstream, but it still had perfect pools to fish separated by small waterfalls. I caught a couple small trout, one of which was a golden-rainbow hybrid. That was unsurprising. I have found rainbow trout with a diluted golden strain in several different creeks throughout the mountains. These fish look like a rainbow, but they have more spots than most rainbow trout. Where the true golden has a brilliant yellow belly, the hybrid will have a pale yellow belly. I cleaned the fish, and left them in the creek so I could return to cook them for supper.

Continuing up the creek, I fished several different pools, clambering over boulders and up waterfalls as I went. Somewhere up there, I caught a pure golden trout that was around twelve inches long. I let it go, and caught a few more small brookies for the frying pan.

Virginia Lake