While the overall Colorado trip was great, the end was definitely a slog. This was because the weather turned sour for an extended amount of time. I had made the mistake of bragging to my wife about how, while it might rain, it would be nice a few hours later and definitely no later than the next day. This set us up for the obvious result: days and days of dreary weather that was increasingly colder by the day. And yes, I'm still reminded about how much fun that part of the trip was. Deservedly I might add...
When we woke up, it was fairly chilly. That was to be expected. The canyon we were camping in was sheltered by high walls to the east and west. That meant the sun wouldn't hit the campsite until at least 9:30 or 10 in the morning. With the late season, we were already pushing our luck by camping, so we hoped it wouldn't snow. After sleeping late to stay warm, we finally got up and fixed breakfast. While Leah and Little Bit were busy in camp, I grabbed a rod and fished just a few steps away. The camp pool had been kind to me before, and I was hoping that might be the case now. Sure enough, a couple of good brown trout were ready to play. Nothing huge, but it got me excited by the prospects.
Lake run fish ascend this system from the large reservoir below. Kokanee and large brown trout move up in the fall. I was hoping for both. Unfortunately, there were no signs of the salmon, and we saw very few brown trout over the next couple of days. I'll have to return another time to try again. What we did find were rainbow trout and plenty of them.
After breakfast, we all got ready and wandered down the trail to fish. Naturally, the day progressed as one would expect. Leah caught the big fish and Little Bit got bored quickly. That meant back to camp to play and enjoy what would feel like our last glimpses of sunlight for the trip.
As the sun dropped below the canyon walls for the day, the temperature started dropping quickly. We bundled back up, and I hit the camp pool once more. One more brown trout came to hand. While I expected to find fresh fish in this pool every day, that wasn't meant to be. This would be the last fish I would find in the camp pool, although we would find more fish downstream on future days.
As the shadows lengthened, we started getting supper ready. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the scope of our problems became abundantly clear. I had never had problems with mice at this campsite, but it had become obvious the night before that at least a couple of the critters were around. Not to worry, I had come prepared with lots of sticky glue traps. I had deployed them effectively around and throughout our car. When I had found two that morning, I had hoped the problem was solved. Apparently I just made them all mad.
It got darker and darker. While we were eating supper, mice were running around everywhere. It appeared that this campground shared the fate of some of my other favorites in Colorado. I'm unclear on how these things get around, probably in people's cars. The fact remains that they are almost EVERYWHERE in Colorado now. I've had big time problems in Elevenmile Canyon and the Black Canyon. Now I can add Gateview to the list of campgrounds I'm paranoid of staying at.
The worst part about the mice (other than the fact they absolutely destroyed our car every night in all ways imaginable) was having a toddler along. In an environment that already wasn't super sanitary, trying to keep Little Bit safe from rodent borne disease suddenly became priority number one. Leah was less than thrilled about the whole deal. I deployed more sticky traps, hoping for the best. As we crawled into our tent for the night, mice were running all over. I knew we already had some in the car. I had seen them through the rear windshield. Not knowing what else to do, I finally crawled into the tent. It was too late in the day to pack up and start home, so we would spend another night and hope for the best. We had plans to stay two more nights, so time would tell how that would work out.
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