17 Mile Loop

Layers of light and wild
trout and
mountains. Enough to fill a
man's
mornings...

Harry Middleton


I've been wanting to do this loop for years but for whatever reason I haven't done it, always preferring to go to the Sangres or some other rugged range with more striking views and better fishing but finally I decided to go and I'm glad I did.


The first couple miles of the hike was in dense timber with a creek alongside it for much of the way but I told myself I had to hike for at last an hour before breaking out my Tenkara rod because I knew that once I started fishing that my forward progress would slow to a crawl.

 Every now and then I'd get a little bit of a view

Finally I broke out of the timber and from here on out it was more or less open, allowing wonderful views of these sub-alpine meadows and streams.

 



I always like to explore little streams that I come across as I ramble, ones that aren't even named on the maps.

Sometimes the treasures hidden in them are worth the extra effort

Wandering back down to the main trail I started to fish my way upstream, towards my eventual camp, wherever it may be. The stream was rather tough to fish as it was choked with willows and I ended up having to hole hop, searching out little holes in the willows to fish and bypassing much of it as it just was to thick to even attempt.

When I was able to get a fly in the water though the results were wonderful

These wilderness areas are wonderful places to loose yourself in, even when people walk by on the trail they hardly ever leave the trail, preferring to put miles behind them and then relaxing camp and rarely get off the trail and explore the little places, pools, riffles and willow choked trickles, which is fine with me. I fished my way upstream for a few hours, catching somewhere around 40-50 Cutt's and then I knew I needed to put some miles behind me to get to where I was heading.

Where I came from

 

Where I'm going

 

Not long after the above picture I entered some thick timber and crossed a low pass, leaving the Cutthroat drainage behind and entering one dominated by brook trout.

While plentiful the brookies were kinda small so after catching a few I kept on heading up

 

 

 

That notch in the trees is where I'm heading

This moose turned out to be a pain in the rear

 

My initial plan was to get to the base of West Peak and then climb it first thing Sunday morning, cross the traverse between West and East Peak and then climb East Peak, which would make the loop somewhere around 20 miles but the bull above decided to be a  bit cantankerous and I had to change my plans which in the end turned out for the best.

Climbing higher this was my view of where I came from

 

Where I was planning on camping, just across this boggy meadow, the lower slopes of West Peak is above and the elevation here is just under 11,500 feet

About 50 yards out from the trees I was planning on camping in I caught some movement to my left and somehow I'd gotten in front of that little bull moose and he was staring intently at me, I didn't think to much of it but then I heard him grunting and saw that he'd closed to within 50 yards and had his ears back and was heading straight at me so I decided I might need to find a tree to climb but all that was around me were smaller spruce trees so I dropped my pack and stood next to the sturdiest one and waited. I could hear him grunting but he must have finally decided that I wasn't worth the trouble as I caught him circling below me and then entering the trees and that was the last I saw of him, thankfully. Although he was gone I decided I didn't want to camp up there with him hanging around so I beat feet back a couple miles and camped lower down and scratched the summits off the list, for now.

Heading back down I spied this unique snow drift several miles away.

A simple camp in a clump of trees

After camp was squared away and a cold dinner of jerky and a butthole sandwich I brewed up some tea and watched the sunset and darkness settle in, moose were grunting across the meadow and coyotes were yipping out there somewhere, the silence of the wilderness was complete.

 

After a decent nights sleep I woke and ate another sandwich and made more tea, the moose were grunting again although I didn't see any and the elk were out in the meadows feeding. The sunrise was spectacular

 

 A couple cow elk feeding in the meadows, West peak is behind

A herd of elk on top of West Peak

Camp is packed and I'm headed out

Dropping out of the meadows and into the canyon

 

This stream and canyon had a feeling to it, not bad but different and once I sat and studied the water some I realized it had a resemblance to the water at the "Gates of Durin" where the Fellowship battled "The Watcher" before heading into "Dwarf Kingdom of Moria". Now while I didn't see any monsters from mythical realms I did find treasures from the deep, red spotted with vermiculated backs and hungry for flies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A lone brown trout

A final shot of East and West Peak before dropping down to my truck