Sitting in the back seat of a Jeep rolling north along the colorado river I was admiring the alpen glow on the horizon as the sun was leaving its last trace of light. My trance was interupted when the driver yelled over the open windows ” you two watch for deer while I roll this joint.”

Who was I to judge I just cracked my first beer and thought, if a fella thinks he oughta a fella should. Soon the road turned to dirt and we were well on our way deep into the north country. With a raft in tow packed with camping and fishing gear this was the begining to our 2 day float down one of the most remote rivers I have ever been to outside of Alaska. After about a 2.5 hour drive in the dark, picking up a half naked hitch hiker and dodging a midnight marathon runner in the middle of the prarie we arrive to our camping spot.

We built a small fire and drank what was left of the case of beer. At about 3 in the morning I woke up in a dead shiver looking up at the open star filled sky and starred at it and watched the night slowly turn to day. We rolled out of our frost covered sleeping bags, tired, slighly hungover and extremely cold. We made the 20 min drive back into town for hot coffee and breakfast where all 10 people in town looked at us with curious eyes.


Breakfast was 2 burnt pancakes the size of a dinner platter that I couldn’t eat so they became lunch. The other two wolfed down chicken fried steak and biscuts and gravy. I was having a tough time keeping it together. But these guys never missed a beat. I guess I was slightly more hungover and way more sleep deprived. But, that all passed and with the sun warming up we made our way back to the camp site and got packed up for the float. The put in was about 300 yards long down a dirt trail. And hauling a boat that is filled with the amount of shit we had was not an easy task. Once to the riverside we had our first beer and the rest of my pancakes, which were still burnt and had expanded due to the amount of syrup they absorbed. Awful… Anyway we finally made it on the water and started fishing we hiked up stream into the canyon and started catching Bron trout on salmon flies and streamers.

After some time wading we hopped back on the oars and continued down stream. The area was vast and wild we never saw another boat for 2 days. We did meet a stranger at a camp spot fly fishing but he was a cool fella and joined us for beers later that night. The water was full of healthy brown trout and rainbow trout. All the fish we caught we in the high teens with some bigger ones that were lost during battle.


The second day of our float was even better than the first we caught them on streamers and big nymphs all the way to the take out. It got to a point where it was a little rediculous. Any water that looked fishy was, and we started calling out shots. Again we didn’t see another soul and pushed on to the take out. After getting lost for about 30min we finally found our route and headed home. To my crew thanks for the invite and showing me an amazing piece of country. I am off to another remote river in Alaska for a while and will report in as soon as I return. Thanks for reading.