Skagit River 2009

Went fishing with Bawn and John on the Skagit River. Spent the week camping, first at the river campground and then at the lake. The stars were the highlight. With a new moon and a clear high-pressure weather system, the heavens were alight against a deep, dark field. I have few words to describe what I was seeing, but the milky way went on forever. Shooting stars and satellites whizzed in the foreground. A planet (Jupiter) hung in the south like a giant, glowing marble. It was hard to find the Little Dipper because there were so many stars. Eventually, I found the Big Dipper and from that identified the bright star, Vega.

Fishing was fun, but slow in numbers of fish. Hiked up the canyon to the upper Skagit. The water was very low. Caught one fish in each of several pools. Nice rainbows. Saw some bugs, a small green stone fly, a tan mayfly and some baetis, but nothing was persistent or regular. Very few rises. Nymphs worked okay, hare's ear, green nymphs, bead heads. I used a Type I sinking line with a sinking leader on a 5 weight rod.

There were more fish in the lake; fishermen trolling in boats did well.  From a belly boat,  I hooked a large fish on a damselfly nymph, only to lose it. Landed a 16-inch fish on a 16 bead head pheasant tail with a flashabou back. At dusk, there were steady rises in the pool where the river becomes the lake. Above the lake at The Bend, things were slow again. No mid-day hatch. Caught a chunky 15-inch rainbow with a parachute BWO.

Also, see last year's post for location, etc.

Code is Poetry?

The tag line for Word Press is "Code is Poetry." If, at its heart, poetry consists of words that affect people's thinking and feelings, then code could be poetry. But code is a strict disciplinarian compared to poetry, certainly contemporary poetry. A single quotation mark out of place or an extra comma will break everything creating a "Page Not Found, Error 404." Even English teachers grading on a curve don't do that.

Not being content using the available Word Press themes, I decided to create my own header, color scheme and custom pages. I dove into the languages to create my own hacks. Some improvements for my latest website upgrade include:

• New look including a header photo I took of the Emperor's globe in the Forbidden City, Beijing with complementary colors.


• Created destinations template page which use the page name (destination) as a category definition and lists posts chronologically. Sidebar shows

upNorth Trip Summary

I had been to Alaska and southern British Columbia on several different trips and wanted to see northern B.C. and the Yukon Territory. I traveled during July and August, drove my 4Runner and covered 6,500 miles over eight weeks.

I saw lots of lakes, rivers, valleys, mountains, glaciers and wildlife. I spotted the following wildlife: grizzly and black bear, moose, deer, lynx, red fox, arctic fox, bison, Stone sheep, mountain goat, bald eagle, golden eagle, least squirrel, arctic chipmunk, American beaver, mountain beaver, coyote, least weasel and Arctic hare.

I went fishing and caught Arctic grayling, lake trout, rainbow, bull trout, pink salmon and sockeye salmon. Some of the best places were: Nechako River, Frances Lake, Faro area, Dease River, Kispiox River and the Babine River.

For sheer beauty and diversity of outdoor experience, the Atlin area was the best.

• Although I drove 1,000 miles on the Alaska Highway, it was all in Canada. I spent only three hours in Alaska.


• With the northern summer sun, it really is light all the time. It doesn't get dark at night and there are rarely stars.


• Mosquitoes are horrendous, large and numerous


• B.C. and Yukon were on fire. Forests were burning everywhere. I moved several times to escape the smoke.


• The Yukon is remote; there are few services. You need to plan carefully in advance.


• Canadians generally are very friendly, hospitable and helpful.

Route--I drove to Prince George (about the geographic center of B.C.) and made a wide loop, going up the east side, picking up the Alaska Highway, crossing the Rockies, then into the Yukon, went north on the Campbell Highway, returned south to Whitehorse, crossed back into B.C., visited Atlin, picked up the Cassiar Highway going south through Dease Lake, went west into the Nass Valley, picked up the Yellowhead Highway in Terrace, visited Babine Lake, returned to Prince George and returned the remaining 1,000 miles home.

Debrief--This trip covered a lot of miles, maybe too many. It's three days solid driving just to get to the beginning of the tourist route. Although I am glad to experience the Alaska Highway, I would not seek it again. I really like the North where the sun shines all day, bit it is a long way and probably is better accessed with a truck, trailer and boat rather than a SUV. Next time, I would pick a more focused (smaller) area such as the Lake District, Tumbler Falls, Atlin or the Campbell Highway and stay put for longer.

For camping, there are limited opportunities up North for car camping off the highway. More often than not, I found my tent nestled among R.V.s, coaches and campers rather than trees. Backpacking is an option, but consider the bears.

map, final route upNorth

This is a big image so you should be able to zoom in and see the locations of my various posts.

Bear Footprint, video

[flickr video=3868405364]

Monarch Mountain, video

[flickr video=3866403662]Climbed the trail up Monarch Mountain. It starts near the Atlin Art Center where we stayed. Gorgeous panoramic view of the lake.

Ruby Mountain, video

[flickr video=3866327262]This video shows Ruby Mountain, near Atlin, B.C.