Rainbow Falls Opening Day 2013

I have been waiting for opening day at Rainbow Falls ever since the Fly Fishing Expo in Denver this year. It was worth the wait!

Ben with a 24" bow landed on a Streamer

Ben and I hit the gate around 6:45 and thought that we had screwed something up because no one was there! We had the place to ourselves except for one older gentleman that was fishing the runs just below the dam. These runs look REALLY good and I can't wait to hit them next trip. We didn't fish the creek very long. Still have more of this creek to explore. There are some really nice holes and runs along the creek that I'm looking forward to spending more time on. Ben landed one small bow and I missed a small bow in a nice beaver pond but the lakes were calling us and so we headed back up the road. We were like two kids on Christmas morning. We didn't know which present to open up next!

We had no idea which lake to fish so we just stopped at the first one we came to. It took us a while to figure out how to fish this area. Yes the fish are stocked, and yes they don't see may flies but they are still trout and it's still fishing. We fished till 8:30 without much action on the lakes.

We headed up and met everyone for breakfast. Dave Herber had a huge iron pot filled with Bacon! This is the life! After bacon, some coffee, and a chocolate doughnut we were properly fueled to stick some pigs. It didn't take Ben long. We took about 20 steps to the nearest lake and Ben hooked this nice 21" brown within a few casts! Uh..... this doesn't seem fair!

Scary! Don't wade barefoot!

We were starting to learn a few things about this place. Earlier in the morning both streamers and nymphs were working. I landed several on a size 16 Red Pheasant Tail. Other nymphs that worked well were a size 20 Red Forget-Me-Knot, and a size 14 Flashback Hares Ear. I landed several on the streamer patterns I've been posting on the Facebook page. Steamers seemed to be the ticket but you had to have the right size, color, and profile. Everyone was catching fish and having a good time. There were some very large trout landed to include a 28" 12lb bow on a size 14 Prince Nymph.

After lunch things slowed down a bit but fish were still hitting streamers. By this time Ben had found a fly that was really producing and he continued to hook and land monster trout on it like this HUGE brown.

 We hooked up with Phil Benton in the afternoon for a lesson on deep water stripping. Uh ..... that is fishing streamers on right on the bottom. We watched him land a HUGE rainbow and brown almost back to back. Crazy! Fly Fishing paradise!

I landed a lot of nice 18-20" fish but couldn't land the biggest that I hooked. It was a friggin LOG and when I hooked him he just sorta calmly swam by Ben and spit the hook as if to say, "nice try PUNK!". Even though the big one got away I cannot complain about not catching a monster this trip. Man I really wish I caught a monster this trip.

We hit just about every section of open water and found fish everywhere. Even the culverts between lakes held big fish. I have no idea how many fish we caught but I'd say it was close to 40 between the two of us.

I have to say that I had mixed feelings before fishing Rainbow Falls. After the trip though I realize that it's still fishing. It is easier for sure to land huge fish here but it still takes using the right fly and getting the correct presentation. You just expect to hook a 6-10lb fish every cast :-)

Do I really get to fish here all summer?

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Nice bow that fell for the jazzed up Copper John

Quick half day trip down to Pueblo today with Ben and Marty. We started out at the Nature Center and worked our way up around the first bend. Got to look at some of the new structures and they are awesome! Crowd started to fill in above the Nature Center pretty quickly so we headed down to the water treatment plant which was also packed. Plan C was to head down to Pillars Park and we had the river to ourselves. Missed a nice fish on the second cast in the Martini Hole. There are also some nice new structures along this stretch. We all caught fish today but nothing huge to speak of.

Brown that fell for a "pegged" egg sucking leach.

Two nice experimental flies caught fish today which is always fun. The first was a Red Copper John tied with Prismatic Pliable Peal Sheet Back and Red UV paint covering the copper. The second was more of a rig than a fly. I tied a slump buster on with a non slip mono loop knot and slid a bead egg on with the fly so that the egg and the fly were in the loop. I think this setup will work well once the flows are higher. Hoping to get a few more big snow storms this month and in April.

The Copper John and the egg rig can be seen on my FB page if you are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/jamiesfishingjournal

Next week - Colorado River!

Ben with a nice little bow right off the bat

Marty with a bow towards the end of the day

Biggest Catch of the Day!!!
BINGO Burger!
This thing put a hurting on me. Ben ordered the same thing. Mine was up first and when I sat down at the table Ben took one look at it and said, "I'm in a world of hurt". I'm not going to eat for at least 2 hours!

North Platte (Grey Reef)

Grey Reef!

Experienced a little March Madness in Wyoming this weekend. Ben Lewis and I stopped by Wyoming Fly Fishing’s booth at the Fly Fishing Show in Denver this past January and spoke to Greg Mueller who stated that the fishing would be good in March up on the Grey Reef section. “Good” turned out to be “did that day of fishing really just happen please get me ice for my arm GOOD”!

Back yard of our Red Butte Ranch lodging

Ben and I arrived Friday night around 9 at the Red ButteRanch where we would be staying for the weekend. Ruth Romp, Proprietor of the B&B, met us at the end of the drive and we followed her up to the guest house. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw our accommodations for the weekend. It felt like home right away. Ben and I unloaded the ridiculous amount of gear we drug up and crashed out for the night.

We woke up the next morning to the smell of breakfast burritos. We had an outstanding breakfast, courtesy of Ruth, and loaded up the boat. Off to the Grey Reef! I have heard so much about this section of river and knew it should be good fishing but I was about to get schooled on what Wyoming fly fishing is all about. Greg had rigged us up before we left so we put in and started casting just downstream from the boat ramp. Unfortunately it took a full 2 minutes to hook up (notice the boat ramp in the background). Greg told us to imagine what it would be like if we had a good guide! Ha! Love this guy already! I was a little leery of the quick hook ups because I’ve had days where I’ve hooked up quickly only to get shunned the rest of the day. This however, would not be the case today.

We continued to hook and land quality fish on egg patterns. Greg would put us through good runs half a dozen times! The “outhouse” hole was a blast. Greg must have rowed us to the head of that run 6 times. We hit trout every single time. We could have done that all day but Greg’s arms would have wound up being as sore as ours. We hit every good piece of water for the next 9 miles. Ben and I both hooked our biggest fish in the same run at the same time! Unfortunately we lost both of them. Both were north of 20” and absolute slabs. We ended the day somewhere around 40-50 fish! What we didn’t know is that Greg was just warming us up for round two.

Next morning started out with Ruth cooking us another awesome breakfast for the road. We were going to hit another section of river that will have to go unnamed. Please hold the hate mail. I know a guy that can put you on this water anytime (wyogilley@aol.com – ask for Greg). I promised I wouldn’t say where we were going since it’s a pretty uncrowded piece of water that Greg gets to guide on. From what Greg was telling us the day before this water was really good. Again, another understatement. If Greg ever tells you that a piece of water is great, quit your job if you have to and start driving to Casper. “Really good” equated to one of the top three days of fly fishing I’ve ever had.

We arrived and only saw one other truck in the parking lot. We drove down to the boat ramp and the other boat was anchored just across river from us. We were going to be the first boat downstream. We pushed off and unfortunately we didn’t repeat our 2 minute hookup time. We had to settle for 45 seconds! Uh….. WTF! Do Wyoming trout fast during the month of February? You can’t see the boat ramp in this picture but you can see some individuals that were punishing the water for a while before we put in without a take. Sorry guys! We peeled out of there and headed downstream. I don’t know how to write about what would follow. It’s kind of a blur of red stripes, kypes, and diving indicators sprinkled with short bouts of shit talking. The result was an 80 fish day to include 3 fish over 20” and the elusive cuttyrainbrown. The average fish was probably 17”. If we went more than a minute without a hit something felt wrong. Good thing for us that happened exactly twice as I recall. Okay maybe three times.

 

I’m still blown away by the weekend of fishing we had. It’s hard to think of hitting some of the spots I’ve been wanting to hit outside of the U.S. when there is fishing like this to be had close to home. This will be an annual trip for me 

As a bonus we discovered a new species of trout! It's born without a body so that it doesn't have to stop eating in order to wait for digestion to occur. Its tail is connected directly to its head so that all caloric intake goes into growing its killing apparatus located on its head.

 A HUGE thanks to Ruth and Greg for a fantastic weekend of fly fishing. Their company added immensely to our enjoyment of the awesome fly fishing Wyoming has to offer. I highly recommend hitting these two up if you want to experience the North Platte the right way. 

Ruth Romp

Proprietor

Red Butte Ranch

Greg Mueller 

Head Guide

Wyoming Fly Fishing

307.267.5494

Frying Pan River

Another great trip to the Pan this weekend. Ben, Marty, Dad, and I headed up on Friday afternoon to Basalt. We pulled in to The Greene Drake around 4PM and unloaded the mass of gear in the car. If you haven't eaten at Basalt's only Pizzeria you are missing out. Didn't catch the name of it but it's the only Pizza joint in town. There have been several other Pizza places in the same place but they had been shut down for a while. Good to know there is a new one that is worth checking out. Hope it stays open for a while. It's over by the 711.


After stuffing our faces we headed over to Taylor Creek Fly Shop. I have always been impressed with the mount they have on the wall. I asked Scott (can't remember his last name) who was working there about it and he stated that one of their guides found it dead one day. They called DOW and they allowed them to mount it. It was something like 25 pounds! Amazing the type of fish the Frying Pan can produce. I'm not sure how you would ever land something like this but it would be on my mind trying to fall asleep later on at The Green Drake!

After that it was back to the hotel for a marathon Klies's Mysis tying fest. I tied up 18 or so of this saweet pattern in various sizes / eye colors. John has used these on the Taylor with great success but to my knowledge this would be the first time this pattern was fished on the Pan. I was really excited to see how they did. We have the toilet bowl pretty dialed in so I knew we'd be putting this fly right on the nose of some huge trout. It was going to be hard to get to sleep this night!


Normal crazy drill in the morning. Wake up early, drive to the toilet bowl, turn the corner to see if anyone is there, warm up in the truck till brave enough to head out into the cold. If the fishing wasn't so good I would forget about this hole altogether. It gets pretty crowded and not everyone is polite about crowding in. We were the only crazies this morning and it wasn't hard to figure out why. It was 4 degrees on the thermometer and the wind was blowing like crazy. It must have been at least -10 degree wind chill. Way too cold to do any sort of productive fishing. But...... if you want to fish the toilet bowl you have to get there early.

Once the sun came up and we could feel our faces we started dredging Klies's Mysis right below the damn. Ben hooked up on his second cast with this really nice male bow. Couldn't believe the kype on this guy. Orange Klies's Mysis #16 on the board! Could be the first Pan fish caught on that bad boy. Ben, hands numb, a little delirious from the cold, flipped his half frozen line back in the water and WHAM! Another victim! This was a BIG GIRL! At this point I'm sure Ben had no feeling in his hands. I can imagine that fighting this fish was like holding the rod with your elbows! He was able to get this girl in the net and show her his "O" face. Really fat 23" hen! What the hell were we on to here? This was shaping up to be the most epic day on the Pan ever.

The action kept up for the next hour. Ben had to run up to the car after this second catch to keep his hands from falling off. Almost immediately after he left I stepped into the head of the run and hooked a BEAST! This thing tried to jump but was only able to get her shoulders out of the water before flopping over. Marty was right below me and was just as blown away by this as I was. This was a 25" class fish in the 8lb range. She took me right up under the damn almost all the way up to where the water drops in. In my experience fishing this hole, only the big guys and gals are able to do this. I knew this was a big fish! She stayed in the head of the run and I was confident I was going to land her. Dad was bringing the big net up to the head of the run when the hook pulled out........ Ouch!! Tough to lose these fish but we were only 15 minutes into the trip! Guess what she hit? That's right folks. Did I mention that the Klies's Mysis is currently under investigation by the DOW? They are trying to determine if that fly falls under the "bait" category.

Whoops! Like the belly shot though

We kept at it and kept hooking into big fish. I landed a 23" and a 24" bow and Marty landed a 22" bow. This was amazing. We were an hour into our trip! Then....... someone flipped the switch. Everything stopped. I really think that fish migrate throughout the day in the toilet bowl. I think there are always fish with their noses on the damn outlet but you can see fish moving in and out of the main run. In  the afternoon Ben and I went to the far side of the hole and they were stacked up like crazy. A number of factors could influence this movement but I think that pressure in the main run has a lot to do with it. It seems like on past trips the migration continued for most of the day with action coming in waves. I also believe that Mysis Shrimp swim in schools and that the amount of Mysis Shrimp coming through the damn happens in quick spurts.  It seems like when one guy hooks up on a Mysis pattern someone else does almost immediately. These schools could be in different areas of the reservoir during different times of the day.  The fish in this hole may have become conditioned to this and know the times of day that the most shrimp are available and move into the head of the run and deal with the fishing pressure because the pay off is worth it in caloric intake. I'm sure the weather and any hatches that occur also play a role in this migration but haven't seen any noticeable patterns to key in on yet.

Even though it was a slow afternoon it was a great trip overall. Any time you land fish of this size it is a good day! We also had the chance to land some bigger fish and that is all you can ask for. Size #16 orange eyed Klies's Mysis seemed to be the ticket for most of the day but we did also land some on #12 - #14 with yellow eyes and black eyes.

I'm beginning to miss the lower sections of the Pan. The last several times we've fished it the toilet bowl has been open. It's hard to walk away from it. I miss fishing the flats, beatis bridge, the bend hole.......etc. One of these trips the toilet bowl is going to be taken. I think I'll be OK with that. Looking forward to hitting the rest of the river this summer!

Arkansas River (2013 Frostbite Fish-Off)

Had an awesome time at the Frostbite Fish-Off! This was the first tournament that Ben and I have been in and it was a really fun experience. This tourney is run by the Southern Colorado Greenback Chapter of TU  and Steel City Anglers. Most of the proceeds go to the Arkansas River in Pueblo so it is really worth supporting and a helluva good time. In fact, there are pictures of the river improvements currently in the works on the river on Steel City Angler's FB page that were made possible, in part, by the proceeds of this tourney.

We showed up on Friday night to draw our beats and I ran into Chris Ramos and Mark Puterbaugh. I went to high school with Chris and had the pleasure of meeting Mark. We sat together for the beat drawings. Ben and I decided to go with Team Chuck and Duck for our team name due to the finely tuned casting technique that we have both acquired over years of dedicated practice. The teams were called up one by one to draw a morning beat and an afternoon beat. There was a large map of the river laid out across a pool table that everyone hurried over to after they drew their beats. Team after team went up and drew their beats. Ben and I started to get worried after 15 or so teams out of 18 were called. I was starting to think I screwed up our application. We were the next to the last team to be called up. Ben drew beat 16 for the morning session and I drew beat 4 for the afternoon session. A quick trip to the pool table revealed that we had done pretty well. Beat 16 is just around the first bend up from the Nature Center and beat 4 included the hatchery outlet. Nice! We had good beats. Now it was up to us.

We showed up Saturday morning at 7 to sign in and grab breakfast. We signed in and decided to head to "Arribas" for a breakfast burrito. I've been told the food is good there and it is. Convenient location. Going to have to make it a regular stop. After breakfast we decided to head to beat 16 to scout out the water. This is the beat around the first bend upstream from the Nature Center. We climbed up on the high bank and were able to spot some trout at the head of the run. Most of the run was a deep slow channel on the far bank. My Dad had come down for the morning session to watch the action (I use that term loosely) and set up camp in the middle of our beat. We met our Controller and at 9AM EXACTLY I made my first cast.

A BITE! Whoahh - first cast in the first tourney I've ever fished and I had a bite. Unfortunately it surprised the hell out of me and I didn't get a good hook set. Rookie mistake. This was going to be a productive run! Ben and I took turns fishing. Only one angler could have his line in the water at a time. We didn't have a specific system worked out we just decided to get a few good drifts in and then switch it up. We did this for the next 2.5 hours without a fish! WTF over - Ben and I were pretty discouraged at this point but we Cowgirled up and kept at it. With about 20 minutes left in the tourney Ben got a hit and landed a nice 15.5" rainbow. I netted the fish and then turn around and made a cast. BOOM! Hit and landed a 17.5" rainbow. Two fish within 4 minutes out of 3 hours of fishing! CRAZY. Ben and I were thinking we were going to have to skip lunch because it would have sucked going in there and posting goose eggs. We ended the morning session with 33" of trout. Not great but not terrible.

We went back to the Sports Garden for lunch and the morning results were posted. Lots of 20"+ fish were caught including a nice 22.5" brown caught by Tim Hannan on Team Angler's Covey (Tim's write up can be read here) . Biggest fish was a 23.5" brown caught on a streamer. There were some good fishermen fishing in this tourney! 70"+ of trout put you in the running we were at 33"..... Had a lot of work to do in the PM.

We finished lunch and headed to beat 4. This beat includes the outlet of the hatchery and is an excellent piece of water. The Team that fished this beat in the morning did VERY well so the pressure was on. I hooked up pretty quick with a 14". It was good to get on the board quickly after the morning's session. Things were looking up when I hooked into and landed an 18" rainbow. This beat was going to be awesome! Two more rainbows, 14.75" and 16" were landed and we had 4 fish on the board! Saweet! Now we needed to replace some of those smaller fish with some Pigs! Queue the fish switch...... Everything turned off.... Not another landed fish for two hours. Very strange day. The weather was strange and there was a front moving in so I think it really affected the fishing.

****NO WAY THAT JUST HAPPENED*****
Towards the end of the session I broke off a rig. I knew we didn't have much time left and I asked our Controller how much time we had. He said, "3 and a half minutes". Ben was fishing the run below the hatchery outlet. I had Marty's 4wt Orvis Clearwater II that I had broken a rig off of earlier. I decided to generate a desperation rig consisting of a 4wt Orvis Clearwater, 3X tippet, and a huge olive Meat Whistle. I rigged it up and asked the controller, "how much time"? "You have 30 seconds". I told Ben that I was casting and he pulled his line out of the water. I was in the slack water just to the right of the drop off below the hatchery outlet. I cast just above the drop off and started stripping hard - strip - strip - strip - BOOM!!! Big slab of red comes up to the surface. Holy Shit!!!! This could be the fish of the tournament. I had him stuck on a big hook with 3X tippet. He is mine!!!! I started loading the reel with slack line and I heard a SNAP! Everything went slack and I looked down to see half a rod in the water. This Pig had just snapped Marty's rod in two!!!! The fish spit the hook and the tournament was over! My controller looked at me and said, "no way that just happened". He saw the fish when it came up to the surface. Unbelievable!!! There were probably 15 seconds on the clock when this fish hit. I would have had 10 minutes to land him. Not only did I loose the fish of the tournament but I have to pay for Marty's rod repair! What a kick in the nuts!!

But- it makes for an awesome story and I had a great time. I kept a section of the broken rod as a souvenir. I'm the ass-hat that tried to strip a Meat Whistle on a 4wt anyway. Another lesson learned the hard way. Can't wait for next year!!! We wound up in 7th place out of 18 teams. Not bad for a couple of amateurs. The official score card can be found here.

Taylor River

High Adventure this weekend in the mountains of Colorado. Living life to the fullest and coming home to tell about it - doesn't get any better than that!

Destination Taylor River this trip. Ben Lewis and I were at our company's national sales meeting in Vegas this week. We had planned on going to the Taylor this weekend with my Dad and Marty and planned on leaving Friday night as soon as Ben and I were back in town. Bone head idea which I have to take full credit for. Not a relaxing week and when I walked in the house to drop one bag for another (already in zombie autopilot mode) I realized what an a-hole move it was..... OK so making it up to the Fam today, hold off on the hate mail!

On to the fishing and we'll wrap it up with a small but significant near death experience (for those that wan't to skip the ramble, head to the "We don't got it" section). We arrived in Gunnison around 8PM and grabbed lunch for the next day at Subway. The guy that snores the loudest insisted on stopping by Safeway for some ear plugs. After I bought my plugs we headed to the hotel to rig up. Within 5 minutes our Super 8 room looked like a fly shop. Lamp shades off the lamps, gear spread out everywhere, at least 8 rods being worked on like helpless patients. About an hour or so later we were ready, lights off, queue the snoring.

Dad with a sweet cutty

We hit the water at 8. Not a soul in sight! Ben and I decided to pick out some hogs to cast to. We found a few huge bows around the bridge. I'm sure one pushed 30 inches. It was massive. These guys don't get big on accident. You can lay out a 7x, split shotless, indicatorless rig on a bed of feathers and they'll swim off. At one point I headed up the hill on the far side of the Avalanche hole to spot for Ben. My legs slid out from under me in the snow and I went down. SNAP!!! I looked down and my net had taken the full weight of my fall. It was broken in three places. Crap... We continued to site fish for about an hour. We had some looks but no takes. It was friggin cold and Dad and Marty were having luck dredging the Avalanche hole so we decided to join them. 

Dad and Marty dialed in quick and were consistently catching fish. Ben and I struggled for most of the day. Dad had the drop off going into the Avalanche hole nailed. He was casting far enough upstream to get his flies down right along the drop off. As soon as he cleared the drop off, BAM! Tan sparkle worms and beadhead blood midges were killing it for him. Marty was fishing the slack water on the near side of the main channel. He had a cool technique going where he would cast into the still water, wait for some sort of drift and if his indicator wasn't drifting he'd give it a little twitch to get it moving. He was getting a ton of takes during the twitch and when the flies were settling. #26 midge pupa in black, red, green were working great for him.

Ben and I weren't so skilled. We were hooking up but they were few and far between. I decided to head to the far side of the Avalanche hole in order to reach the main current without so much slack line on the water. After finding a good drift around the massive fly shop bush that inhabits the bottom of this hole, I dialed in my depth. A few casts later I had a subtle take and set the hook. I immediately new it was a big fish. I saw the white of his mouth through a couple of big sweeping head shakes. Yes!!!! Oh no!!! I don't have a net.... I knew he was on my #22 midge so I had to be careful with him until someone with a net could help out. This guy was behaving well and hanging deep. As soon as my Dad made it over he went on two long runs. I had already had him on for over a minute and knew that those small barbless hooks don't stay in long. My Ross Evolution LT 1.5 handled it without issue. Love that reel!  Dad made a nice net job and he was landed! He went 23" and had a huge head on him with nice big spots. Probably the nicest brown I've landed on the Taylor. Unfortunately that was about it for large fish. This guy took one of my Miracle Nymphs (future post) with a nickle tungsten bead and some brown quick descent dubbing. I tried the same fly later on in the day up in a riffle by the bridge and missed a HUGE bow on it. I only had him on for a second but he came up and broke the water just long enough to tease me. Good fly that was put together at tie night at the Covey!

It was a good day all around. Everyone caught fish and we landed a trophy. Little did we know that the excitement was far from over.

-WE DON'T GOT IT-

It was snowing pretty good throughout the day on the river. We were thinking that Monarch Pass was going to be rough but we got up and over it without issue. The further we got into South Park though the worse the weather got. Heavy snow and slush covered icy roads were starting to form. We were a little worn out and were probably going a little too fast. Marty's Durango was handling it fine so we weren't too worried. As we came up to a bridge the tail end broke loose. We started fish tailing.... A collective wooooooaaaahhhhhh came out.. Marty: Hold on we got it..... Me: You got it man, you got it.... Ben: WE'RE DEAD..... Dad: (we would later find out had already closed his eyes and was thinking that he almost made it to the first social security check he was due to receive next month. I picture that seen in Happy Gilmore with my Dad sitting on a golf course with social security checks falling from the sky)..... Me: We got it man, you got it.... it... it...... (back end comes around).... shit -  WE DON'T GOT IT!....... hold on! At this point all I could see were guard rails as the back end came around. I was in the front passenger seat and just as we were de-roading I got a birds eye view of the embankment that we were about to head down. I absolutely knew for SURE that we were going to roll. Marty somehow straightened us up enough to go down the embankment at an angle and we stayed upright! No WAY!!! We were down the embankment but we were still stepping in it. The Durango wouldn't stop. We were sliding backwards toward who knows what. At this point things got pretty surreal. The slide down the embankment wasn't rough at all.  We were all sitting upright and pretty comfortable... We were all just looking out the window as we slid backwards like we were taking the scenic route somewhere and were relaxing to take in the sites. It was super quite and we just kept sliding. Crazy!!!! Eventually we came to a stop - Dad: Where are we what happend???.... Everyone else: Jaws on the floorboard. WE ARE ALIVE!!!!! Me: THAT WAS AWESOME!........ Ben: THAT WAS NOT AWESOME!!! .......Dad opened the door and snow was up to the bottom of the door. All of a sudden we realized we were WAY off the road in 2-3ft snow. This was going to be a pain in the ASS!!! Marty, on autopilot at this point, started the truck. I flipped the switch to 4L... Dad instinctively knew to close the door.. Marty started rocking the Durango back and forth. We got traction and started moving!!!! HOLY CRAP.... We picked up speed as we headed up the embankment....... Next Problem: We were going to launch back up onto the road like some huge white 4WD Elk with no way of knowing who was coming. We all were straining our necks trying to see if any lights were coming. No lights as we launched back up on the road!!! NO WAY WE JUST DROVE AWAY FROM THAT!!!!!! AH HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! AWESOME!!!! We spent the next hour breaking down every second of what seemed like an hour of sliding around in a big white sled. We did slow WAY down... and had a line of cars behind us. Didn't care. We were not going through that again! We made it home and the story telling was ON!! Great time! This is one for the history books.. or blogs anyway. Glad everyone made it through unscathed to live through our next adventure. Love you guys! Can't wait for the next trip!

Nice brown Marty caught