Photography and Fishing!

When the light is right the fish will bite! Driving into the valley, a steep drive down past the Avalanche Flows, through the Widow Maker Pine Forest, a forest that sheds its branches from high above, a very dangerous place to hike. I pass the Devils Postpile and the trail to Rainbow Falls, Sotcher Lake, to the bottom, where six shower stalls, are fed by hot springs. What a wonderful spot to camp. Hard to say whether Astro the Elk Hound, or myself are more excited. I never knew of this place, I thought the road ended at Mammoth Mountain. I had been driving north for long weekends of photographing and fishing, counting on the fish for food. A few weeks earlier, we spent a difficult couple of days camped at Tioga Pass, high in the mountains, a spot where I learned all about altitude sickness. What made it worse were the mosquitos, there were millions, I was miserable. I have never been back, my memories of Tioga Pass aren’t so good. The area beneath Mammoth had just opened for the season, and I was very lucky to get a camp permit. Astro and I set up camp in Reds Meadow, and were anxious to explore. Dogs needed to be on a leash, but Astro and I had a system, in Venice there also was a leash law, one we got around by acting as if we weren’t together. Astro really liked running through the forest, lots of smells, down here it was hound heaven. We went wild in these woods, we had no sense of danger, now I don’t know, if we would have been better off, with Astro on a leash, I’d like to think the confusion worked to our favor. Out of nowhere we encounter a bear, all three of us surprised, we run in three directions. I found out later about the bears in this valley, these were the bad bears from Yosemite. When one would cause trouble there, they were moved here. When Astro and I joined back up, the leash went on, and stayed on. Back at the camp, I told the guy who was set up next to us about our close call, he knew the bear, said it was the two year old. He said he camped here, because of all the bear action. He said there was the one o clock bear, the two o clock bear, and the four o clock bears, a mother with two cubs. He told me that what was so great about this spot, was you were safe at night, hiking through the forrest, all the bears were in camp. It was about noon, I had gone to the lake, and was lucky enough to have caught a couple fish for lunch. The guy by my camp still had a fire, I offered him one, he asked if I was planning to clean them at my site. Thinking back, I was so lucky to have this guy as a neighbor. I think astro and I would of had some serious problems, had this not been. When I said yes, he suggested it might be better, to clean them away from our camps, that the smells might bring bears in later. This was all simple stuff, I didn’t know any better. I told him about camping at Tioga Pass, he told me that I must be lucky, that the mosquitos had been the least of my problems, that I was breaking all the rules. He told me the only thing I had done right, was not tying Astro up through the night, he said she would have been bear bait. When I got back from cleaning fish, I grabbed a pan to cook the fish, he asked me what I was doing, the question was rhetorical. By this time, he had his roll of foil in hand, he was taking over. He chopped up some peppers and red onion, stuffed the trout, added a little butter, wrapped them up, and threw them in the fire. This guy was taking me to school, explaining this would keep the camp from smelling like food, not draw in the bears through the night. He also said the fish would taste better, I never tasted trout like this, since that time I’ve never cooked them any other way while camping.