How I have fun...A.K.A.: The Death March

On Thursday of the Great Montana Trout Adventure, John (40 years old) and Teddy (50) decided that they and Bob (60) would fish the lower Bear Trap Canyon. The Lower Bear Trap is about 8 miles of the Madison River below the power station at Ennis Lake Dam. "No problem, it's an easy trail.", they said. So we drove to the bottom of the trail, loaded all our gear into fishing vests and backpacks, and started off up the river.

The trail was easy, indeed, and looked like an old Jeep road with a couple of huge boulders blocking Jeep access. The walking was easy, but suddenly the trail narrowed due to underbrush. The underbrush was about 3' high, and had pretty sawtoothed leaves with red stems. Yep, of the 8 miles of trail, at least 1 mile of it was a 1' wide path with poison ivy on both sides. Nifty.

Teddy was wearing shorts, and stopped immediately to put on his waders. John and I walked on to find a shady spot to rest, being careful to hold our arms and gear above the ivy, and making a mental note to burn our pants when we got back to the motel.

We walked for about an hour, and passed one other fisherman with a dog in the first half mile. After that, we were the only creatures in the canyon (except for the mountain lions, bears, and other varmints). The trail looked like the rattlesnake exhibit in any zoo in North America. Lovely.

I decided to do a Martin Luther ("Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.") after about another 20 minutes of walking. I found a shady spot, suited up, and fished for about 15 minutes, getting a couple of good bites, but no fish. It was then that reality set in. The thought process was something like, "Bob, you're 60 years old, a grandfather 4 times over, alone in a wilderness populated by eagles, catamounts, and bears. You dumb s**t, get out of the water and head for your buddies."

Being the reasonable person I am, I never (almost) ignore good advice, so I beat feet upstream for another 20 minutes, looking for John and Teddy. I stopped to drink a little water as it was getting warm. While I was resting several things were going on. Teddy and John had kicked it into high gear and were still marching upstream, increasing the distance between us, and another idiot was, unknown to me, coming up the trail behind me. His "Hello!" from behind as I was looking upstream, nearly caused me to soil my waders. I was startled.

We talked for a couple of minutes, and I asked him to tell my friends that I had had all the fun I could stand for one day, and was going to go back to the motel. (Fortunately, we had brought 2 cars.) I then got out of my waders, packed everything into my backpack and started downstream.

By the time I reached the car, nearly an hour and a half later, I felt like Quigley crossing the desert. I sucked down the warm Diet Mountain Dew that was in the Jeep, wrote a quick note stating that a) I was not dead yet, and b) that I was headed for the Fan Mountain Inn to soak my feet, which felt like they were developing at least 3 blisters each.

Once back at the hotel, I took off the jeans and shirt I had been wearing, and put them in the laundry bag with the Bio-Hazard label on it. I then showered, scrubbed well, and put on clean clothes, padded socks, and soft shoes.

I felt like a new man.

That evening, three limping idiots went out to dinner, and decided that despite the fact that we only landed 4 fish between us, had walked through a rattlesnake infested desert canyon, and generally done stuff that reasonable people would never have considered, it had been a great day.

More to follow.