[cowboy]

So how did it go fellas, lets see those pictures! It was great to meet some new people as well as hang out with some old friends.

Rob and I checked out a new stream, that although steep, and picture perfect, turned out to be a total dud. I only caught 2 fish and Rob hooked up one. This is the risk you take while exploring new water, you gotta dig up some duds before you hit gold!
We then headed over to a trib stream that is not too far from sperryville. Plenty of fish in there, but it hasnt grown the big fish since the drought, so the fish I caught were not typical for me. I caught plenty, but not what I was used to. I was running on a really tight schedule so I had to get what I could.
Heres a few pictures, hope ya'll add your experiences as well

The first stream was so steep, it'd give any stream in the park a run for its money in the "steep" category... Rob got alot more pics then me, hope he adds them later...


Pics from the second trib stream, too bad the bigguns have'nt grown back yet....

[Robspe7370]

I don't have much to add to Jessies report, so I will just add my pictures.



















I had a good time and slept like a baby last night after our climbing adventure. Maybe the fish are further up Jessie. I will go halfsies on the rope and carabiners if you want to find out.

Nice seeing the regulars and meeting the new guys at the breakfast. Anytime any of you guys wanna go fishing just give me a shout.

[cowboy]

Yeah Rob,

I would totally be game to go back there so the "locals" can toss more mulch on the hood of my truck

I dont mind the 1,000 foot climb to catch 2 fish, sits fine with me

Now, back to studying. It was a fun trip, even if things didn't work out like we was hopin'

[dshort]

Our little group consisted of MrFishingToughGuy, gotascii and myself. We decided on a stream in the central section of the east slope with no trail. We hiked a couple miles up the trail of the main stream and then bushwhacked our way into the trib, finally getting on the stream above the first falls. The stream had plenty of water and the fishing was just fine. We didn't find any big ones but everyone landed their fair share. The fish were definitley spawned out and pretty skinny. Here are a few shots from our day:









I wasn't planning on documenting the rest of our adventure, but in the interest of accuracy and teaching a lesson about what not to do in the backcountry, here goes.

At about 2:30 we found ourselves higher up this drainage than any of us had ever been and formulated a plan to boogy the rest of the way up the mountain and hit a fire road that would take us back down a different drainage. We thought this would be better than going back the way we came through the trailess woods. The only problem was that we grossly underestimated the distance we still had left to go. We kept thinking that the fire road had to be just ahead and stupidly continued putting more distance between ourselves and the car. At about 4:30 we still hadn't made it to the top and had no idea how far we were away. At this point we were faced with the decision of continuing up, or turning around and bushwhacking our way back out. We decided on the latter alternative. Looking back on it now, we should have continued climbing. That fire road couldn't have been far away. With no trail and little remaining light we made our way down the mountain as quick as we could. The fact that we were all completely worn out with no food or water further compounded our problem.

A quick check of gotascii's altimeter showed that we were still over 1,000 vertical feet above where we entered the stream when the last of the light finally drained from the sky. Anyone who's been up this hollow and knows how rugged it is also knows that this is definitely not the place to be walking around in the dark. Now we were faced with another decision. Continue down risking broken legs and smashed heads or sit down and spend the night. Since it was wet and getting cold and we had nothing to make a fire with, we decided to continue on. We made slow, slow progress in the dark with nothing but the LCD screen on a camera lighting our way. I lost count of the number of times I fell. I think I did the splits at least 5 times (something us fat guys are not meant to do) and banged my knees into countless rocks.

Then the battery in the camera died... We were without any kind of light and still had about 400-500 vertical feet to go. More falls, more rocks, more downed trees and more sticker bushes followed in almost complete blackness. At one point, I fell and lost my favorite hat and couldn't find it in the dark. Then Marty fell and thought he busted his brand new bamboo rod (luckily he didn't). We struggled on, keeping the sound of the stream to our left and the ridge on our right. On and on we went with seemingly no end in sight. I couldn't make my legs work right anymore and I lost all track of time. We just knew that the car was down there somewhere and we had to keep going.

Then I heard the most wonderful sound in the world, Marty saying that he was on the trail!! We were still 2 miles from the car but finding that trail was better than the first time I got l*id. We made our way down the trail, only losing it a few times, and finally found ourselves at the car. The watch read 11:30. It had taken us 7 hours to get down. The fact that we made our way off that mountain in the dark and nobody got hurt was a complete miracle. Marty and I apologized to gotascii for putting him through all of that and for his part, he took the whole thing with composure. Our next step was to find the closest convenience store, where I had the best grape gatorade of my life.

So there's the story of a couple world class morons who almost died in the SNP...

[cowboy]

That sounds like quite a misadventure, there fellas.

I am glad you made it out of there in one piece. There was a time, when I fished that stream, where I had an idea about trying to find the fire road. For some reason, common sense kicked in and I decided to just walk back down the stream. Finding that road out of the hollow is too tricky of an endeavor for anyone to attempt, honestly. Rob and I had a similar experience, we would rather try and find the the AT then go back out the drainage hollow we used to get into the stream... I think in the backcountry, I seem to avoid untested routes and just go with what I know.

Again, glad you guys are ok and managed to catch some fish. Good thing your not on the news right now, that stream dosent need the publicity...

Just kiddin'. Thanks for sharing the report, hopefully the new guy won't be scarred for life by the experience.

Originally Posted by dshort

Our little group consisted of MrFishingToughGuy, gotascii and myself. We decided on a stream in the central section of the east slope with no trail. We hiked a couple miles up the trail of the main stream and then bushwhacked our way into the trib, finally getting on the stream above the first falls. The stream had plenty of water and the fishing was just fine. We didn't find any big ones but everyone landed their fair share. The fish were definitley spawned out and pretty skinny. Here are a few shots from our day:









I wasn't planning on documenting the rest of our adventure, but in the interest of accuracy and teaching a lesson about what not to do in the backcountry, here goes.

At about 2:30 we found ourselves higher up this drainage than any of us had ever been and formulated a plan to boogy the rest of the way up the mountain and hit a fire road that would take us back down a different drainage. We thought this would be better than going back the way we came through the trailess woods. The only problem was that we grossly underestimated the distance we still had left to go. We kept thinking that the fire road had to be just ahead and stupidly continued putting more distance between ourselves and the car. At about 4:30 we still hadn't made it to the top and had no idea how far we were away. At this point we were faced with the decision of continuing up, or turning around and bushwhacking our way back out. We decided on the latter alternative. Looking back on it now, we should have continued climbing. That fire road couldn't have been far away. With no trail and little remaining light we made our way down the mountain as quick as we could. The fact that we were all completely worn out with no food or water further compounded our problem.

A quick check of gotascii's altimeter showed that we were still over 1,000 vertical feet above where we entered the stream when the last of the light finally drained from the sky. Anyone who's been up this hollow and knows how rugged it is also knows that this is definitely not the place to be walking around in the dark. Now we were faced with another decision. Continue down risking broken legs and smashed heads or sit down and spend the night. Since it was wet and getting cold and we had nothing to make a fire with, we decided to continue on. We made slow, slow progress in the dark with nothing but the LCD screen on a camera lighting our way. I lost count of the number of times I fell. I think I did the splits at least 5 times (something us fat guys are not meant to do) and banged my knees into countless rocks.

Then the battery in the camera died... We were without any kind of light and still had about 400-500 vertical feet to go. More falls, more rocks, more downed trees and more sticker bushes followed in almost complete blackness. At one point, I fell and lost my favorite hat and couldn't find it in the dark. Then Marty fell and thought he busted his brand new bamboo rod (luckily he didn't). We struggled on, keeping the sound of the stream to our left and the ridge on our right. On and on we went with seemingly no end in sight. I couldn't make my legs work right anymore and I lost all track of time. We just knew that the car was down there somewhere and we had to keep going.

Then I heard the most wonderful sound in the world, Marty saying that he was on the trail!! We were still 2 miles from the car but finding that trail was better than the first time I got l*id. We made our way down the trail, only losing it a few times, and finally found ourselves at the car. The watch read 11:30. It had taken us 7 hours to get down. The fact that we made our way off that mountain in the dark and nobody got hurt was a complete miracle. Marty and I apologized to gotascii for putting him through all of that and for his part, he took the whole thing with composure. Our next step was to find the closest convenience store, where I had the best grape gatorade of my life.

So there's the story of a couple world class morons who almost died in the SNP...

[Robspe7370]

It is good you guys are alright...that is one drainage I would not want to navigate in the dark...especially the last few hundred yards......

[Robspe7370]

Does anybody know where "Wilhelm Howdy" fished?

[dshort]

Yep, it was a comedy of errors and it just goes to show you that you have to be careful out in the wilderness. I know I learned a lesson. I remember thinking about Survivorman and wondering what Les would do in that situation...

I know Marty has some stuff to add and has some good pics as well.

Does anybody know where "Wilhelm Howdy" fished?

We gave him directions to that stream with all of the tourists and the big waterfall near Big Meadows.

[dshort]

hopefully the new guy won't be scarred for life by the experience

He's new to fishing but I think fairly experienced in the outdoors. I know if I was him I would never want to fish with us again.

[gotascii]

Originally Posted by dshort

Looking back on it now, we should have continued climbing. That fire road couldn't have been far away.

Let me drive this sentiment home real quick. When I got back to my car I made sure to write down what my altimeter said so I could adjust for the deviation (I had forgot to set it before we started out). It read 1010' at the parking lot. We had climbed until it said a flat 3000'. According to my PATC map the parking lot is actually at 1150'. That means we turned around at about 3140'. Now for the terribly awesome part, the stream intersects the fire road somewhere around 3150' (right in between the 3100 and 3200 lines). 10 feet. Honestly, we were most likely less than 50 yards from the trail. Although, at that point, making a good decision would've totally ruined our already stellar track record of bonehead maneuvers.

I slept in my car until sunrise (I had all my backpacking gear, it was probably the best sleep I've ever had) and honestly, when I woke up I contemplated fishing up to the first set of falls all over again. I had a "good" time, you know that type of experience where its brutal but you wake up the next day and are pretty stoked you managed to face the challenge. Good fishing, good company, brutal hike...what else did I have to do on a Saturday