August In Hope Valley

The annual camping trip to Hope Valley Campground was this weekend. We got to the campground about 2:30 Thursday afternoon. Got the Freedom Express set up, and called it a day.

Our home for the weekend

Friday morning found yours truly cooking breakfast. Breakfast is generally the only meal I'm allowed to cook.

Bacon, Eggs, & Toast on the griddle

I never noticed, but there is a huge rock outcropping (I think that's what you call it) right next to the campground. Funny, I've camped at Hope Valley Campground since the mid 70's. Just goes to show.

Rock Outcropping

The little guy in the picture below was a regular visitor to the site. 

Chip or Dale?

The rest of Friday was a hang out day. I did go across the street and dabble in the West Fork of the Carson River with "3".

West Fork of the Carson River

Wasn't much exciting happening. Upstream from the picture above, I did get a drive-by from a little 6" or so something and in the pool at the end of the picture, my fly got attacked by a dozen or so 2" - 3" somethings. They weren't even big enough to take the hook. The rest of the creek I fished was fishless.

Saturday about mid-day we took the Inflat-a-yak up to Upper Blue Lake for a spin (or paddle) around the lake. I decided to trail a Thin Mint on "3" behind just to "see". Now, either I got a hit (the line went straight) or I hit something on the bottom about 50 feet off shore. After that, nothing.

Inflat-a-yak

About half way across the lake, it started to get cloudy. When this happens in the mountains, you get one of two results. One, it goes away or two, it get really nasty.

Saturday chose nasty. We got back to shore and stowed the inflat-a-yak, drove back to camp and all hell broke loose.

I don't know if you're familiar with thunder storms in Northern Wisconsin, but this was every bit a Northern Wisconsin thunder storm. It's my understanding that once you see lightning and count the seconds to the thunder, I believe the ratio is one second to one mile. Thunder and lightning doesn't usually bother me. We got out of the truck, started putting the lawn chairs under the canopy and as I went out to get the last chair, The lightning and thunder came at the exact same instant. It was bright (really bright) and it was really loud. Like I said, thunder and lightning doesn't usually bother me, but this one made me jump about a foot off the ground.

So went the rest (from 1:30 pm) of the afternoon. Lightning and thunder until about 6:00 pm. Then rain until about 8:00 pm. Glad we got off the lake when we did.

So went our August camping trip. Next month, Upper Lake and that cool camping spot. Oh, I'll be fishing before then.

Stay tuned.