Fishing Big Blue

My family has been going to Big Blue since the first time we came up to Lake City.  It's one of the places Kyle and I learned to fly fish, and it's where we take all of our visitors to sell them on the area. This year, I headed up to Big Blue with my parents and our friend Gary to teach him to fly fish, but our trip was cut short when smoke appeared over the ridge--just a small plume at first, but it grew steadily until it covered the meadow.  We got out of there pretty quickly!

Getting ready to fish Big Blue Creek--no clouds or smoke yet

Guiding Gary to the fish

Gary with his first trout--a monster!

The forest fire now has our undivided attention

Turns out that this fire was probably five miles away (maybe two valleys from us), so we were not in any immediate danger.  The fire has now been pretty much contained.

To Fort Collins and Back

We got most of the family together in Fort Collins for my cousin's wedding, which was a lot of fun.  I was hoping to have time to get on the rivers in the area and then swing north through Wyoming and Montana, but it was a quick trip and then back to Lake City to make sure the cabin wasn't going to burn down in any of the wildfires.

Rain falls between the mountains of the Front Range (in the distance) and the highway as I head north from Denver to Fort Collins.

Some of my family was driving in from Durango and went by the fires near Wolf Creek and South Fork before they closed that road.  My aunt, Tricia, took this picture and the next one.

The smoke from the forest fires, including the West Fork fire threatening Wolf Creek, South Fork, and Creede, was pretty bad on the way back from Fort Collins as well, even though we were pretty far away.

You could see smoke clearly on the horizon as you approached Lake City.

More smoke on the drive into Lake City.