Bear Trap Canyon Breezes

"Breeze" is a pretty mild term for what actually takes place in Bear Trap Canyon, 20 miles or so west of Four Corners, MT. It's a lower Madison River canyon that provides a nice setting for a hike, and holds some sizeable trout. I cruised up there last Saturday, basically because I hadn't casted in awhile. It was 32, but sunny in town, so it was nice enough to give it a shot... and I convinced Chris to come with.

I managed to lasso a nice rainbow with a flesh colored streamer, but somehow broke him off on my brand new 3x leader. That's pretty much like missing a 3 footer for birdie. It's always frustrating to break one off, especially on the heavy stuff. Nice to be hooked up, though... Chris caught a nice brown. I love it when he catches fish, it helps him become a more confident angler and adds to the chances that I'll have someone to fish with when I get the next itch.

Bear Trap is a nice place to go, regardless of the outcome. Yeah, it's windy, but it's beautiful anyway. It's -2 degrees at the moment, so I reckon I won't be flailing fly line around for awhile. Looks like it's time to start spinning bugs.

"It's A Solio...Sun!"

Solio is an funky little handheld device charger worth mentioning. As we're all aware, or at least you should be by now, we need to start using alternative energy sources in a bad way. Everyone has their electronic gadgets these days, iPods, cell phones, Blackberry's, handheld GPS's, etc. The people at Better Energy Systems have developed a great tool to charge your handhelds, using solar energy. Unfold the three panels on the Solio, and let it soak up rays.

Basics of this solar charger....

One hour of sun will give you enough juice to play your iPod for about an hour, but if you're at the beach and leave it plugged in and charging, you're good all day. When fully charged, Solio also acts as a battery pack, and can store enough power to fully charge a typical cell phone or an iPod Nano at least two times. That's nice. Charge it up and take it with you on a river trip and you've got tunes the whole trip.

Last spring some friends and I did a five day Smith River Float, and I brought my newly purchased InMotion I7 iPod player along (which thumps by the way, I take it everywhere now). It was rockin' our camp for the first three nights, powered by 8 D batteries. Only problem was that my iPod eventually ran out of juice, not my player (I had back-up batteries too). This year will be a different story with the Solio. Tunes galore. There's little better than floating a river with your friends trying to catch trout while Jerry sings to you. Whatever your musical preference, the Solio Solar Charger will keep you juiced and in the game. It would be ideal for backpacking trips and backcountry skiing as well.

Check out the full details and handheld compatibility reference "Will it work with my handheld device?" page on powderfin.com.

Bee Hive Basin...Bro...

Despite no new snow in the area, Sunday 11/18/06 seemed like a good day to get out and burn some fat before Thanksgiving rolled around. Chris and I headed up to Big Sky, met up with a friend of his and his 15 year old son, and began the trek up to beautiful Bee Hive Basin around 10:30 or so. Lone Peak was looking ferocious as always, not quite covered but enough snow to tease.

As usual, I was pretty much the slowest one in the group, but I'll blame it on being on snowshoes instead of skins. I need to pick up a splitboard, since these two plankers will most likely never re-convert me regardless of their incessant "knuckle dragger" jokes. I'm kinda lazy on the way down, and snowboarding provides a lazy fluidity that is nearly perfect in my opinion. And if the snow is above your knee... forget about it.

It was a cloudy Sunday, which actually provided some pretty amazing vistas full of stratified cloud layers and intermittent shafts of light. I kept thinking the sun would bust out, but it never quite made it. You could see for miles, which was the main attraction way up on the ridge.

I think we went in about 2 1/2 hours or so. All I know is that I was hungry when we got up there, and ready to make some turns. We hiked quite a distance for a short run, partly due to the fact that I didn't want to take another lap. But the views were worth it, and as always, Zeuser had a blast.

Moboogie.net

Some fine folks in Denver created this website for live music lovers... it seems like they're doing it right. I met one of the proprietors in Winter Park this summer... good people. Check it out if you get the notion... www.moboogie.net

"Haul You Back to Texas, Baby"

In an effort to get in a little "R & R" before the Holiday rush, I headed down to South Texas to visit my family for a few days, then meet up with some friends in Austin for the last three shows on the Fall Panic tour. Being a fishing junkie, of course I had to squeeze in one day before the Austin madness began, and although it started shakey, it ended up being a good one.



My friend Dave had just flown into Corpus Christi from Chicago, so we decided to get my dad out of the house and got on the road in the Ford Focus rental down to South Padre Island. It was interesting spending Halloween in South Padre with the locals, a town still enjoying the quiet off-season. The tone of the town was relaxed and happy, while always preparing for the influx of 200,000 plus Spring Breakers coming in a few short months.

We chartered a bay fishing boat from George's Fishing Charter Service, and George didn't disappoint. We were still reeling a bit when we met him at his boat at 6:30 a.m., following a night of heated shuffleboard and darts amidst the South Padre local ghosts and goblins. The day started off with fishing the jettys, trying to find some bull Reds. After bringing in a handful of skipjack, we decided to head to calmer waters and see how the flats would treat us.


The day took a turn for the better at that point, with our stomachs easing enough to put down a couple of CL Smooths, improving our attitudes greatly. George put us on some fish, each of us easily limiting out on Trout. We found a few small reds, a ray, more skipjack, and a few Mangrove Snapper to boot. We didn't keep any fish, not seeing an opportunity for a fish fry in our near future.

For November 1st, it was HOT. I can't imagine being in that part of the world in August, it must be insane. The fishing was good, and the stories our guide told us were "great". I don't think he stopped telling stories for a full 4 hours, and Dave and I busted our guts laughing the whole time. If you're ever in South Padre and want to go have some fun catching trout and reds, give George Strader a call at (956) 233-4919. I'd post a link, but I don't think he has a website as of yet. Bring your fly rod, I certainly will next time. George caters to fly fishing as well. It was well worth the trip, as we got to soak up the hot Texas sun and enjoy some good fishing in a rare trip to the Gulf Coast before we found our way up "North" to Austin.

Early Start At Bridger Bowl

Just as the leaves started to fall around Bozeman, the snow started to come down with it. It's pretty nice to see, snow capped peaks up high and golden aspens down low... certainly makes saying goodbye to summer a bit easier to swallow. We happened to get enough snow the week of October 16th to dust off the boards, break out the snow shoes and see if we could snake through the rocks up at Bridger Bowl. My super athelete married couple friends convinced me to go with them on 22nd, and it was certainly worth the hike.




We decided to head up to the "Apron" on the north edge of the ski area. Blue bird day, around 30 degrees, pretty much perfect for a hike. After an hour or so up (my friends were nice enough to be patient as a slugged my way up)... we were surprised to find knee deep powder, which the dogs couldn't get enough of.


It was a perfect Sunday to start off what we hope will be a fruitful backcountry ski season in Big Sky Country. Got the heart rate up, made some good turns, didn't scrape any rocks, and the pups slept like babies by the fire all afternoon. As did I.