Colorado River Near Grand Junction

My thoughts and sensibilities turn to streams and rivers as spring turns to summer here in the West. Driving down the spectacular Colorado watershed Friday, after leaving Evergreen, driving through the Eisenhower Tunnel and down into the grand valley below gave me the perfect opportunity to gaze at another one of the country's most spectacular river systems draining the Western slope of the Rockies. A weekend visit with friends here in Grand Junction afforded me this tour. (BTW, Grand Junction is a wonderful, affordable and beautiful small city with amazing outdoor recreation opportunities.)

The Colorado is running high, muddy and very fast as the late spring/summer runoff picks up steam. It's a time to watch rivers but not yet go near them, even to kayak. Certainly not fish. Lots of melted snow coming down too hard and fast.

When I get to Wyoming soon and start to wet a line, I first go far, far up into the high country on the smallest of streams, which clear and calm down first. That's where the big fish come to wait out the heavy stream flow below. As the runoff continues, fishermen slowly come down to the medium and finally the large water at the end of the summer. Brooks Lake Creek: One of the best early season, small trout streams in America. Certainly one of the most beautiful. I've taken many a beginner fly fisher here to learn to catch fish on a fly. No one ever wants to leave the stream! Once on, they want to stay for 12, 14, 16 hours at a time. That's how you know they're hooked. I've had to learn the fine art of getting them back to the car.

Meanwhile, back to the political runoff:



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