Notch Lake

I had heard a while back that the fiashing was good here. I made the hike DOWN to the lake off of Bald Mountain pass. It was a gentle decline with 2.5 miles of relatively good trail and prototypical mountain terrain. Best of all, nobody else was fishing any of the lakes. I met nobody going down and just one person coming back.

There were two other lakes on the way there one was named Clegg and I forgot the other. The time of evening was still before the good fishing and I've found that the early morning fishing is usually best anyway. I fished all of them, but only caught fish at Notch Lake. Four brookies of which three were nice fish........all of them are happily still swimming since I am a catch and release guy.

While I was reeling in and unhooking my last fish, I felt as if I was being watched. I turned to my right and there were ten mountain goats staring at me. They were foraging of some kind of plant that grows on the shore and completely aware of and unfazed by my presence. I waved, said 'hello goats' etc. They just sat and watched me fish and after a few minutes started working the shoreline for more food. As I left I walked withing fifty feet of some of the goats.

I spent 5 years hiking the Wasatch looking for goats. I saw my first ones near the top of Box Elder peak and they were at a half mile distant and running. (Interestingly enough, my oldest son climbed the same peak last week with a buddy of his. They got to see a cute little baby goat). And until today, I have sited goats on only three occasions. The closest being about 200 yards.

This leaves me with just one burning question. Why can't I remember to bring the damn camera?!

When I recconected with the trail out I saw a guy about 150 feet ahead of me. Quite a coincidence since he was the only person I was going to see all day long. He was 74 years onld and had been trying to find his way to a lake that was further down the drainage. He didn't make it and according to his GPS had already walked over 10 miles that day.

He was lugging around a metal detector! I bought one last week that I am still getting good at, so I asked him what he was looking for. At his intended lake (which be nameless for now) there is an old cabin and some abandoned gold mines. Since they are all on the west side of the Mirror Lake Highway that means they ain't wilderness. I guess, I've got a backpacking trip in store for me and my metal detector.