Windy Washington

The wind was a real bear on Monday.  It blew with force periodically all day long.  In the little canyon system here it comes from the most unlikely directions, first east, then west, then north, and so on.  Occasionally it would die off and the birds could be heard.  When that happened we grabbed our poles and headed to the lake to fish.  No one felt like putting the boat in, on this narrow band of a lake you would spend all your time trying to stay off the banks.  We also went for a walk in the woods to escape the howling wind.  

On one short occasion the sun was out, and the wind came out of the west.  We went down to a sheltered cove and did a bit of fishing and reading- it was perfect.  Only one rainbow was to be had though, so we turned it loose.  The swallows were busy buzzing, looping and diving across the surface of the water.  They seemed to concentrate where my line was, hitting it a few times and going between my rod tip and me.  The are so colorful!  The osprey was out too, but with the whitecaps on the lake it couldn’t find any prey, so we weren’t treated to its straight down dives. 

Later in the evening, the wind did die off and we made a serious attempt to fill a meal ticket.  With some good tutelage from a friend we came home with enough to feed the group.

This area is where the 1977 Gibson Creek fire took place, a result of a camper here at Fish Lake leaving a fire burning.  One firefighter died as the winds drove the flames out of control and he had his escape cut off.  It is easy to see how that could happen in this terrain.  The fire motivated the forest service and biologists to learn more about managing forests to prevent the buildup of fuel as a result of ill advised fire management policies. 

Tomorrow- more about the camp...