By Dennis Smith –
It’s quite a hike, 2-to-3 miles according to the roadside trail marker at the upper end of the Poudre Canyon, and very steep. But if you go back down the canyon and circle in from the north on Deadman Road, a chain of old logging trails, an all-terrain vehicle and a bit of bushwhacking will get you to Elk Creek with far less effort. It’s all right there on the topography map.
More brook than creek at this elevation, it emerges from a forest of spruce, fir and poison-green ferns. It cuts its way through tangled thickets of alder and red-osier dogwood and then meanders for a while across broken meadows of waist-high willows, wildflowers and ground squirrel burrows. You’ll see marmots on virtually every decent rock pile.Elk Creek in Roosevelt National Forest tumbles past writer Dennis Smith’s camping spot.Elk Creek in Roosevelt National Forest tumbles past writer Dennis Smith’s camping spot.
Boulders and beaver dams conspire along the way to slow its course to the big river in the valley below, but gravity pulls the little creek relentlessly past the obstacles, then it ripples over gravel bars, game crossings, miniature waterfalls, fallen trees and anything else that gets in its way. It is the iconic Rocky Mountain high-country trout stream: postcard pretty, persistent, persnickety and chock full of fish — usually brook trout, but sometimes native greenback cutthroats and, surprisingly more often these days, wild brown trout.
We fish here as often as we can through the seasons. It’s always different but never disappoints. In early spring, its banks are drab with matted dead grasses and dirty patches of lingering snow. Flows are swollen, gray and cold with snowmelt. With the exception of the early brown stoneflies, few aquatic insects hatch so the fish are difficult — though not impossible — to catch on flies. A large colorful streamer might do the trick. On the other hand, this might be the best of all possible times for a bait fisherman to catch the biggest fish in the stream by nursing a small worm through the deeper pools or under the shadowed cut banks. It will probably be a brown trout.
Fly-fishing begins to pick up around late May and early June. Marsh marigolds and lush, green sedges hug the banks; in the meadows wildflowers are rampant. The air smells of pine and wild basil. A variety of mayflies, caddis flies and terrestrial insects, such as hoppers, beetles and ants, find their way into the food chain and the trout gorge on them. High summer brings superb dry fly-fishing for the brookies and cutthroats, though you might pay for the thrills with your blood; mosquitoes, biting flies and other winged vampires can be thick through July and August. Go anyway. It’s worth it. Just smear yourself with bug spray.
Colorado is blessed with hundreds, if not thousands of these nameless back country creeks and they’re all balm for the soul, whether you hike them, fish them or camp beside them. They offer solitude, birdsong, spiritual rejuvenation and the musical murmuring of mountain brooks all wrapped in the incomparable beauty of the high country. There’s no time like the present to enjoy them.