A good night on the pond

We got out of football practice at 5 tonight, much earlier than usual, so my friend Zach Zehren and I headed out to one of our favorite spots to fish. The journalist side of me wants to tell you where we went, but the fisherman in me says, "yeah, right." So I  guess you'll just have to settle with knowing that this pond is well within the city limits, and less than a 10 minute drive from Franklin College.

The night started off fairly slow, but Zach was finally able to snag a couple largemouths, probably in the area of 1 pound, maybe a little bigger. He caught these on a big, white spinner, so I also started throwing one in hopes of changing my luck.

After about 20 minutes with no bites (and way too many "grass pikes" of weeds) I decided to switch it up and start throwing a purple weedless worm. Within five casts I had landed by first fish of the night (similar in size to the first two) and a few more minutes yielded another fish for both of us.

We managed to catch 11 total fish in the hour and a half we were there, with all of mine coming on that worm. Zach caught his first two on that spinner and the rest with a multi-rig, an interesting bait that is made up of many (in this case four) smaller baits tied together.

We fish to have fun and relax, but there's also a bit of competition. Tonight, Zach had the most fish (six to my five) while I had the biggest (a largemouth that was about 2.5lbs).

Me with my largemouth, our biggest catch of the day. I caught it by working a purple weedless worm through some weeds near the shore. We guessed its weight at around 2.5lbs, but then again, we are fisherman.

Zach with our 11 fish stringer at the end of the night. The far left is my big one, while the second from the right was his biggest catch of the night. We only kept them on the stringer for the picture and threw them all back at the end of the night.

Franklin Fishing

I would venture to guess that most students at Franklin College, or even residents of the city itself, don't think too highly of the fishing options in and around Franklin. However, I found that, with a little work, several bountiful fishing spots can be found within a 15-20 minute drive.

"My favorite spot is the Big Blue River," said Franklin junior Zach Zehren. "There's lots of smallmouths (bass) in there, and they always give a good fight."

The Big Blue River runs through Edinburgh, Ind., about 15 minutes south of Franklin. Some of the best spots can be accessed just off a main road, while others require a bit of hiking or maybe even a river crossing.

"I just like to fish moving water because the fish usually bite on many different types of bait due to their variety of food," said Zehren.

Cole Richards works for AJ Guide Service on Lake Cumberland in the summer, but he also enjoys pulling bluegills out of the little water around Franklin.

"It's laid back, small water fishing," he said. "You don't spend all your time looking for the fish so you have more time to work on a specific skill or experiment with a variety of lures."

When Cole took me to a pond, I had to ask how he ever found such a spot.

"A friend and I got the idea to look on Google Earth, and now we all have iPhones, so we pull up the satellite and try to find some water where we think we won't get caught."

Finally, there are also several public waters including the Driftwood Recreation Area, south of Franklin off of SR 31.

"I like fishing because it's relaxing," said Lee Tompkins, a Franklin College junior and member of the US Army National Guard. "I can (be close to campus) but forget about everything I have to worry about at school."

**Note** Fishing on private land is not strictly legal. That being said, some of the best fishing spots can be found here. The author does not assume any responsibility for readers' actions.

Summer Vacation part 2

Like I said in my previous post, the next part of our vacation was marked by my brother and I taking a couple very challenging hikes.

Glacier National Park, in northwest Montana, is known for its glaciers (obviously, although they have sharply declined in size in the last 100 years) its towering peaks, and the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This engineering marvel climbs from the valley floor to Logan Pass with only one switchback. This provides for amazing views as the road is literally carved into the side of the mountain.

My family got up early to drive the road, arriving at Logan Pass around 11am. From there, my parents continued down the road to our hotel for the night at Many Glacier, while my brother and I set off down the trail.

The beginning of the trails follows the western edge of the Garden Wall, with moderately exposed sections offering great views down into the valley. Although it was late July, the trail had only opened the day before. The elevation at Logan Pass is almost 7,000ft, so the snow stays there year-round. Many places on the trail there was evidence of the snow that had been cleared off only a few days before.

One of my favorite parts, however, was the snowfields. Two places along the trail there was so much snow that no effort had been made to clear it.  The first was relatively small, maybe only 75 yards wide, but the slope opened up onto a tremendous view of Logan Pass a few miles back.

The above photo is me crossing the second, much larger snowfield. This one was situated on a spine where you could look off in both directions.

The trail continued several more miles until we reached the Grinell Glacier Overlook. I have mentioned this portion of the trail in an earlier post (Life on the Edge (sort of) part 1), but I will say again that as much as I hated the climb (1,000ft in 0.6miles) the views were worth every bit of it.

As you can see in that picture, I had to put my jacket on because it got a little chilly at over 8,000ft elevation.

The rest of the trail was fairly uneventful, stopping at the Granite Park Chalet, an overnight destination for through hikers, before continuing down towards the Loop (a total of roughly 13 miles) where we caught a series of shuttles back to Logan Pass and then down into Many Glacier.

The next day we hiked the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail, a moderate to strenuous hike of about 12 miles. The beginning of the hike traversed bear country (read more about that adventure in Life on the Edge (sort of) part 2). In case you haven't read it, my brother and I were ridiculously close to a Grizzly, a major highlight for me.

After that encounter we had a long, moderately steep section to reach Ptarmigan Lake. A camera couldn't do justice to the blue and green colors reflecting off the surface. To reach the tunnel itself required a set of brutal switchbacks up the side of a scree slope. The tunnel, only about 50ft long, was created to allow hikers an easier traverse. Walking through the tunnel we were able to look down on Elizabeth Lake while swapping stories of our bear encounters with a hiker from France.

The top picture shows me just outside the Ptarmigan Tunnel with Ptarmigan Lake in the background. If you look closely you can see the trail in the middle right of the picture just above the snowfield shaped like a 7. The bottom picture is Elizabeth Lake as seen from the far mouth of the tunnel.

With two great hikes in two days, Glacier National Park was definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip.

On the next section of our trip, we ventured into Canada and the national parks of the Canadian Rockies.

Summer Vacation part 1

I'm in the process of  working on a longer post for the end of this week about fishing opportunities in and around Franklin, so until then, I'm going to share some stories and pictures from the vacation that my family took at the end of this past summer.

We flew out of Chicago Midway early on a Wednesday morning, changed planes in Denver, and finally arrived in Spokane, WA a little after noon Pacific time. We picked up our rental car and headed east. Seven hours later we had crossed Idaho and were in Montana where we stopped for the night.

The next morning we drove to Kalispell, MT on the edge of Glacier National Park where we went whitewater kayaking. I had been whitewater rafting before (in Colorado and Alaska) and had done a little but of kayaking on the East Race, a man-made waterway in South Bend, IN. But this was a real river, and I hoped my brother and I would be ready. The river turned out to be much easier than we thought, however, and we easily ran the rapids while enjoying the magnigicent scenery.

My mom, brother and I hit the trail in Glacier that afternoon, hiking a couple easy miles to Avalanche Lake. The hike is mostly through dense woods, finally opening up as you reach the lake. This only makes the view more spectacular as the lake is surrounded on three sides by towering peaks. My brother and I then recreated a picture we had taken on the same spot thirteen years before. Because of its relatively high effort/reward ratio, Avalanche Lake is an extrenmely popular hike (you won't go more than a few hundred yards without seeing another hiker) but it is one I would definitely reccommend to anyone visiting Glacier.

Our hotel that night had tremendous views looking out over a lake towards the Rockies. There was also a small river that flowed into the lake where I tested my fishing luck but was unsuccessful. There was no TV in the lodge, but its hard to beat sitting out on a deck watching the sun set over the mountatins.

We got to bed early that night to rest up for the next day's hike: the 13 mile Highline Trail.

Road Fever

I saw an article on the Outside magazine website recently and instantly loved it. The article (which you can, and should, read here) was about the best road trip albums "for when Pandora just doesn't cut it."

I went on my first real road trip this past winter (I don't consider it an actual road trip if its vacation with your family. A true road trip is you and your buddies packing the car and heading out on an adventure) to Snowshoe Mountain, West Virginia. We headed out there to ski and snowboard for a long weekend before the start of our spring semester.

According to MapQuest, the drive from Madison, IN would take about nine hours. We planned to leave my friend Zach's house around noon so we could get settled into Snowshoe and get to bed early before getting up to shred some powder in the morning.

Right on time, we piled into our brand new 2012 GMC Denali (courtesy of our friend Grant's dad) and headed east. We made great time early, flying through Kentucky on a brilliant sunny day.

I had made myself "leader" of our trip, planning everything out, making our reservations, and getting the directions to Snowshoe. Driving the first leg of the trip, I had brought along an atlas just in case, but I was sure we would be just fine.

Five hours later we had reached the West Virginia border where we switched drivers. I was the only one who really knew where we were going, so I volunteered to ride shotgun and navigate.

A few hours later, our written directions and GPS told us to exit the interstate and begin to head into the mountains towards Snowshoe. Looking closer at the map, there was an apparent shortcut (or so I thought.) Following my advice, we got off the interstate a few exits early and began looking for Highway 20.

We missed it.

After about twenty minutes, we realized we were way off course and lost in the heart of backwoods West Virginia. As we began to pass through the run-down miners' cabins, the scenery started to look like it came straight out of Deliverance (or any of the Wrong Turn movies for my more contemporary readers.)

The road soon turned to dirt and we decided it was time to turn around. While upset with myself for getting us lost, I couldn't help but laugh and enjoy the adventure through a part of the country I most certainly would not have seen otherwise.

A couple of my carmates did not share quite the same attitude with one becoming visibly shaken after seeing an old man with a waist-long beard (he was certainly a cannibal) stare us down from the front porch of his shack.

After almost an hour of driving around (the GPS was woefully inadequate now) we finally popped out on a road I recognized and made it safely to Snowshoe that night.

It should come as no surprise that we closely followed the GPS back home after the weekend.

As crazy as it sounds, I actually enjoyed getting lost. Nothing serious came of it, and I had a great time with my friends as we jokingly exchanged ideas on what to do if an inbred came after us with an axe.

This December the same crew is headed out to Copper Mountain, CO and I can't wait to see what adventures (or misadventures) we'll have next time we catch the road fever.

The Adventure of a Lifetime

As the title of this blog reveals, I suffer from an irreversible, terminal condition; wanderlust.

Dictionary.com describes wanderlust as, "a great desire to travel and rove about." For me, this means 

I'm never content with just staying where I am. Don't get me wrong, I love being home, or at school, or wherever, but now that I have seen much of the country, I realize just how much more is out there. 

More to see, more to do, more to experience. 

I've heard it said, "The best journeys answer questions that, in the beginning, you didn't even think to ask."

The possibilities that travel offer are so great that I'm always ready for the next trip. And now, I think I've found one that may be the best yet.

The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) the premier outdoor educator in the United States, and serves over 2,000 students annually. These students range in age from 14 to the mid-fifties and complete courses ranging in length from two weeks to an entire year. 

As stated on their website, "The mission of the National Outdoor Leadership School is to be the leading source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve people and the environment." It goes on to say that positive, ethical leaders change the world, and that the backcountry provides the ideal classroom.

Students on NOLS courses learn technical outdoors skills while becoming confident, competent leaders when they return.

I recently was accepted to attend NOLS for the Spring Semester in the Rockies. I'll start in late February, spending two weeks in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, backcountry skiing and learning the skills necessary to travel and survive in the winter.

I'll then return to the NOLS headquarters in Lander, WY where I will spend actual classroom time completing my US Forest Service and Coast Guard certified Wilderness First Aid Course.

From there I will head to the red rock canyons of southern Utah and northern Arizona learning to navigate the slot canyons and desert landscape. At this point I will begin taking more control on the expedition through exercises such as becoming "leader for the day," responsible for the direction and safety of myself and fellow students.

The next three weeks will be spent scaling The Needles of South Dakota and other top climbing spots around the West. I'll have the opportunity to "solo" spending an entire day and night alone, soaking up the beauty of the wilderness. 

The final section will send me to the great rivers of the West where I'll learn how to safely navigate a variety of watercraft through both whitewater and flat water.

Finally, I'll return home to Nappanee, IN, hopefully changed for the better. 

Even though its still five months away, I'm already looking forward to what will surely be the adventure of a lifetime.

Just Fishin'

"Drowning worms and killing time, nothing too ambitious."

This line from the chorus of the Trace Adkins song "Just Fishin'" describes why I love fishing so much.

I'm a very competitive person, but sometimes the stress of always trying to be the best at everything (school, sports, etc) add up and I need a way to relax. Fishing is one of those outlets.

I learned how to fish at a very young age, on my grandpa's farm pond. Since then, I've fished everywhere from Hawaii to Alaska and many places in between. I've caught 30lb Halibut and tiny bluegills no bigger than my finger. But all of those fishing outings have had one thing in common. I've loved them all.

I love how fishing can be extremely simple and also incredibly complex. You can spend tons of money to have a guide take you out in the middle of the ocean or you can spend $5 to make a cane pole and catch panfish off a dock.

I love that fishing isn't a competition between people, but rather between you and nature. Sure, there are professional fishing tournaments, and, of course, its always fun to catch more fish than your companions. But when it comes down to it, it's you against the fish, against the elements, against Mother Nature.

I love the primal survival aspect of fishing. Early man first began to fish not for fun but because he needed to eat. Its hard to beat going out with your friends, catching some fish, cleaning them, and finally eating them. For some reason food always tastes better when you have had to work for it.

And finally, I love fishing because its fun. When my life is getting hectic, its nice to just take a break for a few hours, dip my feet in a river, and wet a line.

I have to go to class at 8am Monday and I still have a couple of hours of homework left tonight, but I have a few hours till dark. I think maybe I'll head down to Edinburgh to the Big Blue River and try my luck.

Life on the Edge (sort of) part 2

Like I said in my last post, I like to be in places and situations where there's a fair amount of danger. In no way do I mean that I risk my life, but rather that if I did something foolish, I could die or be seriously injured.

The most common way I have lived my "life on the edge" is by hiking on trails with exposed ledges.
From the Glacier National Park in northern Montana to Zion National Park in southern Utah, I have looked over the edge of cliffs that plummeted a thousand feet or more.

Let me say this: I'm not a huge fan of heights. In fact, I used to absolutely hate them, but have since moved much farther down the spectrum to the point that the adrenaline rush from looking into the void vastly outweighs the fear of falling.

The Angel's Landing Trail is one of the most famous in Zion. The stone spire rising 1,500ft from the valley floor appears to stretch so high that it could be the resting spot for heavenly beings. The trail is approximately 5 miles round trip with the last half mile being so exposed that there are chain handrails in the side of the cliff face to provide hikers a bit more security. Over the last quarter mile, the trail narrows to less than 10ft with sheer drops of 1,400ft one side and almost 1,000ft on the other.

I am ashamed to admit this, but the first time my family went to Zion, I didn't finish the hike. I psyched myself out of the last quarter mile. About half way down I realized how badly I wanted to go back and climb all the way to the top. I remember saying over and over, "I should have done it." I can guarantee the next time I go to Zion (one of my favorite parks, by the way), the first thing I will do is head straight to the Angel's Landing trailhead and finish what I started.

That was about 10 years ago, and like I said, I now enjoy the dramatic views offered by being on the edge of a vertical cliff.

I mentioned in a previous post that my brother, Sam, and I hiked the Highline Trail in Glacier this past summer. While not quite as exposed as Angel's Landing, there were still several spots where you wouldn't want to slip.

One of the these spots was the Grinell Glacier Overlook. A side trail about halfway along the Highline, the overlook required a vicious climb of 1,000ft in a little over half a mile. Once we made it to the top, we scrambled a little higher to get better views that were absolutely incredible.

The first photo is from Google Images and it shows the last quarter mile of the Angel's Landing Trail.

The second photo was taken by me on the Highline Trail. If you look closely in the bottom right you can see the trail snaking around the mountain and my brother standing there in a bright blue shirt.

The third photo was taken by my brother at the Grinell Glacier Overlook.

                               

Life on the Edge (sort of)

I have been lucky enough to travel to almost every corner of the United States on family vacations. Some of these trips stopped in cities (NYC, Washington, D.C., LA, etc.) but most of time was focused on the outdoors.

Whether it was hiking, rafting, sea kayaking or whatever, it was always an adventure. And what's a good adventure without a little danger? Today I'm going to share some of my "close encounters" that I've had over the years.

Let me clarify something, first. I'm no daredevil, and my chance of actually dying doing any of these things has been ridiculously low. I had a way better chance of getting in a car accident on the way to the airport at the start of the trip. But when you're out there, in the moment, it feels real, and that is one of my favorite things about nature.

This past summer my family went out west to Montana, circled back north through western Canada, and then re-entered the country in Washington state. While on this trip, my brother (Sam, a freshman at IU Bloomington) had some of the closest encounters we have ever had with megafauna (the largest animals in an ecosystem).

The first was while hiking in Glacier National Park, in northern Montana. We had just completed the 13-mile Highline Trail the day before and were looking for another challenge. We settled on the 12-mile Iceberg Lake Trail, branching off to the Ptarmigan Tunnel. The beginning of the trail meanders through spruce forest and open alpine meadow; perfect habitat for the apex predator of Glacier, the Grizzly Bear.

Bears are commonly seen on this section of the trail, and hikers are encouraged to make lots of noise, and to carry bear spray (which is essentially 10x strength pepper spray). The reason for the noise making is that most bear attacks happen when the bear is startled. If they hear you coming they will either move away or simply ignore you if they perceive that you are not a threat.

We were following all of these procedures, I had our bear spray on the hipbelt of my pack and we talking and occaisonally shouting out, "Heyyyy bear!" or ,"Comin' through!"

The trail was winding with many blind corners, again, spots where you need to make a lot of noise. As we rounded yet another turn, we ran into a pair of hikers stopped on the trail, looking uphill into the brush.

"What is it?" I started to ask when I saw it.

20 feet away, eating his breakfast of huckleberries, completely ingnoring us, was a male grizzly.

I was so amazed by the magnificent animal that I forgot to be scared. We watched it for a little while, then regained our senses (the park reccommends keeping a minimum distance of 200 yards from grizzlies) and moved on down the trail.

That experience made the hike for me. While the views from Ptarmigan Tunnel were pretty spectacular, they weren't quite as good as the Highline Trail the day before. To be that close to an animal that could have easily took a couple of strides and attacked us was an incredible experience.

Little did I know that we would again encounter an apex predator in the wild on this trip. Not as close as the grizzly, but much bigger.

About a week and a half later we were in the San Juan Islands, just off the coast of northwest Washington. Sea kayaking is one of my favorite activites, and my brother and I had signed up for the 5-hour trip.

We got lucky as it turned out to be just us in a double, and the guide, a local guy only a couple of years older than me.

We paddled west from the island into the Haro Strait, with San Juan Island on our left (east) and Victoria, British Columbia to the west. We were about 300 yards out from shore when our guide (the son of a whale-watching boat captain) noticed all of the local sightseeing boats gathered together about 2 miles south of us.

This meant that they must have found what they were looking for; the San Juan's signature marine animal, the orca, or killer whale.

Our guide remarked that the whales appeared to be moving north (towards us) and that if they got within a certain distance we would have to "raft up" which meant bringing our kayaks together to form one solid object.

Maritime laws also say that no one may approach the whales, put themselves in their path, and that all watercraft must do their best to give the orcas a wide berth.

We were paddling south, enjoying the scenery, when all of a sudden we heard the distinctive poooshhhhh  of a marine mammal exhaling through its blowhole at the surface. As we turned to our right we saw the large black dorsal fin of the orca slip below the waves, a mere 35 yards away.

"Raft up!" our guide said and we immediately pulled into position alongside him. As we sat there floating, the orca was joined by others from his pod surfacing all around us (usually between 50-75 yards away), there glistening dorsal fins slicing the water as they submerged.

The highlight was when one of the whales "spy-hopped" to get a better look at us. Spy hopping is when the whales raise themselves vertically out of the water to get a better look at what is going on above the surface.

The whales soon left, continuing their search for salmon as we paddled back to the harbor.

The first two pictures were taken by my mom who, along with my dad, was on one of the whaleboats. The first shows me and my brother as we were paddling out of the harbor. The second is one of the orcas we saw.
The last picture was taken by my brother at the top of the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a picture of the bear as my camera was in my pack and we were too busy watching the bear.