Fishing Foster Lake
Fishing Foster Lake is excerpted from our 1986 memoirs of our North American Journey in a Chinook camper.
Mark catches the elusive Arctic grayling, Canada, 1986
We drove up the Pacific Coast of California, Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska, then across towards the East Coast of the United States, down the eastern seaboard, all the way down to the Florida Keys, and then across the southern states until we returned home, to California. This journey took us 25,000 miles and nine months.
Mark and I decided to take a four-day hike into the Trinity Alps, north of Redding, California. When we registered at the ranger’s office, we were the only hikers bound for a destination called Goldfield.
“There’s plenty of snow up on the higher altitudes,” the ranger warned us. “The trail may be covered. Be real careful.”
“Yes sir, thanks.”
Next day, after finding a spot to park our camper, a modest “Chinook,” we hiked seven miles in to Lyons Lake, the last portion of the trail obliterated by snow. Lyons Lake turned out to be pretty teeny. We set up camp, found a couple of abandoned camp chairs, and relaxed on them beside a toasty fire as we dried our boots.
“Tomorrow we’ll try and find that other lake,” Mark said.
“Foster?”
“Yeah. This one seems a little too small to have any fish in it.”
“I’d love to catch a fish. You know, I never have before. I guess I just don’t have the patience.”
“Well, you’ll have nothing but time tomorrow! I’ll bet you catch one.”
Little did either of us know that fishing Foster Lake would indeed yield fish – a fish. And indeed I caught it, with Mark’s assistance in pulling it over and up to our ice ledge above the lake. The fish had seemed so much heavier than it looked when it broke the surface and exposed its smelt-sized self.
“Oh, you’re going to have to release that one,” Mark chuckled.
“Maybe we should use it for bait?”
“Naw, I have a feeling that’s about as big as they get in there.”
He helped me dislodge the hook from the fish’s mouth and tossed the little guy back in.
For the next few minutes, I would feel nibbles and tugs on my line, and then when I reeled it in, there would be nothing.
Then, Mark had a jerk on his line, and pulled in our little buddy.
“Heck, this guy wants to get caught,” Mark shook his head as he disengaged the fish and tossed him in again. “Sorry, bud, you’re just too small to eat.”
After watching the fish float for the next minute without diving back down into the water, I suspected something was wrong. “He’s not moving.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Hmm, I think we’re going to have to try and net him; can’t let him go to waste.” Of course he had floated out just beyond the range of our fishing poles, but Mark managed to stir up enough thrust into the water, to draw the fish closer in and snag him.
Later when we filleted him we found four or five salmon eggs–our bait of choice–in his fat stomach. He had apparently been Foster Lake’s sole occupant (pun intended!) Eating him with a sauteed potato and onion was a bittersweet event, but he had practically thrown himself into our frying pan.
The next day we went back to Foster Lake to test our theory that the lake had no more fish. Our theory seemed airtight; we had not one nibble, so we abandoned fishing for something a little more active.
“Look how smooth and steep these slopes are. Did you notice?” Mark asked. “They’d be ideal for skiing.”
“You’re better at that than I am.” I remembered his slalom down the back of Half Dome. “I’ll watch you.”
“We have our ponchos with us…”
It did not take me long to add two and two: two ponchos and two big kids. We trudged up to the top of a gentle-looking slope.
“You’re bigger than me, so you go first, and get the groove going,” Mark said.
I sat down on my poncho, and pointed myself down. Surprisingly, after Mark’s light shove, I really began to move, picking up speed as the hillside pulled me toward Lake Foster. My “groove” seemed destined to carry me into a tree, the only obstacle that would prevent me from skidding into the lake. As I neared the tree, I slowed to a natural stop.
Of course I would have to repeat this thrill a few more times, and Mark, too, after he calmed down from thinking I almost killed myself by careening into that tree.
No moon that night gave us visual access to a skyful of stars.
“Look, the Milky Way,” I said.
“And the Little Dipper.”
“My God, I haven’t seen that since I was a child. I thought that constellation had blinked out.”
“Nope. It’s just all the lights of civilization blocking the view. You have to really get away from it all to find the Little Dipper’s still there.”
“Looking at all those stars sure makes you feel insignificant, doesn’t it, Mark?”
“Yep, life is pretty short. You’ve got to live for the moment. Be now.”
“It’s so cool we could do this.”
Patty, Mark, their trusty tent and a bottle of wine, Union Falls, Yellowstone
Mark nodded. “We made it happen. We’re living our dream. Not many people give themselves the chance to do that.”
We let silence take over then, and leaned back in the borrowed camp chairs, observing the slow waltz of the universe across the sky.
When I sank into a sound sleep later that night, I had an eerie dream, one so vivid it would stay with me as a reminder of our mortality and uncompromising soulmate status.
We’re back in San Diego, though apart when an earthquake triggers a Tsunami wave which devastates San Diego and prompts an exodus from the city. Lines of cars are stalled in a panic to leave town.
Eventually, Mark and I find each other on a train, which it is understood, is carrying us to another plane. In other words, we are dead.
You could see this dream as a nightmare. But it was comforting to me.
The following morning I awoke with the certainty that Mark and I would always be together; we really would live happily ever after.
