Mikey Wier of SoulFish fame is working hard to catch some wild Oregon winter steelhead. In this blog post from The Cleanest Line, Wier tells the tale of hiking into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness to fish the headwaters of either the Chetco or Illinois River. From Wier’s post:
After post holing through the snow, climbing over trees and descending 2,000 feet with four days worth of supplies on our backs, we finally reached the trailhead and the edge of the wilderness boundary. It’s only a mile from there to where we first hit the river. Once on the trail, the hiking conditions were even tougher. The downed trees were hefty obstacles with such heavy packs on our backs… Every time we came to a downed tree, we had to balance beam along the trunk, climb over branches, or duck under a high spot. There were no stretches longer than 100 yards at a time with no trees down… Still we pressed on in the name of steelhead.
It’s a good read, and sounds a lot like the wilderness steelhead trips Karl and I got into this spring.
