Is there any good reason I had never been to the Cache la Poudre before Saturday? I cannot think of a single one. RDC has fished there almost since we moved here and always said it was gorgeous, but somehow I never accompanied him. The day before we adopted Blake, two months after we arrived here, we explored the South Platte in Cheesman Canyon a little; I have gone with him several times to the Lower Williams Fork (of the Colorado). I have seen, several times, the particular, quite low spot of the Continental Divide with the ankle-deep Colorado on the west side and the Poudre on the east, within Rocky Mountain National Park. But I had not seen the Poudre as anything more than that wee streamlet until Saturday.
From my perspective, coming upstream, it seems like the road joins the river where the latter emerges from the foothills, and they climb together up Poudre Canyon for quite a distance. The river, playful, follows broad, shallow, slow curves, bounces in whitewater, and jumps small falls. The road, much tamer, still gives wonderful views and sneaks through a tunnel in unreinforced living rock. Two thousand feet up, at Big South, a sharp bend, the river is let alone--the road climbs on to Cameron Pass--and a trail leads from Big South to the river's genesis in the Park, twelve miles away.
We hiked a distance--not the twelve miles, nor even the seven to where a washed-out bridge would have turned us around anyway--up the Big South trail until we found a good fishing and reading spot. RDC caught (and released) trout after cutthroat trout and I sat on a rock in the middle of the river, my feet in the water and my nose in Oscar and Lucinda, except when I emulated Dante and found the perfect view over my head.
It was a good day.