Boulder Mountain

Nico

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Aug 20, 2014
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I'm fascinated with the Boulder Mountain area...and how little information exists about that area! I'm starting this thread in the hopes of building a place to develop some great general knowledge of the area, regarding backpacking and fishing. I can't wait to get down there this summer and really poke around.

Topics that might be useful would be: accessibility (road conditions, ice off, snow melt, first snow) , lakes with good fishing (or those with winterkill) (or general areas of good fishing if you want to keep the names off the web), effective flies/methods, favorite viewpoints, great camp spots, mosquitos, and anything else you can think of!

I can start us off...though I've only been down there once!

Mid August 2014
Access:
"North Slope Road" to Blind Lake. Road was muddy, due to recent rainfall. Made it up to the Blind Lake trailhead in a Mini Cooper S Countryman All4 with no problem. Beyond the Blind Lake Trailhead the road continues up to Green Lake but becomes a definite high-clearance 4x4 required, as it gets steep with plenty of large round rocks/boulders.

The east fork of North Slope Rd, which leads to Fish Creek Reservoir/Beaver Dam Reservoir, is in the same high-clearance 4x4 condition.

Also, I made it to within a mile of Donkey Reservoir/Bob's Hole farther west along that access road, but hit a steep/very rocky spot that I couldn't get past.

Needless to say, my MINI takes a beating occasionally.

Trails:
I hiked from the trailhead to Blind Lake and setup camp. Plenty of campsite in the vicinity of Blind Lake. Hiked over to Fish Creek Res. for a day, which was a fairly short, easy hike, maybe 2 miles?. Later on, hiked from Blind Lake over to Left Hand Reservoir, stopping by Green Lake. The hike was a bit longer, but not too bad, perhaps 5 or so miles. We went on from Left Hand to camp at Solitaire Lake, which was very pretty but only caught a couple fish. Trails alternated between single track hiking trails and decommissioned ATV trails. I regretted backpacking WITH waders/wading boots. Silly me.

Mosquitos:
No mosquitos to speak of in mid August!

Flies:
My lady caught a very large splake at Fish Creek Reservoir on a simple olive wooly bugger. I did well with a damselfly adult pattern on Left Hand Reservoir. I was hoping to catch a Callibaetis hatch, but I think I was a little late in the year.

Viewpoints:
I know that Donkey Point is supposed to have a gorgeous overlook toward Capitol Reef NP, but I didn't put in the effort to hike up there.

I had a post on my website last year with images - www.nicodebarmore.com/2014/08/19/boulder-mountain-north-slope/

I hope some other folks can chime in on roads/access to other areas, great hiking routes, or favorite groups of lakes!
 
I'm excited to see how this thread goes. I have been considering changing our hike up this year from the Wind Rivers to this area for a bit of a change in scenery. After mentioning this in another thread, Boulder Mountain/Escalante were recommended to me so this is perfect! I haven't had time to look into the area in great depth yet, but am getting more familiar with the it!

The main thing I am interested in is fishing. I would like to find some good fishing with as much solitude as possible. From what I have seen, this area does not offer as much solitude, but can still have good fishing. It sounds like roads criss-cross the whole area?
 
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I have a map somewhere of lakes and fish.......always was going to check stuff out but never have.....I will look for it.
 
And just to get you all excited...here is Left Hand Reservoir last year:
nd-20140816-0039.jpg
 
I made it up to Beaver Dam, Fish Creek and Honeymoon 3 weeks ago. I think the lakes were turning, as they were a little bit murky. Tons of midges, and a rare rise, no real surface activity and no cruising fish.

A friend of mine was up that way this past weekend. He had plenty of surface action for smaller fish on Blind Lake, while some friends were pulling in the big lunkers off the bottom in their float tubes. He heard from another hiker that Green Lake winterkilled and there are dead fish all over the shores.

I plan on heading up there 4th of July weekend.
 
Thanks for the pics. I'm taking my scout troop down there for a week this July and was wondering what the area looked like.
 
Things I know about Boulder Mountain off the top of my head...

  • It sits behind my in-laws place in Torrey, just minutes away.
  • There is great fishing. A brother-in-law caught a bunch of fish at a few of the north slope lakes over Memorial Day Weekend last month.
  • There's a healthy population of black bears.
  • A young guy died from lightning while fishing up there a few years ago.
  • It was mismatched with Thousand Lake Mountain on the maps. Thousand Lake (north of Boulder) was meant to be Boulder Mountain and visa versa.
  • It is a popular area for ATV riding.
  • The Great Western Trail runs over it.
  • I plan to drive up to Bluebell Knoll this summer so I can cross off the Wayne County high point from the list of county high points in Utah.
  • Highway 12 runs over it and offers fantastic viewpoints eastward into Capitol Reef, the Waterpocket Fold, the Henry Mountains, and beyond.
 
Oh yeah. It has also been used for some illegal marijuana growing operations in the past.
 
I am thinking of heading down to the Boulder this next week. I haven't been down there this year yet. Looking to fish with my float tube, what lakes are doing good?
 
I'll be there next week as well--not fishing, though, but following the Powell expedition. Boulder Top usually doesn't open 'til around June 15th, and Fishlake NF reports that it's still closed, but their site hasn't been update since April. Probably not many fishing reports from the Top.
 
Brad, in August it was not too cold at night. Similar to Uintas...I had a 35 deg down bag and was comfy, and walking around at night I wore thermal bottoms with hiking pants and I was fine.

I just went up the Boulder Mountain yesterday and to my dismay they have drained Left Hand Reservoir. This reservoir has some nice big brookies in it (or at least it used to). Here is before and after...

dPyQLVM.jpg


p4Bnb18.jpg
 
Anyone know what Boulder Mountain looks like mid may? Looking to go to Calf Creek falls with the kiddos this weekend and was thinking of camping on Boulder Mountain. Udink says Boulder Top doesn't open till mid June typically so does that mean I couldn't approach from Loa and get down to the east so we can go to Calf Creek?
 
Anyone know what Boulder Mountain looks like mid may? Looking to go to Calf Creek falls with the kiddos this weekend and was thinking of camping on Boulder Mountain. Udink says Boulder Top doesn't open till mid June typically so does that mean I couldn't approach from Loa and get down to the east so we can go to Calf Creek?
Are you just talking about taking UT 12? I believe 12 is plowed all winter, just not at night. Either way, it's very clear up there pretty much everywhere that's right off of the highway. There's still snow up high where the lakes are, but it doesn't sound like that's where you're planning on going. I camped up there more on the Boulder side last Friday, and there was no snow anywhere near us. Mosquitos were already a little bad though. We just pulled off on a dirt road and set up. The campgrounds off of 12 are open as well.
 
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