Nothing but rocks and trees,
it would never occur to you that the steep slope of the mountain could
be broken, that a lake of good size could be hidden on its side. You
do not get a glimpse of it once, until you drive between the bushes
and boulders that border its banks, and then it is all before you in
amazing beauty. The reflections are wonderful, the high lights showing
with exquisite sharpness against the dark green and purple depths of
the clear, spring water.
The lake is fearfully deep - the Indians insist that in places it is
bottomless - and it is teeming with trout, the most delicious mountain
trout that can be caught any place, and which come up so cold one can
easily fancy there is an iceberg somewhere down below. Some of these
fish are fourteen or more inches long.
It was rather late in the afternoon when we reached the lake, so we
hurriedly got ourselves ready for fishing, for we were thinking of a
trout dinner. Four enlisted men had followed us with a wagon, in which
were our tents, bedding, and boxes of provisions, and these men busied
themselves at once by putting up the little tents and making
preparations for dinner, and we were anxious to get enough fish for
their dinner as well as our own.
