Field Note
The Four Things That Almost Made My San Juan Loadout
A pre-trip shakedown on the living-room floor — the near-misses in my backpacking loadout, what the scale said about each one, and the insurance-versus-fear test.
← All intersections
Backpacking Fly Fishing
Where the trail ends and the water starts — rods that ride in packs, alpine cutthroat, and the ounce math of carrying a 5-weight over a pass.
Why this intersection matters
Backpacking sites treat a fly rod as dead weight; fishing sites assume you parked next to the river. The useful answers — which rod survives a pack lid, what a minimum fly kit actually weighs, whether the water is worth the detour — only exist where the two pursuits overlap.
Start here
Three Forks, Two Rods: Four Days on the Conejos
Seven miles in to the valley below the Three Forks of the Conejos, four days of brookies and rainbows, three nights of weather — and the eight-and-a-half-foot glass rod that made the nine-footer dead weight.
Featured field note