A mix of Cornish game hens, mule deer, black bear and trout

On the weekend of Oct. 13-15, five of us were at a very special place known as Willow Flat.

Willow Flat is a small, lush-looking, privately-owned valley situated at an elevation of about 8,300 feet at the edge of the Hoover Wilderness Area, just north and west of Bridgeport, Calif.

That valley is surrounded on all four sides by either U.S. Forest Service land or the Hoover Wilderness Area.

Mt. Emma is located on the west side of Willow Flat, Mt. Walker is on the south end and the Little Walker River meanders right down the middle.

The valley is owned by about a dozen land-owners from both Nevada and California, including my longtime, close friend and former NDOT co-worker Bob (aka Norm) Leutzinger ("Leutz") of Reno.

The five of us included Leutz, his 10-year old grandson Ben of Reno, Rick Gunn of South Lake Tahoe, Calif. a photographer with the Nevada Appeal, Elaine McGee of Carson City and yours truly. We were also accompanied by Gunn's dog, "Tucson."

The purpose of the trip was to once again visit with good friends, eat great food, drink lots of Manhattens, relax in the coolness of that altitude, soak up the spectacular, high-mountain scenery and enjoy the nearby, excellent fishing for native Eastern brook and rainbow trout in the river. All of those features lived up to our expectations and then some!

We stayed in a very snug, two-story cabin with all kinds of amenities including a solar-powered 12-volt lighting system, ice-cold running water from a well, three-burner propane stove, propane lanterns, numerous snug beds, detached shower and toilet, etc.

In addition, we had also brought along a battery-powered "Boom Box" to play a number of CD's. Our unforgettable cocktail hour on Friday afternoon consisted of appetizers of Italian salami, wine cheese, green olives, black olives, snack crackers, drinking Manhatten cocktails and dancing on the outside, wooden deck to the music of Trini Lopez. Not too shabby for being way up in the mountains!

Then, it got even better!

When the late afternoon sun dropped behind Mt. Emma and the temperature quickly took a nose dive, we adjourned to inside the cabin. The cocktail hour continued with more snacks, more drinks, lots of small talk, jokes and laughter.

This was while we waited for our Cornish game hens, stuffed with home-made stuffing, to finish cooking on the propane-operated barbecue.

Then when dinner was over, we broke out the Yahtzee game, while enjoying a dessert of angel-food cake with assorted fresh fruit and lots of whipped cream.

I always thought that I was good at the game of Yahtzee but Leutz and Gunn "smoked" the rest of us, by unbelievable scores. They must have been cheating because I've never been beat that bad at that game. Ever! Thank God, we were not playing for money.

Saturday, everyone was lazy and slept in late. Leutz told me that Tucson finally woke him up by running a big wet tongue up his face. We got up and had a leisurely breakfast at about 9:30 a.m. The main breakfast feature of was a large, Frittata made with oodles of eggs, red pepper, green pepper, mushrooms, onions, crab and shrimp. It was complemented with bacon, toast, Danish pastry, bananas, coffee and hot chocolate. Not too shabby for "roughing it" in a remote mountainous area.

Then it was time to get serious and go enjoy trout fishing.

The Little Walker River is noted for excellent populations of small Eastern brook and rainbow trout. Those wild trout rarely exceed 12 inches in length but nearly every corner or hole on that crystal-clear, icy-cold river has at least one fish lurking in it.

Leutz, Ben and Gunn elected to fish downstream from the cabin to the main dirt road. McGee and I decided to fish upstream at some beaver ponds in the Wilderness Area, about two miles away.

The two of us drove to the end of the road, got out, put on our fishing vests, grabbed our poles and began to hike on the trail to the ponds.

When we first began to hike, I told her to try to walk quietly because if we did, we just might surprise some mule deer along the trail.

Well, guess who got surprised?

Yep, it was the two of us. And, boy oh boy did we ever get surprised!

We had only hiked about 300 yards up the trail, came around a corner and a black bear walked across the trail, right in front of us. A bear! Wow!

It was big, jet-black, sleek, shinny and could have cared less about us. I don't think that it even knew that we were there. As we stood and watched, the bear slowly ambled through the trees and up the ridge as if we did not even exist.

Shortly afterwards, we reached the beaver ponds, peeked into the water and saw that it was loaded with brookies.

We quickly broke out our fishing equipment and then had a ball catching and releasing all kinds of brook trout. Our biggest problem of the day was trying to keep the smaller brookies from hitting before the larger ones had a chance to get caught and released.

We ended up keeping three of the largest brookies for Gunn, who wanted them for dinner that night.

After a while, we got tired of catching fish, found a big grassy area by one of the ponds, sat down and enjoyed a slow, leisurely lunch in the warm, fall sunshine. Again, not too shabby!

On our hike back to the truck, we did not see any more black bears but we did jump three doe mule deer at the edge of a small meadow. They took one look at us and quickly bounded out of sight into a huge patch of Quaking Aspen.

As a matter of interest, many of the "Quakies" at that elevation have already lost all of their leaves. However, those trees that still have leaves are absolutely breathtaking with their colors.

This is truly a great time of the year to be in the Great Outdoors.

That was how I spent my weekend.

Where did you go?

- Bet Your Favorite Pigeon

Bet your favorite pigeon that he can't tell you the name of the U.S. Forest Service campground that you pass on the way to Willow Flat.

When he grins and says, "Obsidian is the name of that campground," you had better have the money needed to pay off that losing bet.