Fishing trip in RMNP

The Idea

Over the winter when hiking becomes snowshoeing and fly fishing becomes ice fishing, I do my planning for the next year. Usually this consists of writing down some interesting summits and their statistics, maybe planning a camping trip and tackle some 14ers or anything else that looks appealing. I usually concentrate my hiking in RMNP and the immediate area around it, so upon looking through some maps, I realized how many trail systems I’ve never been on that wind through the west side of the park. Living in Loveland, I feel that the drive up to Glacier Gorge is enough, and I get anxious to just hit the trail after an hour of driving. Because of this, the west side and Never Summer range seem to never be in my plans for the next hiking season.
I had long wished to invest in backpacking equipment to tackle some of the more remote areas around the northern front range, and so exploring the west side ultimately gave me an excuse to buy backpacking stuff. I planned two week long trips for the summer, the Fishing trip and the Long trip, first of which would be a trip over Andrews Glacier, down the North Inlet trail to Grand Lake, then back up the Tonahutu Creek trail and over Flattop Mountain. My Long trip would be a traverse over Icefield Pass, around Long Draw Reservoir, down the Grand Ditch road, and down the Tonahutu Creek trail to Grand Lake. From there a climb over Boulder-Grand Pass and down to the Wild Basin TH.

But this report is focused on the Fishing trip.

Day 1 Andrews Creek

Our first campsite of th