Pitkin

Pitkin is a very small mountain town in the Gunnison National Forest.  We took a ride up there, up Quartz Creek to 9,200 ft, one day to experience the locale.  Riding beats hiking at those altitudes,  Steve just can't seem to do the hiking at those altitudes anymore.

There wasn't much to see of the town, but a big attraction for us was the small state run fish hatchery there.

Steve checks out the information board outside the front gate of the hatchery. You can see the sleepy town of Pitkin in the valley. peeking just above the sign

Not much up here but bears, raccoons and Great Blue Herons, they all love what's on the hatchery's menu.

This is a view of the work buildings at the facility.  There are four full-time employees stationed here. The small town of Pitkin just beyond the hatchery buildings can also bee seen in this shot below.

They had several outdoor growing tanks.  The tanks ran in a zig-zag pattern all the way down to the creek.  We first met one of the workers outside feeding the stock.

We approached and started asking questions.  He brought Steve over to his truck and set us up with a bucket of food to feed the fish!  I think he was getting us to do his work haha.  Not really, that was super nice of him.  The other hatcheries that we have been to, you have to buy the food to feed the fish.

Steve checks out the stock below.  There's a bunch of trout in there!

It's hard to get a good picture, but these tanks were their breeding stock, and some of these fish went well over 5 pounds!

Look at those whoppers!

This tank has the smaller fish that are nearing readiness for release into the wild.  They boil the water where Steve throws the feed.

 More fish feeding fun.

The gentleman outside told us to go into the hatchery building and ask for Doug.  He thought Doug knew a lot about the operation and would give us a short tour.  We peeked in the door that had a sign to not enter and called for Doug.

Doug kindly brought us in and proceeded to tell us so much about the operation.  Gari looks at the tanks where the hatchlings are grown.  They stay in here for about 12 weeks before they are sent to the outside growing tanks.  The blue cylinders are filters for nitrates in the spring water that is used in the tanks.

Doug told us about Whirling Disease.  It is a parasite that is now found in all but 2 or 3 streams in Colorado.  The parasite attacks the small fry fish and turns their bones to gel.  The young fish can't survive.  Because of this disease, wild trout cannot reproduce naturally in most all Colorado streams.  Doug said that in the hatchery they can disinfect the tanks with Clorox and control the parasite, but they just can't do that in nature. It dawned on us that pretty much all the trout in Colorado are now hatchery trout.  Doug explained that the disease had originated in Europe, so they went to Germany and found a trout variety that was resistant to the disease.  He said that breed did very well against the disease, but didn't have a natural fear of predators and therefore were too quickly caught up by people fishing.  The Pitkin hatchery cross bred that German variety with a native Colorado specie and produced a more wild fish that was also resistant to the Whirling Disease parasite.  We had no idea.  Doug was a native of the area, and is an avid hunter and fisherman.  He proudly told us about a book that he had written about how to catch trout in the Gunnison watershed.  A real homegrown sportsman!  He also described the daily and seasonal work life at the hatchery.  He described the winters and how the four of them spent most days removing snow.  The running water from the springs is warm enough so that it doesn't freeze in the tanks.  He said that one of the things they enjoyed the most was releasing the fish into the wild.  Doug said that happens from spring and into the summer.  This year was cut short because of the lack of water from the small snow-pack last winter.  They had to release more fish earlier or they would end up dying due to the higher temperatures in the low rivers and streams.  We talked about retirement and Doug looks forward to his and says he will happily spend his days hunting and fishing.  I'm with ya on that one Doug!

After the tour we rode north of Pitkin and found a nice picnic spot by a child's fishing pond.   There was a shade tree and a picnic table at this remote park.  We watched a few ATVs go up the dirt Forest Service road toward Tin Cup.

As we sat and enjoyed our snack, we could see the trout in the crystal clear pond water.  It looked like they were floating in mid-air.