Appeal Tribune ❚ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2019 ❚ 1B Sports PREVIEW PERMIT SYSTEM WITH HIKE TO PAMELIA LAKE A view of Pamelia Lake and Mount Jefferson. PHOTO BY WILLIAM SULLIVAN A trip to Pamelia begins by logging onto your computer, visiting Recreation.Gov and typing in "Pamelia Limited Entry Area." Here, you can re serve one of the 20 permits available each day. With the exception of peak summer weekends, they’re usually easy to get. The permits are technically free, but the website charges a “vendor fee” of $6. After choosing a date and printing your permit (or just having it on your phone), you’re ready to hit the road. Zach Urness Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK The summer of 2020 is shaping up to be a pretty interesting one in Oregon’s outdoors. Two years from now, the Forest Ser vice is expected to impose the most widespread limits on hiking and camp ing in state history in three popular wil derness areas — Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington and the Three Sis ters. You’ll need a permit to dayhike from 19 trailheads accessing 450,000 acres of Oregon’s most beautiful backcountry. If you’re camping overnight, you’ll need a permit to enter from all 79 trailheads. Only a handful of permits will be available since the program’s goal is to cut down on damage from skyrocketing crowds and the damage they cause. I’ve been writing about this plan for the last two years, yet still feel as though a lot of people are in the dark about what this will all mean. That’s why you should consider a trip to Pamelia Lake this summer. It’s an easy and beautiful hike into the Mount ‘Hey, we should take care of this place’ adopted on a larger scale by the Forest Service. In other words, if you want to under stand what the experience of hiking Oregon’s wilderness will be like in com ing years, head to Pamelia. It’s about a 90minute drive from Sa lem to Pamelia Lake Trailhead, located east of Detroit. Part of the trail’s popu larity is that it’s short — 2.2 miles to the lake (4.4 miles roundtrip). The trip takes you through mossy, oldgrowth forest along a tumbling creek that should be blooming with tril lium right about now. The trailhead’s low elevation means this route opens earlier than many in the Jefferson wil The trip begins on your computer See PERMIT, Page 2B Bridge over a small stream on Pamelia Lake Trail. ZACH URNESS / STATESMAN JOURNAL Jefferson Wilderness to a mountain lake. It’s also the model for the 2020 per mit system. Since the mid1990s, you’ve needed a permit to hike Pamelia Lake Trail. The system has been so successful at limit ing damage from overuse that it was A full dam means a full stringer and a lot of stories Fishing Henry Miller Guest columnist DETROIT – In solidarity with all of the similarly punimpaired out there, and with apologies to those more skilled than me, I offer the following: This is the best dam place to go fishing close to Sa lem. With Detroit Lake nearbrimming, congregations of trout and kokanee are kegging up near the face of the dam. Dit to for the anglers pursuing them. “Oh, yea, pretty often,” Agustin Gar cia said when asked how often he fishes off the dam. “I grew up fishing. I’ve been coming with my dad (Andy), and I’m 29, so my whole life.” How much does the Hillsboro resi dent enjoy fishing at Detroit? “That’s what this tattoo is actually based on is fishing at Detroit,” he said, showing a black line drawing of a cast ing angler on his right forearm accented with three green evergreen trees and a mountain silhouette. Garcia even hooked his fiancée, Ste phanie Keys (somewhat hesitantly) on fishing at Detroit. “Well, we were dating. I like to go out side. And he was like, ‘Well, we’re going to go here.’” Keys laughed. “And then he does most of the work, Rich Gardner, a longtime frequent angler at the dam at Detroit Lake, is adroit at catching kokanee and rainbow trout on a variety of lures and baits. HENRY MILLER/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL so it’s all right.” Agustin grinned. “I wouldn’t call it work. It’s fun for me,” he said. “I get sunshine. And I catch occasion al fish,” she replied. “So it all works out,” Garcia said. “She got the biggest fish last time, a nice little 16inch trout. The fillets covered up a dinner plate.” Sure enough, with a little assistance from her betrothed, Keys scored a fat footlong rainbow trout, but was a little nonplussed about how to deal with it. Both were using PowerBait (char treuse for him, pink for her) fished be low bobbers. “Your disgusting (fishing) towel just got more disgusting,” she said after hes itantly dispatching the trout, picking it up gingerly with the sodden towel and dropping it in the softsided cooler. Plenty more where that came from, Garcia said, referring to the towel, and come to think of it, the trout. Even if you don’t get a bite, the dam provides a loose social club of like minded fishing enthusiasts with wildly diverse, but always entertaining tales. Come for the fishing. Stay for the stories. “My son caught a 52andonehalf inch landlocked Chinook on his Spider man fishing pole,” said Rich Gardner of Dallas, then laughed. “He was sitting in his crib just bouncing it.” Rich, who was fishing about 20 feet away from Garcia and Keys, said he’s been coming to the dam “since I was about 2. I’m 45, so about 43 years.” The dam fraternity is a spritely group always willing to share stories and fish ing tips, even between and during casts and retrieves, along with providing run ning playbyplay. “My favorite is a Kastmaster,” Gard ner said, letting fly with a jointed rain bowtrout patterned plug. “Hang on … I need to let it sink. They’re going after this. I’m just getting it deep enough. “Whoa. There was a really nice one that came up after it,” he added as a sil ver flash, a substantial kokanee, rushed the lure then backed off. “I’m going to go with this bad guy,” he said, switching to a smaller, glittering, torpedoshaped lure that he called a pink striper. “The fun thing is that when they hit them ...” he paused to reconsid er. “The sad thing is the little ones hit it.” Rich smiled. “But I have caught a little one on it, and then a big one took the little one,” he added of the bestoftimes, worstof times, back to bestoftimes situation. Sure enough, several small chrome bright flashes, 4inch kokanee, a land locked variety of sockeye salmon, hooked themselves on the pink striper. But no big fish came up for the lure andsmallfish combo plate. So he switched to his goto lure, a rainbowpatterned Kastmaster. And then hooked and lost, two large fish in succession, one of them coming about a foot and a half out of the water. “I love these glasses, and I hate them sometimes,” Gardner said about his po larized shades that offered way too much information about the fish chas ing his lure beneath the sunflecked sur face of Detroit Lake. “You jerk way too soon.” With deadline pressing, that’s how I left the informal fishing club at the dam. Talk among yourselves. I’ll be back. Save me a spot on the rail. Henry Miller is a retired Statesman Journal outdoor columnist and outdoor writer. You can contact him at Henry- MillerSJ@gmail.com