A Memory of Dick Johnson
By John Gill
As we got to know each other at the beginning of our tenure at the Laguna Beach Lifeguard Department, I found that several of my fellow guards were interested in backpacking and fishing. Terry Klein, Jeff Masterson, and Dick Johnson all liked to take off for the Sierras and Dick was probably the most avid adventurer after me.
We took our first trip in the early 70’s and kept at it once or twice a year for the next 30 years. Dick’s perfect trip was a 5 to 7 mile hike up to near treeline to camp for a couple of days beside a beautiful lake with a stream running into and out of it. We would set up our camp and then soon assemble our fishing poles to fish for trout.
At the onset, Dick was basically a worm and salmon egg guy at the side of the lake. I would frequently find him leaning back against a tree asleep with his pole in his hand. He really knew how to kick back, relax, and slow down when he got out in the country.
After watching me learn to fly fish and seeing the quantity and size of the fish I was hauling in Dick bought a fly rod and started fishing the streams with me for brook trout. One of our favorite places was upper Green Creek on the East side of the Sierras. While we pulled in lots of big rainbows up to16 inches on grasshopper flies in the lakes we also found a stretch of stream at about 11,000 feet that was consistently good to us for brook trout.
One afternoon we were having a ball catching lots of 7 to 9 inch brookies when a horse packer guide stopped along the trail beside the stream and asked Dick how the fishing was. Dick laughed and said “so good I’ve lost count of how many I’ve caught and released.” As the guide came up to me he asked what fly I was using, and I said “just you’re basic Royal Coachman.”
As the packer rode on by with his mules shaking his head Dick came up to me and we laughed for some time at the expression on the packers face. He must have ridden by that stream a hundred times and never thought to throw out a line with the most commonly used trout fly.
Dick was just a great companion and never complained about the mosquitoes, the cold, the food, and rarely about the weather. The one time he said something was on the third day of hellacious wind and rainstorm at a barren lake at 10,000 ft. It poured rain the whole time and the wind had gusted to at least 70 miles an hour during the first night.
We had spent two nights hanging on to the tent poles for dear life as the storm raged and ebbed. At daylight on the 3rd day Dick says to me “JG you’re a good friend, but I don’t think I can look at your ugly mug one more day in this little tent.”
We both then agreed that more importantly we were out of rum for our “trail daiquiris” and it was definitely time to pack up and get out of there. We hiked for several hours soaked to the skin back to Mammoth Lakes only to find the road south had washed out and we would have to drive home north through Yosemite. Still not complaining about a 12 to 14 hr road trip home we thoroughly enjoyed getting to see Yosemite’s waterfalls surging with water from our storm (that had finally cleared out) in an unusual late September occurrence.
Dick was a superb companion to head out on the trail with. We always had a great time, good conversation, could relax and admire the outdoors and just plain get away from it all for a few days. Five years since his death we still always remember Dick with our evening daiquiri toast as we enjoy a Sierra sunset and drink to Dick’s words, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
The year after Dick passed away we asked his wife Jo if we could have a bit of his ashes to spread in the Sierras. We hiked for 17 miles looking for that perfect lake and stream that had Dick’s signature written on it. As we looked at the map half way from
Several months later at a church function, Jo leaned over and whispered to Jeff Masterson a couple of seats down the pew “how did you know to go there.” “Go where” Jeff asked back. “That lake was the first place Dick ever went backpacking along with me and my family.” We had no idea we had taken Dick full circle and still marvel at how we were lead to that place.
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