Another thing you won't see is another angler on the Rocky. The next pool, and the next one after that, will be yours. In today's Alaska, it can be a precious, luxurious thing to have a pool to yourself, not having to share it with another angler or a grizzly bear. (The forests surrounding the Rocky have only black bears.)

On our final day, I decided to leave our group an hour before dinner time and head back to the Bridge Pool, where silvers were always stacked up. We already worked the pool several hours prior, but I thought the fish might have had time to settle down. All day, clouds covered the sun, but as I edged up to the big bend hole, the sun began to peek out. The surrounding mountains reappeared. But, most importantly, almost miraculously, the entire pool looked like a giant pink void. Silvers occupied every lie. The first fish didn't wait for the fly to drift to it. It charged the fly and went airbourne on the hookset. I eventually brought the barrel-chested 12 pounder to the bank, anxious to get the fly out of its jaw to make another cast.

The second silver was the one described earlier, the one that ran from one end of the large pool to the other, taking flight many times, the glint of sunlight flashing off its metallic sides as it twisted through the air. I brought her to the bank, unpinned her and let her go (we kept no fish, turned off entirely by the tens of thousands of fish boxes we saw on the conveyor belts, addressed for various destinations in the Anchorage airport). That's the way to end this trip, I thought, so I sat on the bank, stared at the mountains, waited for my companions to show up, and enjoyed several minutes of complete solitude on a slamon stream in Alaska, wondering how Nirvana could be any better.

(Contact Bernie Golling of Rocky River Lodge at 888-756-4729, or visit the website at www.rockyriverlodge.com.)