The End in Sight

Sorry for the long interruption. The technical glitch is solved, I can upload photos once again.

Sunset on the Madison River, below Junction Pool

September is passing in a flash. The end of my Yellowstone season is in sight, it is bittersweet. My last work day is October 14^th.  I am really looking forward to being back home, and yet some of the best fishing is about to happen in these last few weeks.

Fall  color on the meadow at Whiskey Flat

Work is getting in the way of the fishing! Old Faithful becomes understaffed as the season draws to a close, so more hours of work for those of us who are left. I still manage to fish a lot by any normal standard, it’s just that there are so many fishing opportunities here.

The Park’s season is winding down too. Although Old Faithful Inn is sold-out right up until the last week, the daytime visitor traffic in the Park is way down. It is so much more enjoyable without the crowds…mid-July to mid-August bordered on the unpleasant.

Riverside Geyser eruption, Firehole River

Bull Elk, Big Bend Meadow on the Madison River

A lot has happened in the past month. I fished a day with Paul  Meyer, a Trout Unlimited buddy from Michigan, the end of August. Tom Quail and Joe Swantek, fishing buddies from Michigan, were here in the Park the first week. Ted, my coworker, and I had a terrific driftboat fishing trip with a guide on the lower Madison. The elk and moose are in their rut, bugling and putting on a  show. The fall run of trout up the Madison from Hebgen Lake is just beginning. Fall is settling on the Park with golden colors and frosty mornings.

Brown Trout on a dry flay; Grasshopper Bank on the Madison

I will try to post these stories in the coming couple of weeks.

Technical Difficulties with Blog; No Photo Upload

Sorry, there is a glitch right now in the blog website. I am unable to upload photos to go with each posting. I am working on getting that resolved.

In the meantime, I'll continue posting stories so I don't fall behind. Pretty dry without the photos, I know. Again, sorry.

See latest story below, published 9/2.

Dan

Rendezvous with Old Friends; Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho

I visited with our old friends from Michigan, Phil & Marg Carroll, last weekend. Phil and I worked together in the 80s/90s, and fished/hunted together. They moved to Boise Idaho about fifteen years ago. This was the first time seeing each other in over ten years.

We met halfway between Boise and Yellowstone in Arco, Idaho; about 200 miles of driving for each of us. Arco is the nearest town to Craters of the Moon National Monument. In addition to being the first city in America to get its electricity from nuclear energy (1955), it also has a KOA campground. Our reservation was guaranteed along with hot showers; wi-fi, even a swimming pool.

Getting there was interesting in itself. Over the Continental Divide at Targee Pass. Through Island Park, Idaho and along the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, another fabled Western trout stream. Across ninety miles of treeless sagebrush on Idaho Highway 33, the only interruption a few small towns with populations of one hundred or less. Past huge expanses of hay, wheat, alfalfa fields made arable by the miracle of high plains irrigation.

Our sightseeing was at Craters of the Moon National Monument. It is another impossible landscape of bizarre geology. The site of violent volcanic activity, it is in the chain of hotspots known as the Great Rift that includes Yellowstone, its most recent eruption. Here are vast fields of lava flows, craggy cinder cones, and volcanic rubble where plants and animals somehow make this home through the wonders of ecological adaptation. We heard the Apollo astronauts trained for the moon landings here. What your eyes take in says that is entirely plausible.

We enjoyed the creature comforts of Phil and Marg’s new RV for meals, catching up on our families, hobbies, and retirement life. Good thing; my two-man tent would have been pretty cramped.