6/7/11 – Lyons Colorado

This morning, Sam made me a deal, that if I let her stay asleep in the car until we reached the river, she would wash the dishes from the night before. Despite how soundly I know she can sleep, the jostling of the car had her wide awake long before we arrived.

Prior to hitting the river this morning, we had to make a short stop at Trout Creek Flies to buy a third day’s fishing license. As we waited in the car by the front door of the shop, we watched as every few minutes, one of a small herd of old men ceremonially walked to the front door to check if it had been unlocked in the last 60 seconds. When the manager finally came and unlocked the door, Sam ordered our breakfast sandwiches from the woman running the kitchen while I used the courtesy computer to pay for my day-pass on the river.

For some reason, the breakfast sandwiches made at the Trout Creek Flies kitchen were among the tastiest I’ve ever had. Bacon, egg, and cheese were to be expected, but add in a layer of fresh cooked hash-browns and put it all in the middle of an enormous soft-yet-crispy bagel and it was enough to keep my mouth watering for the past three days.

As I assembled my rod at the little hole boat ramp, Sam revealed her plan to stay entertained while I was fishing. Because we only had a few hours to fish before we needed to be on the road, Sam was going to follow me with a book, and pretend to be the little indigenous guide/servant like on the TV show River Monsters. For some reason, the thought of running out to help me with the net and the camera seemed more appealing than trying to fish for herself.  

Once we reached the first of the sweet spots from yesterday, I wasted no time becoming irritated at why the fish no longer seemed to be interested in what I was presenting. Sam lazed in a comfortable spot of sun she had found further up the bank, happily engrossed in her book while I futilely changed flies and casted at different locations. By the time I was ready to blame the poor fishing on the moon phase, the shirt I was wearing, and my companion, I hooked up with a sizeable brown. As per our arrangement, I yelled out “Fish On! Fish On!” and Sam came running with the net to assist me delighted to be acting out the part of a small Indonesian fisherman’s assistant. It occurred to me later, that the fault was not my own, but that the fish had not become active or started feeding until the sun had risen to warm the water in the gorge around 10:00 am.

As she scooped up the fish, I brought out the tape measure to ensure that the fish was of a legal size to take, and we put it into our ziplock-bag-creel, to clean and bring as gifts to our friend and my former co-worker Larry with whom we would be staying that night.

Not surprisingly, having two people to manage the fish, the net, and the camera proved to be far easier than my tribulations the prior day. With two fish in the bag, we hiked quickly back to the car- as we knew we would be cutting it close to make Larry’s house by nightfall.

Larry had informed us of an event to take place at a local brew-pub known as Oscar Blues, home of the now-well known beverages, Dale’s Pale Ale. Leaving Dutch John and driving up out of the Flaming Gorge was a bit sad as I had no idea how many years it would take me to return there, but I was excited to finally visit my friend Larry with whom I had worked at Costa Rica Outward Bound. As luck would have it, he was now at his home in Lyons Colarado, forming his own company with a friend from New York.

As we reached the entrance for I-80 and turned East, it truly sunk in that we were beginning our trek homeward. We stopped at a nearby filling station and topped off the tank, and didn’t stop again until we reached Loveland, CO to fill up again. We had made the best gas mileage of the trip, a remarkable 26mpg! Proof of just how flat and straight southern Wyoming really is.

Larry and his friend Christina

The closest town to Larry’s cabin- Lyons, was very quaint with a pedestrian friendly down-town, an artsy vibe, and right in the middle, the Oscar Blues- brew pub where we were going to meet our friend for the evening’s festivities. Supposedly, Lyons is blessed with a large community of local musicians, and had recently begun meeting weekly for an event called “The Pick” where the musicians were invited to bring their instruments out and join in a free-for-all circle of bluegrass music.

Not only was the food and the beer great, but the music was fantastic! I was in nostalgia heaven, tapping my foot, singing along, I was unable to wipe the grin off of my face the entire evening. Many of the musicians were professionals- some with record contracts playing right alongside of the beginner banjo player. There were fiddles, mandolins, banjo’s, stand up basses, guitars, a dobro, a couple of accordions, ukuleles, washboards, and the coup-de-gras was a very mysterious character that played a hand-saw with a violin bow better than anyone I had ever heard.

The circle was formed in the center of the bar’s upstairs dining room by about fifteen musicians, and kept expanding until the small room was crammed from wall to wall with smiling musicians. Each tune had a solo from each instrument around the room. When the mysterious saw player entered the room with his long beard and his driving cap under the hood of his jacket, even the other musicians began to whisper to one another. The sound that blade produced was haunting! Very similar to the sound of the electronic instrument called a Theremin, the saw would moan and shriek as the bow dragged across it, kept in time by its mysterious maestro.

By the time we left the bar, there were two new circles of musicians that had formed in other corners of the bar including one in the hallway at the top of the stairs that we had to worm our way through the middle of just to leave. Sam and I were flat worn out by the end of the evening thanks to our fishing trip, and 8 hour drive all which preceded the evening’s music. We could not have been happier for a shower and a soft bed when we reached Larry’s beautiful log cabin.

6/6/11 – Dutch John Utah

After yesterday’s excitement, I woke up like a seven-year-old on Christmas morning. Similarly, as if by necessity, Sam woke up as do most parents on Christmas morning- slowly. Likely, I was too excited to notice, but within minutes of packing up breakfast, we found ourselves at the boat launch at Little Hole, and the first visitors in the parking lot. I had decided to hike upstream from where our trip yesterday had finished in hopes of beating the other fishermen to the spots along the river bank that I had made notes of a day ago. I figured on hiking a mile or so upriver before I started fishing in order to spend the most time possible at the choicest location. The river section nearest to Little Hole widened and flattened out making it difficult for the wading angler to cast into the perfect spot in the eddy line. Similar to yesterday, the fish were visible from the riverbank and it didn’t take long to cave to Sam’s pleas to “start fishing already!”

Looking back on it, I blame myself for perhaps not taking the time in the educator role that Curtis had spent with Sam yesterday, but I soon found myself at the opposite end of the eddy from her with my eyes glued to the water and Sam’s sounds of frustration washed out by the harmonies of the river. Not surprisingly, the combination of inexperience, high water, and an over-abundance of riparian brush served to neatly confound Sam into wanting to give up.

To my frustration, yesterday’s excitement had not managed to burrow deeply enough under Sam’s skin  to carry over to the next day. After untangling her line from the brush behind her three or four times, I realized that my fishing plans for the day would not go as planned.   It seemed that I was going to have to quit fishing and leave the majestic Green River earlier than planned if I was to protect the happiness of my rolling home and hearth.

An hour later as I reached my first fishing hole, I began to miss my fishing companion and wondered how I was going to take pictures of myself once I had landed my first big fish of the day. Having hiked about a mile and a half upstream from the Little Hole boat ramp, I waded slowly into the eddy from the back edge, false casted a few times to extract some line from my reel, and placed my flies directly into the line of flotsam that garnished the eddy-line. In mere seconds, the indicator dipped below the surface and I lifted the rod tip to set the miniscule hook. The rush of the fight that ensued was better than any trout fishing I had ever experienced as the near 19” brown trout began to run out into the current and the deeper water. Keeping light tension on the line, I guided him back towards the eddy and slowly towards my person relishing every second. As the fish tired, I began to fiddle with my landing net hooked to the back of my collar- a system that worked in theory but floundered in practice.

Once I managed to unhook the net from its loop, it fell into the water adding one more step to my awkward dance. The fish filled my net from end to end and began thrashing about while I attempted to figure out how I would be photographing the beast. One handed operation of most small digital cameras is complicated by wet slimy hands, and mine was no exception.

The next fish, I was ready for- a rainbow of equal size to the first brown I had landed, I easily scooped up with my conveniently placed net at the water’s edge! As the morning wore on, I realized that aside from company, my former angling partner had absconded with our small bag of provisions.

   Near about 2:00 with the sun high in the sky, the fishing began to slow further encouraging me to pack it in. I had mastered the art of self photography courtesy of a tri-pod sized rock at the river bank, and had no container to pack out any of the day’s catch so I slowly fished back towards the car. Sam had been occupying herself with a few books and enjoying the warm comfortable weather, and to my relief was not nearly as cross as I had expected. At her suggestion, we went to bed early with the intention of fishing a few hours the following day prior to our 8 hour cruise to Colorado.

6/5/11 - Dutch John, Utah

 

This morning we woke up truly early. Set an alarm and everything! By the time the fly shop opened, we were waiting outside the door to get set up with my fishing licenses for the next few days and to get the low-down on what the fish were eating and where to go. Thankfully, Don at Jesse Brown’s had prepped me as well as could be expected being a few thousand miles away. Most of the flies he had suggested were right on target- it was only the experience that I was lacking.

Trout Creek Flies

For the last few days I had opened up to Sam about what a big deal it was to have the chance to fish the Green River. Working in a fly fishing shop meant that every day I was surrounded by fishing gear, videos, stories, pictures, and tips- it had been hard to fight the urge to fish every stretch of water we passed. To compound that, I felt the need to make a pilgrimage to the place where my grandfather had gone personally with Don from the shop to fish, and had the most fun possibly of his life. Ever since I started fishing, I was told stories of the fabled Green River, and even still, how he wants to fish the river again before he dies. It was hard to truly describe to Sam how fishing and especially catching fish on this river could mean so much to me when her interest in fishing rivaled that of her interest in collecting Thomas Kincade paintings (just so we’re clear, we both HATE Thomas Kincade paintings).

Due to my general level of failure in my most recent fishing trips, Sam could tell that I would have a very hard time going home should I fail to catch fish here. Obviously the biggest reason why we had not planned to go on a guided trip all along was financial. We had been saving up for our road trip, and talking ourselves out of spending money at literally every turn. Yet to my ecstatic surprise, when the shop manager pushed their guided trips even a little, Sam leaned over and whispered in my ear that if I wanted to roll all my presents for the next year into one, she would pay half of the cost of a day’s float trip for us both. As we filled out the paperwork and prepared our personal gear, the manager even chipped in our breakfast- the most delicious bacon egg cheese and hashbrown on bagel sandwiches I’ve ever tasted!

I felt as though I was floating on air the entire day after that! Our guide was named Curtis Brown, a younger guide who had been quietly tying flies in the corner of the shop while he drank his morning coffee. In the shop while we waited for the sun to begin warming the water, he spoke very little to us, answering any questions that I asked, but volunteering little information of his own. The trip included lunch, so we loaded the drift boat while we waited for the kitchen staff to pack our lunches into the cooler. After a final trip to the bathroom, (just to make sure) we climbed into his enormous turbo-diesel Dodge Ram and took off towards the river with the trailer in tow.

We reached the put-in within 15 minutes at the base of the tallest dam I had ever seen which retained the entirety of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The power company was releasing water at a breakneck pace to prepare the lake for the immense amount of snow melt expected this spring. In addition to the water that flows through the turbines and is released at the very base of the dam, two of the overflow pipes were wide open- releasing millions of gallons per minute in the form of twin jets, 8 feet in diameter rocketing water out of the side of the structure nearly 40 feet before they fell down and met the rest of the river. Extending up from the top of the dam was the “elevator” a unique selection system used to keep the river temperature optimal for the 15,000 trout per mile that live there. This elevator works by adjusting the depth of the lake from which the water is drawn into the dam and subsequently passed out into the river.

Sam's first EVER trout caught on the fly!

Talking about these features revealed that our guide Curtis was rather disenchanted with the power company because although the infrastructure existed to keep the fish and the fishermen happy, they still seemed to make decisions based on financial gain rather than concern for the environment.

As we launched the boat and parked the truck and trailer, I was excited to see my first trout since leaving Charlotte! Standing in a patch of sunlight I found in the chilly canyon, it was not difficult to look into the water and pick out half a dozen large trout swimming lazily in their holding patterns just inside the calm water of the eddy. As with most lakes and dams, the dam here was located where the canyon walls were closest to each other- making the construction of the dam easiest.

As we found the first available eddy, our rather stern guide softened up and explained that he would facilitate our trip more from the role of teacher than the traditional assumption of what a guide does. As it turned out, that was exactly what I had been hoping for, and precisely what Sam was going to need to make this trip fun for her. After explaining some of the basic fundamentals of nymphing, we set off down the river. Because of the high water level, it would have taken us no time at all to shoot from start to finish, so we paced ourselves- fishing each promising spot as we glided down the river.

Sam caught her first trout before I did but both of us were productive through the first few eddies. What took me totally by surprise was the average size of the fish here! With Curtis’ help, we landed fish after fish (all rainbows and browns) over 15 inches- each one vibrant and healthy. Having only ever fished in the small streams of western North Carolina, these fish were enormous!

When we pulled over for lunch and our guide cooked lunch for us (Philly cheese steak sandwiches,) I could barely calm down enough to eat. I was unused to having a meal prepared on a camp stove- that I did not help prepare, and it took a little bird to remind me that the food might have been more important to our guide who had to do all the work, than for me.

The biggest catch of the day!

As the day wore on, I continued soaking up both the sun and the simple pleasure of floating such a beautiful river. The high temperature was in the 80’s which felt perfect when the cool breeze blew off of the cold river water.

 As we neared the end of our trip, the river had flattened out only slightly and grown a good bit wider. With the boat ramp in sight, Curtis asked that we pull the lines in and gather our things. I reluctantly began reeling in my line as I saw Sam hook up with something big! As she fought the monster, her coach was pre-occupied rowing the boat towards our exit point. Keeping her rod tip up and working the fish the whole time, she managed to hold the brown all the way into the net held by our guide. He held the net while standing ankle deep next to the boat on the boat ramp, having jumped out after we arrived to land the fish.

A grand finale to the day, Sam had landed a 19 inch brown trout in a stretch of surprising water. After cleaning up, we found our campsite and dined on fresh rainbow trout baked in tin-foil with lemons and herbs. Sleep would no doubt come easy after such a memorable day.

6/4/11 – Yellowstone National Park to Flaming Gorge Utah

Having reached the northernmost point in our journey, we would be re-tracing our steps south through Yellowstone and the Tetons to reach our penultimate stop on the trip, Dutch John in Utah. Quite possibly one of only two or three mornings on our trip, we got an “early” start (prior to 10:00am). We drove south to see the Biscut, Midway, and Old Faithful Geyser Basins.

Old Faithfull

Among the highlights were the grand spectral pool which at nearly 100 yards across reflected its colors into the steam that hung over it giving it a rainbow colored halo, the Castle Geyser which erupted through many outlets on its 8 foot tall geyser cone simultaneously, and the new boardwalks made of synthetic decking which when you shuffle your feet and swing your arms while walking on, allow you to repeatedly give static shocks to the person next to you. Sam and I undoubtedly looked like seven-year-olds, as we played the shocking game nearly our entire stay in the park.

 Our drive south was uneventful with the exception of a couple of stops to observe some unique wildlife as honorary members of the roadside throngs. Firstly, we saw a momma grizzly and her two cubs through a generous onlooker’s telescope lens. At over a mile away from the road, they looked more like rodents than bears walking through the sage brush. At another stop, we were lucky enough to see a mother moose and her calf down by a pond beside the water. Supposedly, they are excellent swimmers and can dive to depths of 18 feet to eat aquatic vegetation.

Road-side "Drift Fences"

We continued south, retracing our steps through Grand Teton National Park, and then through the town of Jackson Hole Wyoming before making our first real turn to the east. It took no time at all for the terrain to flatten out, setting us up for an intensely boring 7 hour drive south through Wyoming. Similarly to the landscape in New Mexico and Arizona, the ground here was covered with lush green grass and dotted with pronghorn.

We stopped for dinner in the town of Diamondville, the quintessential American town which we found out later was built on its coal mine. When we finally exited the interstate to complete the drive in to Dutch John and the Flaming Gorge area in Utah, the darkness had set in making the twisting, undulating road more of a rollercoaster than we had expected. Had the road been less well marked, we would have likely had to pull over for the night. Luckily, we reached our campsite in the dark without any trouble, leaving me to try to sleep through my excitement for the fishing adventure that would begin the next day.

6/3/11 – Yellowstone National Park

Vintage tour- "motor coaches"

Great Falls on the Yellowstone River

Finally able to hit the road a bit earlier, we went east to see the great falls of the Yellowstone River on the eastern side of the park. As we arrived, so too did a charter bus full of geriatric camera jockeys- each one racing us to the picturesque overlook. As if choreographed by some subconscious bucket-list drive, they packed shoulder to shoulder on the point moving over only enough to allow the next couple to take each other’s photo standing in front of the thundering waterfall over half a mile away. With the combination of the stout wind, the height of our vantage point over the canyon, the sharp cold mist in the air, and the dizzying swirl of people- I felt breathless and faint as I shouldered my way up to the edge to see the falls.
Even from such a great distance, the falls made the ground shake and filled the air with deep chest-rattling bass notes and icy spray. Having never seen Niagra Falls, this place instantly topped my list of epic waterfalls.

As quickly as we had arrived, Sam and I raced back to the car to beat the tour bus to the next overlook. We figured that if we hurried, we could likely hold a lead along the canyon road ahead of this bus, but it was unlikely that we could ever out-slow that group.

Each successive point proceeded to amaze us with the might of this river and the steep walls of the canyon. At Inspiration Point, the overlook told the story of an earthquake in the 1970’s centered over 20 miles away that shook the canyon so hard that the old platform of the overlook which used to extend another 50 feet into the canyon had broken loose and tumbled down thousands of feet to the bottom. This placard and the cracked pavement of the area served as stark reminders that even here, some 40 miles from the nearest geyser basin in a place devoid of geyser steam, the ground was still very much alive.

Our plan for the day was to drive south from this point and see the remaining sights as we circled back past the Old Faithfull Lodge and return to our campsite stopping only to fish the Nez Pierce River. Our next stop was the Mud Volcano- a grouping of active sites where the heat of the earth found its escape by boiling up through pools of mud instead of the spectral pools of clear water found elsewhere in the park. One of these formations known as the dragons mouth, was a type of geyser on its side that when it would burp steam deep within the cave at its entrance, would cause waves to roll outward creating sounds reminiscent of a writhing dragon deep within its lair.

Before we stopped at the West Thumb general Store, we swung by the West Thumb Geyser Basin- one of my favorite sites in the park. On the banks of Yellowstone Lake, this large area of activity bubbled boiling hot and crystal clear water directly into the lake. One of the most fascinating features was Fisherman's Cone- a small geyser feature that stuck up only about a foot above lake level and insulated from the frigid lake water still bubbled and boiled with hot water. According to our literature, in the early 1900's, fishermen- and before them, Native Americans, would boil the fish just caught while still on the line, while standing on the narrow rim of this geyser! When the park opened, it became a popular tourist attraction to pose with a fish on the line above this geyser while wearing a chef's hat. At one point, it's eruptions were so unpredictable that some fishermen were badly burned.

Fisherman's Cone

We continued south to see the banks of Yellowstone Lake and pick up some supplies for a campfire that night. From the general store in Lake Village, the expanse of ice that covered the lake stretched out almost endlessly. Aside from being the largest body of water I had ever seen covered by ice, watching the gusty wind sweep snow across the surface like dry sand down a beach, shed light on just how massive this crater-formed-lake really was. As much as 430 feet deep, the lake contained multiple wrecks which according to a nearby ranger were rarely explored due to the high altitude here. After snapping a few pictures for the benefit of my father who had only ever seen the lake during the summer time, we wandered around the gift shop to find our smore- supplies. Halfway through shopping, the power went out, revealing yet again how truly primitive the infrastructure was within the park. Frequent power outages have plagued the park since it began (side note, when the Old Faithfull Lodge was first constructed, it was designed and wired for electric lights) and continued through present day. We had experienced this the night before when the power to our campground went off for hours in the middle of washing our dishes.

Yellowstone Lake covered in Ice!

As we rounded the southern tip of the figure 8 road and headed back in the direction of camp, I prepared mentally for fishing on the Nez Pierce Creek- a tributary of the Firehole River. Due to such high snow pack, the resulting runoff was causing almost every river in the park to run at flood stage. I had been speaking to every fisherman I could for the past two days on the Firehole to see what had been working, yet everyone I talked to hadn’t had any luck. My guess was that by seeking out the smaller tributaries, I could escape the shoulder to shoulder conditions on the Firehole, and hopefully find some of the trout that venture further upstream in high water.

After having seen so much of the park from wooden walkways and behind metal railings- hiking upstream away from the throngs of other fishermen was probably my favorite part of the park. Walking just out of sight of the road made you realize what a miniscule portion of the land had actually been developed here, yet that was the only part that most people would ever see made my little excursion feel very special. On the recommendation from the gentlemen at the fly shop, I hike upstream across two or three meadows to find a promising stretch of stream before I even started fishing.

Fly fishing with wild buffalo

Every minute I was out, the solitude soaked in like the first rays of sun after a month of rain. No cars, no pets, and no screaming kids. Catching as few fish as I did, it’s a good thing I was enjoying myself. Few fish- would technically be an overstatement. I caught one fish about six inches long, and released the little rainbow before even bothering to take a picture of it.

After a couple of hours, having finished her nap, Sam came out and found me. Thankfully, she brought the jacket I had neglected to carry and a snack as well. We walked and fished slowly back towards the car, pausing for a while when a group of buffalo came to join us for an afternoon snack at the streamside. Feeling like a page from some fly-fisherman’s magazine, Sam got a few epic pictures of me fishing with the powerful creatures grazing nearby. Being sure to keep our distance, they paid us no more attention than a glance, as we posed no threat by ourselves. They were all shedding their winter coats, leaving tufts of fur behind them- they seemed almost docile as they lumbered through the grass, snorting and munching.

Sam tries to adopt a pet

Reaching the bridge where the car was parked, I executed the ritualistic hopping dance to strip from my waders and boots without covering them or myself with mud and sand- we packed up and headed for camp. Perhaps there exists a better way to keep one’s waders and boots clean upon exiting the river, yet when I asked the folks at Parks Fly Shop in Gardiner, they could only tell me that the solution was to Not try to live out of the back of the same vehicle you used to go fishing.

Sam pays tribute to Capt. Morgan

That night at dusk as we prepared to go to sleep, I was making water on the last few embers of our modest campfire when a wayward pair of juvenile male buffalo decided to wander through our campsite. Trundling slowly across the camp a mere 10 yards from where we were standing, their musky smell filled our nostrils and their snorting and breathing; our ears. Moving slowly, it was all we could do to stand perfectly still and watch the powerful creatures eat their way across our backyard. The takeaway from this encounter being of course, should you wish to avoid buffalo in your campsite, then do not urinate on the coals of your campfire.