A foolish climb, and other tales

The other Dale and I left early yesterday to fish some small streams to the south. There was a fog bank on the Henry's Fork as we drove along it.

The first stream we fished was Bitch Creek. I don't know how it got it's name but I'm betting a female dog was involved. It's quite a famous little creek because there is a trout fly named for it.


Downstream from the access point


Upstream view. I'll pass on the obvious joke and just say Bitch Creek was not fishing well yesterday. A line of brown water against one bank indicated, possibly, a spud farmer upstream was over irrigating. We wanted to fish the Fall River later, toward evening, so we didn't want to drive back to camp. So we decided to drive a half hour further south, just to take a look at Jackson Hole from the mountain pass overlook.

Once again, a clearer day would have helped the long distance scenery. We still had time to kill, and above us was a mountain that went up, I donno, maybe another five hundred feet above the pass we drove thru and parked in, and at the top was a hump of snow, and surely a pretty view. It looked like an athlete could have scrambled up the slope in five minutes. I thought I might do it in a half hour. However there was a trail that looked like it curved part way around, at an angle, to get to the top. Dale wasn't interested but encouraged me to go.

I'm more embarrassed then proud of the pictures and story that follow.

A friend once said she tended to think the difference between the nouns " hike" and "walk" was the former had a vertical aspect to it, but she said she didn't really think that was really correct. To me, the word hike has a more wilderness connotation to it, and calls for preparation. It would be a bit much to claim I was hiking with my dog around the neighborhood because I came prepared with a poop bag, but otherwise, I think a guy out for a walk is just a guy taking a hike without being properly prepared.

So, I took a walk up this mountain yesterday . . . .

It looked so short and easy. I took my camera and walking stick, nothing more. Well, the trail was less steep but longer then I expected. It went way around to the south of the mountain I wanted to climb, and then it climbed over and back down a smaller peak, then finally wound its way up the west side to the snow hump.


Here was a snowy patch much lower then the summit I first saw. A mountain biker passed me and then carried his bike over the snow.

I passed some impressively large pines.

I finally made it. The hump of snow at the summit (just below it actually) was bigger then I though.

That's my 4 1/2 foot walking stick leaning on it. This is July, I wonder how deep the snow was in March?


View to the northwest, which couldn't be seen from below. Very pretty.




View due north across the road


This sort of illustrates the extent of my idiocy. The truck is parked on the side of that road, to the left where the mountain is blocking the view of it. But there are a couple of cars on that road, just to give you prospective. It's a long way down there. By this point I was beyond thirsty, and feeling pretty ill, I assume the combined effects of dehydration, altitude and exertion. I won't even guess at the length of the trail, but it took me about an hour and a quarter. Hell, I'm guessing on the time, because I didn't bring my phone. That's right, no way to call for help if I had been in a little worse shape and needed it.

Walking back down along the trail would have been a little faster then coming up was, and mostly downhill, but not entirely (remember the other peak I mentioned). I thought of taking the trail part way but trying to cut across and skip that peak, but then realized I could add getting lost to my problems. I had seen a sign at the trail head asking hikers to stay on the trail to avoid contributing to the slope erosion process, but I was feeling like I might have been in a bit of foolish danger. I decided to go down a much more direct route, not quite straight down the slope pictured above, but an angled route down a less steep part just a little south, connecting to the trail about where the mountain biker is pictured. I could see the trail crossing below me, so, no chance of getting lost. Walking down the steep slope with a woozy head seemed better then the alternatives. I used the stick carefully and lost my footing only once, getting my butt grass stained like it always was when I was six years old.

Obviously I made it down safely. Dale wasn't worried; I think his estimate of how long it would take was much closer then mine. I had water in the truck, and a half hour later I felt some better. Now I just need to find a nature advocacy group or something to donate some money to, to make amends for the erosion I left with every sliding boot print down that slope.


Enough shame, here's some funny. It's good of the state to provide facilities at access points for fishermen, but I'm glad I didn't need to use this one. If you're a tower in Pizza, it's traditional and cool to lean. If you're an outhouse in Idaho, stand up straight!

Wildlife sighting, woohoo! Okay it's just a ruffed grouse or some such chicken-sized member of the partridge family. (Do you hear bad 70s pop in your head right now?) She crossed a little country road in front of my truck, with a whole brood of tiny chicks. She had them shepherded into the grass before I could get the camera out, but one is visible in the shadow near her tail.




This little guy lectured me for interrupting him while he was digging up a cache of pine nuts. He was half the size of a MO squirrel. I don't know if he was full grown or not.

I have seen some bigger wildlife, but no pictures. I saw some elk in the distance while fishing, and several mule deer, and a moose right on the side of the highway while driving. It ran along with me a few yards to a gap in the vegetation, then turned out of sight. I think it was a juvenile. It appeared donkey sized and a bull moose is more like a Clydesdale. I remember it was darker then I expected, black or almost that dark. At first, seen from the back, I thought it was as cow.

Some of my fishing kit laid out. The most important item is the water bottle, followed by the sun block and bug dope. The smallest bottle is Gink, which is applied to dry flies to keep them floating no matter how much water they soak in their feathers. Gink will float anything. It will float a lead split shot line weight. If there'd been a drop of Gink on that Titanic boat, that movie would have had a happy ending. It's great stuff.

The big flies in that one box are streamers. Middle box, various mayfly imitations. Almost empty box, caddis flies.

A couple of people have asked to see pictures of the fish I'm catching. Yes, I am catching fish, maybe almost a hundred so far. I said before, I counted 30 before lunch that one day with the guide. I've caught four kinds of trout: rainbow, brown, brookies, and the native cutthroats. Also mountain whitefish, and suckers everyone laughs at.

So why no pictures? Four reasons. First, conservation -- I'm not killing any fish and the best thing to do is not even lift them out of the water, just remove the hook and let them swim. Second, I don't want to risk dunking the camera so I don't take it fishing. Third, I'm usually fishing alone. The other Dale was often within hailing distance but not snapshot distance, and we're both fishing, not standing with a camera waiting for the other guy to catch a fish. Vacation's too short. Finally, I haven't caught a really big fish and don't expect to. I keep telling myself that so I'm not disappointed. I caught a really big fish in 1995, a 20 inch rainbow. Tommy the guide made it clear that's a big fish by western standards, too. I have a picture at home, maybe I can scan and add it later.

I was unnecessarily proud of that fish. Catching it was pure luck. We took pictures, and then I killed and ate it. Mounts were ten dollars an inch and I was a low wage earner back then. If I do manage to catch a bigger fish then that here, I will desperately want a picture, even if it was a self portrait taken with one hand while holding the fish up (irresponsibly) with the other. But, from a conservation standpoint, the big fish are the egg layers and it's even more important to treat them gently. Besides, the camera will be in the truck and I'll be fishing alone. My biggest fish so far this trip was a brown trout about 17 inches. I've caught several over 14 inches, which are considered really nice fish.

John Gierach has written some 15 books full of personal essays and fishing stories, but he's only told one story I can think of, about himself catching a heroically huge fish. He was alone, and under-gunned with a small fly rod catching mostly small brookies, and then he hooked a large brookie. Brookies are his favorite kind of fish, and it's rare to find a really big one.

The lunker ran downstream in a heavy current and he damaged the rod ("the only proof I had!"). He wrote that he had a camera in his pocket, but no way to dig it out for even an awkward one handed shot, without risking the health of the fish. After he released it, he at down on the bank, and meditated on the experience, and looked around, and solidified that glorious moment in his mind. He thought of it as a mental painting, and he name the story, and the book, "Still Life with Brook Trout." One such story in fifteen books. To me, it illustrates the proper attitude of gratitude. He says of bad fishing trips "The catching may be poor, but the fishing is always good" and he quotes a friend: "We had a successful trip. We said we were going fishing, and we did."

So, I said I was going fishing, and I did. Here's a picture to prove it:


The other Dale snapped that at the Buffalo access before he put the camera in the truck and picked up his rod. It's posed; I had no expectation of catching a fish right there.



Camp cookery: I still haven't eaten a restaurant meal this trip. I've done several lunches and suppers on the river bank, consisting of tuna from a pouch or beef jerky, crackers, and dried fruit, and I eat cold cereal for breakfast. But I cook one meal a day at least.

The boy scouts taught me to wash dishes in camp using two big vats of hot water, one to wash, one to rinse. I remember it took much more time and firewood to heat the dishwater then to cook the meal. I also remember the rinse water got soapy pretty quick. Obviously I have fewer dishes. I heat a coffee pot full of water to start with, and have a jug of cold water handy. I pour some cold water in the dishpan and add hot water to make it quite warm, and put the dishes in. Then I fill the coffee pot back to the top with cold water, and put it back on the fire or burner. Wash the dishes, then rinse them under "running" hot water by pouring out of the coffee pot. I wipe off the top of the big cooler so I can use it for a drainboard.

I moved camp today, and the above picture is from the old camp. In the new camp I will have to put the dishes and cooler away inside the truck as soon as I'm done, along with the food and all the cooking and eating utensils, because of . . . .

My new camp is ten miles north of the little town of West Yellowstone, Montana, which is at the west entrance to Yellowstone Park. The camp is in Gallatin National Forest, on the shore of Lake Hebgen. And it's all covered with lodgepole pine forest.


My new campsite

I was there only briefly today, to stake out my site and drop off some (non food related) gear. Then I drove in to West (as the locals call the town) and visited a fly shop, then went fishing in the Firehole River inside the park. I took some pictures but the camera battery died so I can't upload those fresh ones. (All these pictures were uploaded to my laptop last night).

From what I saw of it, the campsite is beautiful and peaceful. the lake is pretty and quiet, and has trout in it but that's not my kind of fishing. Ya need a boat or else fish the banks early in the morning, and I have other plans for the early mornings; that's when the action starts on the rivers too. The campsite lacks wifi, and flush toilets and showers, but I don't care about any of that. There are wifi hotspots and showers in West, and I have to drive thru West twice a day to get from the camp to the rivers. THAT is the one thing I dislike about the campsite, is that it's too far from the action. That's not an easy quick ten miles, and then there's sometimes going to be traffic in West (it's a tourist trap town like Branson) and traffic in the park. I will decide later if it's worth looking for a closer place.

So, I don't have the endurance to fish from first light to last light, especially when those two blessed events are 17 hours apart. I'll keep the laptop in the truck, and upload pictures and write stuff during breaks, and stop here at a hotspot every day or two and update the blog.

A few more pictures before I drive to camp and go to bed:


The aptly named Big Spring, headwaters of the Henry's Fork. That's a whole heap of water coming out of the ground.


And finally a pair of wildflower pictures I missed on the previous post. Good night.