Yellowstone Trip Day 1 & 2
September 11, 2008
Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park
We stopped in Boise for lunch and a visit to Cabela’s. I needed to pick up a few extra flies as well as some new lightweight wading boots. Our final leg of the Wednesday journey took us to Idaho Falls where we rolled into the Red Lion about 8:30PM. After some repacking and fly organizing – and some Dominos Pizza – we hit the hay. 5AM came pretty fast! But the free buffet breakfast – our last real food – was quite tasty.
Drive to the park was gorgeous. We watched the sunrise over the Tetons, crossed and followed the Henry’s Fork, skirted briefly through Montana and rolled into Yellowstone at 8:25AM.
Then, our average speed dropped precipitously! And not just because the speed limit is just 45 MPH. But because of all the tourists driving slowly and pulling off to see elk, buffalo etc. Sure, those are nice to see, but we were in a hurry to get to the Mammoth Junction Ranger Station for our mandatory back country orientation and permit check-in. We knew we’d see buffalo much closer on our hike/camp. (In fact, I just took a break from journaling to take photos of a buffalo 50 yds from camp!)
A Mammoth, we checked in, watched the 20 minute back country orientation video (and actually learned something), bought fishing licenses and a map, and got back on the road to the Slough Creek trailhead. The backcountry ranger told us about a couple bear incidents about one to four miles up the valley from where we were going to be camping, but no one was hurt. The bear just messed up a couple tents in the middle of the day when the people were gone.
Then we left and hiked up – and up – and up. In fact the bulk of the elevation gain on our six mile hike was right off the bat. Which really really sucks! The weather was nice – not too hot or cold – so that definitely helped.
On the way in we met several people. A young kid (18?) from Michigan was hiking in for the day. He’d spent several weeks at the park with his father. He walked with us for over half the way. Jason met a man who ended up being a Director for Cabela’s. He was pleased when the man confirmed that a Cabela’s would be going into Yakima in 2010. And we chatted for a few minutes during our break with two Yellowstone rangers who were hiking into the ranger cabin a mile past our camp. They were with the Bear Unit and were going up to haze the bear we’d heard was causing trouble. They had a shotgun with cracker rounds and a fake tent that is "electrified" to teach the bear to knock it off! It was comforting to know they’d be close by and were specifically there to haze the bear.
The creek is actually a pretty good hike down from the camp. Probably 15-20 minutes through some high grass. Jason and I went down stream and Geoff and Scott went up.
I worked some faster water with no luck and walked up to a slower stretch that I thought wouldn’t be very productive. In fact, I was going to skip it. Until I saw a little sip of of a trout. Then another and another. I sat down on a rocky beach to change flies and watch the water. I switched to a green bodied, small mayfly because one had landed on my leg earlier when I was rigging up. It did the trick and one of my early casts into this pod I hooked and landed a 13"-14" Yellowstone Cutthroat.
After dinner, I quickly called it a night, crawled into my bag wearing 2-3 warm layers and fell asleep. I was tired after a day of hiking and fishing.
