Wade Rivers Wild Tramps

Goodbye Blue Sky

2012-01-22T13:51:00.014-05:00

Joseph Vincent Paterno

1926 - 2012

May a million shooting stars illuminate your journey.

Hearts are heavy this morning in the Penn State family and the world now spins a little slower on it's axis. A life-long constant has been taken away from many of us after the indescribable circumstances of the past 2 grueling months. Thank you Joe for all you did for your fellow man, your community and college football. I've learned more valuable life lessons from you than I can put into words right now, and I will never forget it. In a not so small way you made the world a better place to be, and when you come right down to it that's what it's all about. I can only hope the healing powers of time come quickly for the Paterno family.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

One Last White Out

Beaver Stadium - January 22, 2012

Please consider signing the petition to rename Beaver Stadium in honor of Joe Paterno:

Paterno Field

Kind of Blue

2011-11-07T12:35:00.045-05:00

The Pinnacle

Prelude: There is a lot of sorrow and heartache in this state right now. A group of underprivileged and vulnerable children have had their innocence taken away from them in a particularly horrible fashion. Everyone here is heartsick, confused, sad and angry and, I suppose, each person is sort of dealing with it in their own way right now. I did what I almost always do when I'm confused and heartbroken - I went for a long walk in a beautiful forest. That's what this post is about. If you are looking for vitriolic rants, righteous indignation, conspiracy theories, strident proclamations or endless verbal traffic jams you might want to click on over somewhere else. You won't find it here. I endeavor to be more of a "dawning of the age of reason" kind of guy...Be good to each other, people.

The Hike

Blue Mountain, the prominent ridge that forms the eastern edge of the Appalachian mountain range in Pennsylvania, has many outcrops, water gaps and vistas but none of them have quite the dramatic viewshed as does the Pinnacle in Berks County. Flat Rock vista and Doubling Gap in the Cumberland Valley are a close second. Both, the Pinnacle and Flat Rock vistas, are only accessible by putting on your walking shoes and climbing the flank of Blue Mountain virtually from the valley floor, and they are very popular with hikers. Despite having bagged the Flat Rock many more years ago than I care to admit, I have never been to the Pinnacle. Seems like everyone else I know has been there except for me. That is until yesterday.

Blue Mountain here is criss-crossed with hiking trails and there's more than one trail that leads up to the Pinnacle. I opted for the easiest approach, a 9 mile round trip with approximately 1,000' of elevation gain from the trailhead at the Hamburg Reservoir. You'll want your hiking boots for this hike because of the rocky nature of the trail in some sections and the general topography.

Hamburg Reservoir

A brilliantly blue Sunday in early November sets the stage for a surprisingly scenic and rewarding hike to the top of Blue Mountain via Furnace Creek and it's ravine, but first we traverse the north side of the Hamburg Reservoir after a short climb and a bridged stream crossing from the parking lot.

Green is the Colour

The trail then closely follows Furnace Creek as it tumbles it's way down Blue Mountain through a steep sided ravine with a maze of rhododendrons and hemlocks. This area is home to plenty of eastern cougars, copperheads and timber rattlers so make lots of noise and carry a big stick.

November Road

An abandoned but well graded and protracted forest road makes for easy walking through the thickets to the top of the mountain.

Lost in My Own Backyard

The day started off a little on the cool side with temperatures in the upper 30's, but it eventually warmed up into the 50's. It was especially chilly here in the shaded ravine of Furnace Creek but the steady climbing kept you warm enough to the point where it was soon time to shed some layers. By the time I reached the ridge top I was only wearing a thong and flip flops.

Blue Sky and Hemlocks

An intoxicating combination on a golden autumn day.

Furnace Creek

Water is plentiful here, between the stream itself and 1/2 a dozen or so freestone springs gushing forth and feeding the watercourse it's all around you. In fact, the entire Furnace Creek watershed including Hamburg Reservoir is part of the water supply for the town of Hamburg. It's even designated as a Class A wild brook trout stream by the Pennsylvania Fish Commission but fishing here is not allowed because of the water supply thingy.

The Great Valley

After a couple of miles of fairly level ridgetop walking you come out here, my first view of the Great Valley from the Pinnacle. Looking south.

Canopy of Blue

Looking southwest here, the town of Hamburg is discreetly tucked behind the secondary ridge in the background.

The Pinnacle

It's more than just the apex of hiking in here southeastern Pennsylvania, according to my good friend, kindred spirit and all around babe magnet, Glen G it's a great spot to pick up hiking chicks. You can even check each other for ticks when you get home. All I got was a face full of pepper spray.

Autumnal Display

The Pinnacle trails are popular for a good reason. If you're the anti-social loner type (and we all know how they turn out) you would be better off avoiding weekends with nice weather or beating the crowds by getting an early start in the morning, which is what I did.

The Nadir

Goodbye blue sky.

Billie Holiday - God Bless the Child

Kind of Blue

Falling Waters

2011-10-01T07:58:00.004-05:00

Kitchen Creek Headwaters

The Glens Natural Area in Ricketts Glen State Park is now world famous for it's Waterfalls Trail which passes 22 wild and free flowing waterfalls in a pair of steep sided ancient glens complete with old growth timber and wild brook trout. The last time I hiked this trail was 30 years ago when I was in my mid twenties, now that I'm in my mid fifties I decided I was long over due for a return visit. The record rains that poured down on us here in Pennsylvania during the month of September only underscored that notion.

Never have I had a more difficult time getting a proper exposure and adequate depth of field on flowing water, so I'll apologize in advance for the sucky shots. Sunny skies combined with a dark ravine and raging whitewater made for super high contrasts and challenging shooting conditions. As a result I lost a lot of detail in the highlights of the cascading water. I know, I suck. So be it, I enjoyed this hike tremendously and it definitely won't be another 30 years before my next visit. Hopefully the ambient light will be better when I do.

Mohawk Falls

Small scale lumber baron Colonel Bruce Ricketts purchased this land in 1868 to harvest the timber but soon learned from local trout fisherman that the two branches of upper Kitchen Creek head-cut their own deep gorges in a series of impressive waterfalls shaded by giant pines, oaks and hemlocks and then united at Waters Meet. Col. Ricketts built trails up into the glens and they soon became known as the Glens Natural Area.

Kitchen Creek

A member of the Wyoming Historical and Geographical Society, Col. Ricketts named many of the waterfalls after American Indian tribes.He also named a few after his family and friends. At one time he owned or controlled around 80,000 acres of land in this area.

Oneida Falls

At one time, back in the 1930's, the Glens were even considered for national park development but World War II brought an end to that plan and in 1942 the Ricketts family sold the Glens to the Commonwealth for a state park, which it became in 1944. The Glens became a natural area in 1969.

Ganoga Glen Trail

I first hiked through these glens way back in 1980 and they look pretty much the same today as they did back then excepting that the area seems to be a little more popular today. Even the old gravel trailhead parking lot at Lake Rose has been paved, expanded and modern restrooms have been added. Back in 1980 you could count the number of other hikers you would meet in a day on one hand. On this day, a chilly weekday in late September, I stopped counting at around 20. You would be smart to avoid popular holiday weekends when hiking here, and don't attempt this steep, wet, rocky trail in the winter without your ice axe and crampons.

Ganoga Falls Precipice

Ganoga Falls is the highest of the 22 falls with a single vertical drop of 94 feet. Ganoga is an Iroquois word that means "water on the mountain". Kitchen Creek was an impressive sight to see as well as hear with it's waters still raging from recent rains.

Ganoga Falls from the Trail

The colors of the fall foliage here in the Endless Mountains are running a little behind Potter County in intensity. The leaves here are just starting to color up but they should be at their peak in another two weeks or so.

Ganoga Falls

I don't know who actually put these stepping stones in place (possibly Col. Rickett's trail builders?) but they were a welcome relief on this steep and rugged trail. The vertical drop from the Lake Rose trailhead to the Waters Meet is about 1,000'

Ganoga Falls Plunge Pool

There was so much mist and spray coming off the falls at this volume that you had to constantly clean your camera lens and keep your camera body dry with a bandanna. Even at this distance. This is where you want to be on a hot, humid summer day in Pennsylvania.

Ganoga Glen Trail

You'll want your hiking boots for this trail, a challenging 7.2 mile loop trail if done in it's entirety so make sure your in good shape and leave your flip flops back at the car. Every year hikers fall and are injured and have to be rescued by one means or another. I would imagine that rescue here is very time consuming, arduous and expensive.

Whitewater and Black Forest

The elegant sound of the flowing water filled the entire gorge and was impossible to ignore since the trail runs so close to the stream.

Silking Water Over Red Shale

Kitchen Creek

The fly fisherman in me even spotted quite a few tan colored mayflies about a size #18 emerging from the turbulent flows, and at one point an honest to goodness nice sized brook trout jumped completely clear of the foaming froth while chasing an emerger. Downstream of the Waters Meet, Kitchen Creek is classified as a Class A wild trout stream by the PFBC. It's all a moot point though since fishing is not allowed here in the glens. But it's still nice to know they're there.

Delaware Falls

As falls Kitchen Creek, so falls Delaware Falls

Sidehilling in the Glens

Down through the Allegheny Front, this trail has to be one of the most magnificent hikes in Pennsylvania, if not the entire East.

Mohican Falls

For my money, one of the prettiest falls in the park. A beautiful and timeless scene.

Mohican Falls

The last of the Mohican Falls shots.

Stepping Stones

The sheer volume of water in this creek was unbelievable for such a small first order stream, and the stone steps and well graded trail bring you right up close to the edge of the waterfalls and creek.

Fast Water in Early Autumn

Dead Wood #1

Dead Wood #2

The Waters Meet

The junction of the Ganoga Glen and Glen Leigh branches of Kitchen Creek. Ganoga Glen is on the left and Glen Leigh comes in on the right. The pleasant lassitude that the water induces here makes this one of the better spots in Pennsylvania to enjoy your sack lunch. Which is exactly what I did this day.

Jupiter Rising

2011-09-20T20:22:00.013-05:00

Carter Camp - Potter County, Pa.

Fall has unofficially arrived here in central Pennsylvania, so Glen and I took our annual fall camping trip up to the dark skies of Cherry Springs State Park in Potter County this past weekend. The weather was refreshingly cool and crisp but the streams were a little on the low side in the Kettle Creek and First Fork drainages, so instead of fishing we cranked out a few glorious miles on the Susquehannock Trail where it drops down into Hogback Hollow and the headwaters of Cross Fork Creek. Cloudy Coudy skies moved in at night and put an end to any celestial observations we had planned for the two evenings that we were camped at Cherry Springs. It was a three dog night, overnight lows dipped into the upper 30's while the daytime highs barely made it out of the 60's. I barely made it out of the 60's myself, but that's neither here nor there right now. The only angling we did was for a brief couple of hours on Penns Creek at Poe Paddy on our way home. Penns was in excellent shape for autumnal angling and flowing at about 550 CFS when we were there. We caught a few (stonefly nymphs) and we missed a few. The highlight of the whole trip was spying a sow black bear and three tiny cubs suddenly dart across Poe Valley Road while my camera was securely stowed in it's camera bag. What else is new?

Cherry Springs Campground

Cherry Springs Campsite

Sugar Maple

Cloudy around Coudy

Cherry Springs Fire Tower Cabin

Susquehannock Trail at the Cherry Springs Fire Tower

Hogback Hollow

Beaver Meadows

Highland Hardwoods on the Susquehannock Trail

Cherry Springs Vista

Cherry Springs Sunset

Dark Skies

Pine Creek at Slate Run

Pine Creek Around Jersey Mills

Floating on Pine Creek

Penns Creek

Star Party

CCC - Cherry Springs State Park

Thanks for looking.

Brain Damage

2011-09-08T22:32:00.005-05:00

One of my very favorite Hampshire fly fishermen, Roger Waters, in his own brilliant words...

Lets hope these God forsaken storms soon pass and the hydrographs, along with our lives, return to some semblance of normalcy and we're all back on the water in time to enjoy a glorious autumnal display from Mother Nature. Well perhaps not all of us at the same time.

And if the band your in starts playing different tunes, I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Enjoy.

Young Men and Fire

2011-08-21T10:14:00.020-05:00

August 'Forty-Nine, north Montana
The hottest day on record, the forest tinder dry
Lightning strikes in the mountains
I was crew chief at the jump base, I prepared the boys to fly

-Cold Missouri Waters by James Keelaghan

Big Salmon Lake -Bob Marshall Wilderness

It's late August in the northern Rockies and, just like clockwork, fire season has kicked into high gear. This years record breaking snowpack has only moderately attenuated the number and severity of natural and man made fires across the inter-mountain West. Back in the "Bob", several spot fires have started up along the South Fork of the Flathead River from Big Prairie to Spotted Bear but the one that caught my eye the most was the fire that broke out on the north shore of Big Salmon Lake. It's burning up slope in the lakeshore area right behind John Williams in the above photo. It grew to 2,600 acres on Friday night. Given the prevailing weather conditions in northern Montana at this time of the year, these fires will probably burn until the fall rains come. Please keep the young men on the fire lines and the smokejumpers in your thoughts and prayers. At best, it's dangerous back breaking labor. At worst, a fire burning upslope through dry timber in steep mountainous terrain can be powerfully persuasive, unrepentant and unremorseful.

Daily Inter Lake Article

InciWeb Report

Snippet:
"Rapid spread up and across the slope to the northeast during the last half of the burning period. Significant spotting up to 1/4 mile and sustained crown runs with wind-driven and terrain induced spread. 8/20 fire making small runs to top of ridge, rolling material down and then runs repeating - areas of reburn occuring - mix of ground a crown fire."

Big Salmon Lake from the Mud Lake Fire Tower (USFS)

Guaged the fire, I'd seen bigger

So I ordered them to sidehill and we'd fight it from below

We'd have our backs to the river

We'd have it licked by morning even if we took it slow

But the fire crowed, jumped the valley just ahead

There was no way down, headed for the ridge instead

Too big to fight it, we'd have to fight that slope instead

Flames one step behind above the cold Missouri waters

South Fork Flathead River

The sky turned red, smoke was boiling

Two hundred yards to safety, death was fifty yards behind

I don't know why I just thought it

Struck a match to waist high grass running out of time

Tried to tell them, step into this fire I set

We can't make it, this only chance you'll get

But they cursed me, ran for the rocks above instead

I laid face down and prayed above the cold Missouri waters

Salmon Forks Camp

And when I rose, like a phoenix

In that world reduced to ashes there were none but two survived

I stayed that night and one day after

Carried bodies to the river, wondered how I stayed alive

Thirteen stations of the cross to mark their fall

I've had my say, I'll confess to nothing more

I'll join them now, those that left me long before

Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters

Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri shore...

Larry the Packer

"We got some action out there, boys"

Flathead Burn

Bob Marshall Wilderness

Fire to these northern temperate forests is like rain to a rain forest.

The lyrics to James Keelaghan's Cold Missouri Waters are based on the story of the Mann Gulch Fire as told by Norman Maclean's novella; Young Men and Fire. Do yourself a favor and pick up copies of both. They are the perfect compliment to each other. You can thank me later.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

2011-07-16T00:35:00.019-05:00

Interstellar Overdrive

Clear your appointment book, polish up your big glass, and make sure your possibles bag is well stocked. This year's Black Forest Star Party at Cherry Springs State Park is scheduled for August 26-28, 2011 rain or shine. Our own Cherry Springs State Park in Potter County is one of the finest dark sky locations in the light polluted East Coast for both, amateur and expert, astronomers alike.

The above image of the California Nebula in Perseus, captured by Joe Golias at the 2009 Black Forest Star Party, is just one example of the type of imagery that is available with a fast imaging system from the dark skies in the area around First Fork of the Sinnemahoning Watershed in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Cherry Springs Dark Skies Association

Pennsylvania's Dark Secret

Cherry Springs State Park

Philadelphia Inquirer:
Heavenly View

In the meantime, turn off all the lights, kick back and relax and enjoy some serious mutha-lovin shit. A young David Gilmour and Roger Waters as they were about to embark on the peak of their collective artistic careers. Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii was recorded after the release of Meddle but before they went into the studio to record The Dark Side of the Moon.

iT's A miND sCrAmBLeR.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Syd Barrett

Wish you were here, Syd.

The Summertime Blues

2011-06-28T08:57:00.033-05:00

As in the blue winged olives of summer; Drunella lata, a blue winged olive mayfly worthy of it's common name. Two weeks ago at this time Penns Creek was a muddy, chocolate, debris laden mess to the tune of 1,100 CFS. Today Glen and I found it in perfect shape for some early summer trout hunting. Your time would be better spent trying to solve the Mad Hatter's old riddle of "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" then to spend it trying to figure out the mysteries of a magnificent Penns Creek.

The water levels, about 300-280 CFS, were finally low enough for good dry fly fishing and yet still flowing at a good enough clip for some exciting nymph fishing too. The water temperature at Cherry Run was 62F at 2 pm. The ambient air temp. topped out at 75F and the skies were heavily overcast with an occasional light drizzle. Almost perfect conditions for a fishable hatch of drunella mayflies on this late June day.

We both got a late start this morning because of an all-nighter we pulled at a local, after-hours Amish strip club. Glen (aka the Mayor of Penns Valley) has VIP status and seems to know everyone there. He got me in for free. We then proceeded to put a hurting on a few nice Penns Creek fish before breaking for lunch. I fished an assortment of small nymphs and Glen pretty much stayed with dry flies like his deadly Isonychia comparaduns along with some caddis and cahills.

There were some sporadic rises in the slow water sections when we first started but I ignored those in favor of nymphing some delectable pocketwater around the different channels and small islands that are found in this section of the creek. Slate drakes, stoneflies, cahills and a dun colored caddis had been hatching sporadically all morning long and, as far as we could tell, most of the other anglers either stayed at home or had hung up their gear for the year. The nymph fishing turned out to be pretty decent under the leaden skies but the real fun was yet to come. I had waited all spring for this kind of consistent fishing on Penns Creek and now my patience was about to be rewarded.

After breaking for lunch we returned to the stream presumably for more of the same routine but while nymphing a favorite abbreviated pool in a nearby side channel I noticed a nice rise under a leaning willow tree, then another, and then a few small #16 olive colored mayflies joined the #12 Isonychias already in the air. The Penns Creek hatch matching game was now officially on. I made my way down to the Blue Rock Hole and for the next couple of hours I had the whole pool to myself as waves of Drunella lata emergers and duns poured out of the riffles. The trout were up and on them in a heartbeat and you could see their crimson flanks rising up through the water column from 60 feet away. Glen encountered the same kind of dry fly action on another large classic Penns Creek pool about 1/2 mile upstream.

As typical on these limestone streams, few fish preferred the emerging stage of this mayfly while other wanted the freshly hatched adult duns. A lot of the emerging nymphs were taken in the top 12 inches of the water column. It was my favorite kind of fishing; challenging, mentally engaging and rewarding all at the same time. The fish were unbelievably fat and healthy and beautifully colored up after chowing down virtually unmolested all spring under the protection of high water.

It doesn't get any better than a pleasant June day up in the Ralph W. Abel Memorial Glen with Glen G. The hatch went on for close to 4 hours under the cloud cover, from about 2 pm to 6 pm, after which it kind of petered out but you could still find a few persistent risers right up until we left the stream around 7 pm to head back to the strip club.

The following day found me back on Penns Creek around Coburn shortly after daybreak.The nymph fishing was still pretty decent and there were still a few opportunistic risers around but, despite similar weather conditions, I did not witness any Drunellas hatching in fishable numbers there. Water temperature was 57F below the mouth of Elk Creek at 9 am.

No bald eagles were whacked during the making of this post. Lucky for them.

I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better way to usher in high summer than a pleasant day of fly fishing to rising wild trout on a fast flowing stream with a good friend during one our premier hatches of early summer.

The blooming mountain laurel and rhododendrons were just icing on top of the cake.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

I haven't the slightest idea.

Poe Paddy

2011-06-20T08:45:00.016-05:00

I finally had a chance to meet up with my good friend Glen G for some camping and cahill/drunella action at Poe Paddy on Penns Creek last week. Take a look at the above hydrograph and try and guess which day we got there? You nailed it on your first try, instead of being greeted by a smorgasboard of cahills, sulphurs, isonychias, blue winged olives, stoneflies and caddisflies we were greeted by 1,100 CFS of muddy limestone water, yet again. We tagged a few fish on Penns on streamers but none of them ever got near a landing net.

All was not lost though...... we wound up eating a little too much, drinking a little too much and we kept the skunk smell off by catching a mess of brookies in the freestone mountain feeder streams around the campground. Glen's pancakes with bacon and coffee will knock the socks right off your feet. The moon was almost full for our last 2 nights and the mountain laurel was at it's peak, as the following shots will reflect. Sorry for the delay in me getting around to tossing this post up, and thanks to Greg G for filling in with a timely pinch hit home run in my absence.


Amish at Little Poe Creek


Poe Paddy Drive


Poe Paddy Moon


Poe Paddy Campground

Poe Paddy Mountain Laurel


Poe Paddy Mountain Laurel


Poe Valley Brook Trout


Mid State Trail


Red Newt / Green Leaf


Poe Valley Mountain Laurel


Glen Plies a Fertile Penns Creek


Penns Creek Channels


The Moon's a Harsh Mistress

Mountain Laurel - Kalmia latifolia


Poe Valley from Pine Swamp Road

Penns Valley


Horse Power

Tailwaters

2011-06-18T19:47:00.011-05:00

Heads you win. Tails I win.

When a break in the spastically spiking hydrographs corresponded with a day of predicted overcast, highs in the low 60’s, and no thunderstorms on the radar, I set a north-northeast course and took a mid-week day trip to the Upper Delaware system.

So much for the wonderfully dreary weather forecast; blazing sunshine greeted my arrival at a popular Pennslvania access on the West Branch. I pounded a riffle with a Slate Drake parachute. Nada. I nymphed with all the usual suspects. Nyet. I swung a pair of wets. Bupkis. I peeled off a layer under the sunshine, and cursed my blind faith in internet weather reports. Thoughts drifted to how much further I’d fall behind at work as penalty for my midweek folly.

“Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”

Hopeful of a hatch. First a few dorothea sulphurs. Then more. Then a rise. And another. Stay cool, let them get keyed in. There’s a little dink rise 6” off the far bank:

Whoa – that was no dink:

The sky opens up for 10 minutes, then it slackens. Sulphurs now pour off in waves. I stick a fish that could be 20” long. The hook pulls out after a few head shakes, and he grows to 2 feet in my mind. Shaking off the defeat, I move a few yards downstream , where a big rosy cheeked head takes my size 18 cut-wing parachute. It tears downstream, showing me where I marked my line with 5 slash marks from a Sharpie to signify a weight forward 5 weight. The wild rainbow is thick and strong:

I return to my perch on a submerged boulder and promptly tumble down, completing the soaking started by the rain. My camera takes the plunge, ending the photographic record as soon as it starts. More wild browns and rainbows (including 2 larger bows than the one in the photo) take the parachute. They are well fed and unpressured from the spring’s high water.

I continue fishing until prune printed fingers can no longer execute a knot, and deep shivering impacts my ability to gain a safe footing anywhere but flat on my can. Over 3 hours of sulphurs, starting at noon, and still going. Common sense (often lacking when I’m casting to rising trout) returns and I head to the truck for a warm up.

No need to be a hero. “Hey, Oddball, this is your moment of glory. And you're chickening out!”

“To a New Yorker like you, a hero is some type of weird sandwich, not some nut who takes on three Tigers.”

Headwaters

2011-05-27T07:58:00.070-05:00

Are you like me? Do you find yourself growing tired of the fly fishing circus on the big famous brown trout rivers at this time of the year? Then come along with me for some peaceful relaxing wild trout angling in the headwaters of our very own Pine Creek, aka Tiadaghton, aka River of Pines. Not even once, during two very fruitful days of remote brook trout fishing, did I bump into another fisherperson along the stream up here in the remote hinterlands of Potter County. Rapture has finally arrived and it was exactly what my heathen soul needed.

The water levels were perfectly bank-full thanks to the plentiful rains we've had this spring along with the surrounding mature second growth forest replete with wetlands and springs, slowly metering out their accumulated liquid gold. The fish were fat and happy feeding on a smorgasbord of hatching caddis flies, sulphers, march browns and yellow stoneflies. It was incredibly easy fishing, almost too easy I thought, as the trout were committing suicide on the end of my fly line. I never did get a measured water temperature but my calibrated hand told me it was somewhere between 52-55F.

Enjoy!

Eons ago, Pine Creek flowed in a northeasterly direction, hard against a wall of glacial rip-rapped rock and soil deposited by the retreating glaciers. As the glaciers melted a lake formed in the area of present day Ansonia (aka Big Meadows). Eventually the lake level rose high enough to breach it's rock wall dam and the ensuing flood waters flowed south carving today's spectacular Pine Creek Gorge on it's way to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

Then came the Native Americans and the lumbermen and the flatlanders. The Pine Creek Rails to Trails can be clearly seen in these photos running right alongside Pine Creek. When I first started camping at Colton Point 30 some years ago this right-of-way was still an active rail line. You would drift off to sleep at night listening to the low rumble of the trains as they made their way through the gorge. The last train went through in 1989 before they tore up the tracks and turned it into a rail trail. These shots were taken during mid-day from Colton Point State Park on the west rim of the canyon.

The weather was sultry and humid, and the black flies, mosquitoes and gnats truly vexing. Don't forget your Deep Woods Off as the biting insects are quite troublesome this year.

“My cousin came down from Boston a few summers ago, and he and his daughter walked from here to Tiadaghton. In the first mile-and-a-half, I think he said that they counted nine rattlesnakes, and they weren’t really looking for them! There are quite a few in the canyon.”

-Don Blackwell (fourth great grandson of Enoch Blackwell Sr.)

Pi ne Creek Watershed Conservation Plan

"You don't have to camp around..."

...but it's always worked for me.

This was the angling of my youth. High up in the headwaters of Pine Creek in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. It was here where I taught myself how to fly fish over 30 years ago -long before I had ever heard of, let alone fished, rivers like the Little Juniata or the Madison- and it was nice to see that not much has dramatically changed. Except maybe things are a little better now; the PFBC no longer stocks a lot of these streams that already have reproducing wild populations, the campgrounds have improved by adding hot showers and composting toilets, even the forest itself has noticeably grown a little over the past 30 years. Ok so lets keep it real, we do now have a litany of fracking tanker trucks, dump trucks and 18 wheel tractor trailers parading up and down the highways 24/7, not too unlike the cavalcade of clowns parading around on Penns Creek or the Delaware and Little Juniata Rivers. We stayed away from the highways and the big rivers alike.

Deep woods solitude. Like that found only in the deep glens of Potter County.

If you have brook trout present in a stream it's in good condition. If you have a reproducing brook trout population then it's in fantastic condition.

The smell of mosses on your hand.

Abundant groundwater feeds and surface springs supply good cold water inputs year around and support a healthy population of wild brook trout in these streams.

Sorry about ruining the shot by putting my hand in it, I didn't have my net with me.

A classic freestone pool deep in the woods of Potter County. There was/is a nice head of wild fish in this pool and it fishes as good as it looks. You could see them fining in the amber currents.

I never burn any bridges when I'm up here in Potter County.

Even the headwater streams have their own headwaters.

Canary in a coal mine.

It's been a good year for getting out and rediscovering the fine fishing in our smaller wild trout streams way back up in the mountains. Reminiscent of '03 and '04. Don't let this immensely enjoyable opportunity pass you by. It'll restore your soul and renew your faith in all that is right in the world.......that is until you get stuck behind a convoy of fracking trucks on your way back home.

Soon to be renamed Anadarko Flats.

Thanks for looking.

Deep River Blues

2011-04-28T13:09:00.054-05:00

Sugar Valley

Let it rain, let it pour
Let it rain a whole lot more
Cause I got them deep river blues

After raining for the past 360 days in a row, a brief window of opportunity between persistent spring storms allowed me to slip away to central Pennsylvania for some high water nymph fishing while all the fair weather anglers were stuck at home bellyaching to anyone who would listen. The nice weather didn't last too long, about 36 hours before all hell broke loose and once again dropped another 2-3 inches of rain on top of an already saturated landscape. Toss in some thunder and lightning, a tornado or three and well.....you get the picture. The weirdest, wettest spring that I can recall in 30+ years of trout hunting.

Big Fishing Creek

My old gals a good old pal
But she looks like a waterfowl
When I got them deep river blues

Big Fishing Creek was actually in not too bad a shape when I got my first look at it around Belle Springs on Tuesday morn. Sure, it was running a bit high but it was nothing a few heavily weighted stonefly nymphs couldn't handle. Plus I've fished it when it was even higher as recently as last year, these levels would not intimidate me at all.

Sieg Center

Ain't no one gonna cry for me
And the fish all go out on a spree
When I get those deep river blues

The air was already thick with blue quills and grannoms by noon time. The blue quills especially covered my fishing vest, neck, arms and hands. Fishing to them would be irrelevant at these flows so they will remain unsung. The water temperature was 54F and the air was a sultry 75F. Time for a couple of size #10 Clayton Peter's woven perla stonefly nymphs -a timeless classic Pennsylvania limestone pattern that I first learned to tie back when I was in my early twenties and still tie and fish today.

Hemlock Pool

Second cast in the Hemlock Pool with the woven perla -and bang, fish on! Two more casts -another fish on. While this exact pattern didn't exactly repeat itself all day long it did set the stage for my best day on Big Fishing Creek since the hendricksons & grannoms of April, 2004. No other anglers were encountered on the stream this day which only made the whole thing a little sweeter.

The Big Bend

Let the rain drive right on
Let the waves sweep along
Cause I got those deep river blues

The hendrickson hatch started right on schedule around 3 o'clock. These too went unnoticed by the fish due to the high water. I saw one single solitary rise in two full days of fishing and that was over on Penns Creek, which I never quite got around to fishing thanks to the conflicting plans of Mother Nature.

Fishing Creek Brown Trout

A sure sign of spring in my book.

Yellow Trout Lilies in the Narrows

Another sure sign of spring.

March Brown Wet Fly

Penns Valley Storm Front

Later that evening I drove along Penns Creek Road above Coburn and noticed that the flow was greatly improved over the past couple of days. A few fisherman were even working the first (and possibly only) fishable hendrickson spinner fall of the new season. Hendrickson spinners danced over the road. My excitement at this sight would be very short lived as a new storm front was moving in just up the valley. Soon, day would turn into night, local tornado warnings would be issued and the skies would open up and drop a few more inches of rain on the watershed. Effectively putting an end to fishing on the valley limestoners for a few more days.

Eminence Front

Despite all the warnings on NOAA weather radio of rotational clouds approaching Millheim and Loganton they never fully developed into the real thing. It sure was fun, and at the same time a little unnerving, to watch from a distance since my little rental cabin was right in it's path. Here's how it all played out in pictures.

There's No Place Like Home

You'll notice a couple of visual artifacts in this series of photos due to reflections from me shooting through the front windshield of the car. The farmers fields were all still pretty muddy and there was no real place to pull over and get out of the car. I was pretty transfixed by what was playing out in front of me. Ah, who am I kidding? Truth is I was scared shitless and too afraid to get out of the car.

Tornado Alley

Millheim Rotation

Shortly after this shot was taken the rains came in buckets and pretty much put an end to fishing on all but Spring Creek and the brookie streams up in the mountains.

Squaretail Trout

The next day I headed for the brookie streams. It turned out to be a very smart choice for a change. Conditions were perfect for dry fly fishing; the water was up and clear, the temps were good and the fish were terrific sport on light tackle. A day that initially appeared to be a washout turned into unmitigated idiot joy up in the mountains of central Pennsylvania.

Around Millheim

Timing is everything, dudes & dudette's. The big limestoners are up in the trees and will be unfishable for about 5-7 days. Unless another storm comes along......

Now I'm gonna say goodbye
And if I sink just let me die
Cause I got those deep river blues

-Deep River Blues by Doc Watson

Bicycle Day

2011-04-19T22:22:00.016-05:00

Tom's Creek

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to stand in and wave a stick. The recent wave of relentless moisture laden fronts pushing across the region has left all but our spring creeks and the tailwaters running at near record flows. I reluctantly canceled a trip to Penns Creek this week when flows up there crested 6,000 CFS late Saturday night. Just when you're all tooled up to kick start the new season by chasing some grannoms and hendricksons everything has to turn to shit. The first order headwater streams will be the first ones to clear and run off, and just might offer some decent fishing at these elevated flows given that the water temperatures should be warm enough.

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

So it was time to get reacquainted with an old friend that I haven't fished in almost 20 years -Tom's Creek. No doubt the droughts of the past couple of years have been unkind to this (and other) Pocono freestoners but headwater springs should maintain a minimum base flow through most summers. Most Class A freestoners have resiliency in this aspect. This is a pretty small watershed and 48 hours after the last rain event flows are still up but it's eminently fishable with heavily weighted nymphs. Water temp. was 48F at noon and would warm up to 50F by late afternoon. I was hoping to meet and fish a decent quill gordon hatch if I was lucky. I would even settle for a hatch of blue quills or caddis flies.

Tom's Creek Gorge

Tom's Creek is a beautiful little Class A freestone trout stream in a near wilderness setting on the eastern edge of the Pocono escarpment. Today the entire stream, as well as the small isolated gorge that it flows through for 2.1 miles, is part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The only down side is you'll have to run the usual gauntlet of Pocono-style lodges, complete with heart shaped bathtubs, to get there. Prior to being incorporated into the DWGNRA it was owned by the Egypt Mills Rod & Gun Club from about 1901. The club's land was eventually sold to the state in 1973 as part of the Tocks Island Dam Project which, thankfully, never saw the light of day.

Bright Water

The Tom's Creek Picnic Area parking lot was empty when I pulled in around 11 am Tuesday morning. Except for a couple of intrepid hikers, I had the whole gorge to myself on this soggy spring day so I tossed a sack lunch in my hiking pack and made a day out of it. But the fishing was tuff right from the start. Cool water temps and the lack of any visible insect activity made nymphing with heavily weighted caddis larva imitations, pheasant tails and copper johns the only logical choices to cut through the ample water column and get to the bottom where the fish were hunkered down in the turbulent flows.

Bright Fish

Later in the afternoon a few sporadic blue quills and caddis were spotted in the air above the water but that fishable quill gordon hatch will have to wait yet again for better timing on my part. Relentlessly nymphing my way upstream through the gorge produced 5 wild browns from about 7 to 12 inches over the course of 5 hours. Poor doin's in my book, but I'll take it at a time when so many other of the Commonwealths trout streams are out of their banks and unfishable after a long interminable winter.

Branch Creek

Every little mountain tributary, rivulet and spring was bursting at the seems with running water.

Egypt Mills

Springtime in Pennsylvania. There's no place else I'd rather be at his time of the year.

Light in the Forest

What a treat it was to have this entire place to myself on such a glorious spring day.

I'm sure even Dr. Albert Hoffman would approve.

No bicycles were used in the making of this post.

Thanks for looking.

Bicycle Day!

Lunar Perigee

2011-03-24T08:13:00.052-05:00

The Vernal Equinox? Plus a a larger than life full moon at the perigee of it's elliptical orbit?? Plus the first hatching Baetis tricaudatus mayflies of the new season??? Are you kidding me? I may have been born at night, as the saying goes, but I wasn't born last night. When 3 astronomical signs all converge together and tell you it's time to toss your fishing tackle in the car for the first fly fishing road trip of the year you best listen, if you're smart. It's just that.....I don't know......fishing tackle scares me anymore these days.....

The arc of a fly fisher's season brings him around to the same familiar points along it's trajectory as always. Like the spring baetis hatches for example. The baetis mayflies have been hatching reliably in central Pennsylvania for a couple of days now and the streams themselves are bank full of cold limestone water thanks to an ample snowpack in the mountains and generous late winter rains. Sunday's weather forecast for the next few days called for a mixed bag of precipitation in the morning, followed by clearing skies in the afternoon, with high temperatures in the 50F-60F range. Even for me, this was a no-brainer. I burned a couple of vacation days at work, loaded up the car with my increasingly rusty fishing gear and was waist deep in Spring Creek before lunchtime on Monday.

The water temperature ranged from 47F to 52F and the flow was between 200-250 CFS. Other anglers were few and far between. As one might imagine, at these healthy flows the nymph fishing was by and large superb. And since it's that time of the year again when the suckers are pairing up to do their thing, I fished a bright orange sucker spawn imitation right down on top of the substrate, rarely needing to use anything else. Though I did take a couple of fish on streamers and pheasant tail nymphs almost as an afterthought.

There were decent numbers of baetis duns in the air during the afternoon but the warm, sunny conditions that prevailed put the kibosh on any anticipated dry fly activity. I suspect my fellow anglers who followed after me over the next few days hit much colder/wetter/better conditions to fish in than I did, and probably fared much better on top too.

Not that I'm complaining about the dearth of dry fly action on a couple of delightfully warm spring days. We caught lots of these healthy browns by dead drifting sucker spawn underneath. There were times when those flies appeared to be as big and bright in the water as any perigee full moon drifting by overhead.

Lunar Perigee

Spring is finally here. Don't ignore the small miracles all around you.

Dedicated to the memory of Owsley Stanley, aka the Bear.

Wasatch Front; Utah High Country

2011-02-21T19:48:00.019-05:00

Courtesy of our good friend and fellow Pro Staffer, Glen G:

What can I say, I'm a lucky man. Yet another ski vacation; seems like a annual occurrence these days. And yet again, we found it hard to go any where else but Utah, and its laborious 20 minute drive to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon from SLC Int. Airport. I'm not gonna say much about the skiing, at least the first few days. It was warm and somewhat sunny at times and some times cloudy and cooler. But it was always windy. 20-30 mph were the norm and there were gusts above 50 mph. We skied Brighton on Sunday; Snowbird on Monday; Deer Valley and its manicured groomers on Tuesday. Took off Wednesday, at least I did. Everyone else went X-country, and all agreed conditions sucked, as it was so windy it blew pine cones all over tracks. We drove to Park City for some kickin back time and dinner Wednesday, amidst a raging, albeit short lived, real western blizzard. Snowed sideways the entire way home, complete with thundersnow. Dropped about 8-9 inches in about 3 hours. We were lucky to escape unscathed and get home in one piece. Doug was dead on behind the wheel and narrowly averted 2 crashes. The next, and last day to ski was pure bliss with a fresh foot of that famous Utah pow. And so, to take advantage of this fine day, and the fact that we did ski it yet, we went to Alta.

Alta still rules, nuff said......

Oh yeah, pics are in chronological order.....from Brighton to Alta.

Allegheny Front

2011-01-30T18:47:00.047-05:00

Amish Farmscape And White Deer Ridge

The ski touring here in Pennsylvania is turning out to be some of the finest in recent memory. With another great weekend of skiing behind us we'll keep our collective eyes and fingers crossed and hope that the upcoming Groundhog Day storm translates into even more snow for our higher elevation mountains and plateaus. Right now they're forecasting an icy mix for all but the extreme northern tier counties. Another good cold snap with temperatures below zero would certainly put a hurting on those pesky wooly adelgids that are eating away at our eastern hemlocks.

Here's some photo spam from my touring around Black Moshannon and Tiadaghton State Forests this past weekend. It snowed lightly for most of the day on Friday as I kicked around Black Moshannon, and heavily all day long on Saturday on the George B. Will Ski Trail up along the Coudy Pike. It snowed, and it snowed, and it snowed. Despite the relatively warm temperatures in the upper 20's the snow was fast and the trail conditions were excellent. There was over a foot of snow up on the Allegheny Plateau after Saturday's dump and it was great to see folks out there having fun and enjoying themselves. It would be an affront to the Alleghenies not to take advantage of it's peace and power. Besides, it doesn't even cost a nickel to participate. Pine Creek is pretty much frozen over solid from Blackwell to Jersey Shore. Just watch out for those seemingly endless convoys of frickin' fracking trucks rumbling through the sleepy hamlets of Ramsey, Tomb, Waterville, Haneyville, Hyner Mountain and Black Forest up on PA 44.

You gotta love this global warming thing; More chicks running around in bikinis in the summer, and plenty of big time winter recreation dumped on your doorstep when you need it the most.

I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking. Get out there and kick it hard all you dudes and dudette's!

Nippenose Valley

Allegheny Front - Around Unionville

Black Moshannon

Moss-Hanne Trail

Moshannon State Forest

Winter Woods

Allegheny Plateau

Pine Plantation

Black Moshannon Creek

Trak Backcountry Bushwackers

Flatlander

Snow Day

PA 44 - The Coudy Pike

In A Snowing Day

Tiadaghton State Forest

George B. Will Trail

Black Forest

Deep and Silent

Cammal & Black Forest Narrow Gauge Railroad Grade

PA 414 - Black Walnut Bottom

Pine Creek

Parting Shot: Nippenose Farmscape

I think I can almost here those tiny little baetis nymphs starting to rustle in their shucks, and it will soon be maple sugaring time.

Blackwell

2011-01-17T13:06:00.103-05:00

Pine Creek Trail - Blackwell, Pa.

I'm not entirely sure why it took me so long to discover the tiny village of Blackwell, Pa. in the upper Pine Creek Valley, but having now done so, I can't imagine a more idyllic place to shed the mechanized world and forget your troubles for a few days. I've camped at Colton Point to the north, I've fished in Cedar Run to the south but I never quite made it to Blackwell. It's a long way from anywhere. And for at least one sleepy winter's day I finally had the place pretty much to myself.

My latest head trip was to ski into the Pine Creek Canyon from it's southern terminus in Blackwell. The old Pine Creek Rails to Trails would provide easy access to country I've always wanted to see before. Snow cover was light but good enough to maintain a nice glide on a bed that was bike path smooth. The skies were extremely overcast, temps were in the upper 20's and it snowed off and on all day.

Now would probably be a good time to post our annual public service warning on freezing to death. It's a WRWT winter tradition.

Pine Creek Watershed Rivers Conservation Plan

Blackwell Methodist Episcopal

As seen from the Pine Creek Trail which runs right through the middle of the village, it was built in 1892. Blackwell sits at the confluence of Pine and Babb Creek about 5 miles upstream of Cedar Run. It's founder, Enock Blackwell made his business in lumbering and a few of his descendants still inhabit the village today.

The Barton House

This house was originally built to house railroad workers in the late 1800's and is located right next to the PCT's portal into the canyon at the north end of the village. The last freight train passed through the gorge in October, 1988. After which the tracks were ripped up and the entire railbed from Ansonia to Jersey Shore was converted into a non-motorized trail. The first 20 mile section of trail from Ansonia to Rattlesnake Rock opened up in 1996, the entire length was completed by spring of 2007.

Pine Creek Gorge Natural Area

Just as I pushed off north out of the village the light snow that had been falling off and on all morning had picked up in intensity. The peaks of the mountains I had hoped to photograph were now lost in a whiteout of swirling snow and wind. The whole scene looked like something out of a Jack London novel. Suddenly I was on a cold, lonely and isolated stretch of the Charley River in Alaska's Yukon instead of a remote tributary of the West Branch of the Susquehanna. The silence was deafening.

Pine Creek Trail

Evidently the DCNR sets down groomed trax in the canyon. Being somewhat of a backcountry skier I don't recall ever having skied in groomed trax before. It's a guilty pleasure now, I guess.
Ok, there was that one time on the Madison River Trail in Yellowstone National Park, but in that case I was just following Bob Jacklin's lead and I didn't know it was groomed until I was already 100 yards down the trail. After that day I started buying all my stuff from Blue Ribbon Flies.

Stone Quarry Run

About every 1/2 mile or so there was some sort of side stream or hollow coming in to join the main trail through the canyon. Most of them had frozen waterfalls or some other hidden gems that were too risky to approach solo on the ice covered trails.

Stone Quarry Run #2

Some falls were closer than others. The light was pretty flat for photography in the gorge today but if you looked very closely there were little miracles like this all around you. This view of the falls on Stone Quarry Run is right from the Pine Creek Trail.

Stone Quarry Run #3

The National Park Service designated the Pine Creek Gorge a National Natural Landmark in 1969. Here at WRWT we're giving it three thumbs up!

Mid-State Trail

There is trail access to some of the side hollows if you have your ice axe and crampons with you. We'll play it safe and take a pass. It would be a long slow crawl out of here with a broken ankle or a busted up head.

Pine Creek Trail

The Iroquois tribe once hunted & canoed along here after they pushed the Susquehannocks further south. Coming down from their longhouses at Big Meadows (near present day Ansonia) to one of the various salt licks they must have had their own private game reserve. This place was filthy lousy with elk back then.

Shelter From the Storm

Hatches are gonna be early this year. Saw a few male green drake duns mixed in with a sparse march brown emergence while I waited out the storm under this pine tree. Nothing rising. Seemed just a little bit early to me.

Tiadaghton

Since this is an old railroad bed the trail is extremely well graded and there are bridges across each side stream. A luxury I'm not at all use to. Next I'll be skiing golf courses.

No fishing from bridges allowed in the gorge. Dang, because otherwise...

Confluence

With Water Tank Hollow Run. It has a frozen waterfall too. Pretty far back and I didn't want to change lenses while it was snowing. So this is all you get.

Benjamin Hollow

There's gotta be a story here somewhere. Only Benjamin knows for sure.

Blue Ice

I've been skiing in the mountains around Pine Creek for going on 25 years now. Most of that has been up on the mountain tops of the Allegheny Plateau and for good reason. This is the first time I've ever skied down in the valley proper. While it's true that the valley floor doesn't hold the snowpack quite as long as in the mountains do, the Pine Creek Trail doesn't need a very deep base to be skiable. I didn't know what I was missing by sticking to the higher elevations.

Manor Hotel - Slate Run, Pa.

We all miss the old historic Manor Hotel which burnt down in 2003. I pretty much grew up drinking in that bar. At night after I had my fill, I would stumble across the old trestle bridge across Pine Creek and sleep it off in the back of my Ford Econoline van (a friend of the devil was a friend of mine) parked down at the canoe access. Get up in the morning and go fish myself sober on Slate Run. The new Manor Hotel can still always be counted on for great food, drink and comfortable (but small) rooms. Parking is ample.

Blackwell Mornings

The following morning dawned clear and cold at 15F but would warm up to a balmy 22F. After an over indulgent breakfast buffet of cholesterol and calories at the Manor Hotel I made trax south out of Blackwell. My destination today will be Rattlesnake Rock and the Narrows above Cedar Run. If you're gonna visit a place named Rattlesnake Rock, I'm thinkin' that winter would be the best time to do it.

Cold Mountain - Old Blackwell Train Bridge

A beautiful morning along the trail and it's nice to see some blue sky for a change. That's Fork Hill in the background. The divide between Pine Creek and Babb Creek.

Groomed Trax

The track was fast this morning thanks to the cold temperatures. Free your heel, free your mind.

Frosty Morn

A brilliant blue morning, the kind of day where you wish you were alive. Then you see your exhaled breath condensed in front of you as an affirmation. Even here in mid January you can begin to feel the earth starting to tilt on it's polar axis.

Cedar Mountain - Pine Creek

No river otters or bald eagles or Yeti were spotted on this trip.

Around Cedar Run

Once I hit Cedar Run the sun was now as high in the sky as it gets at this time of the year and the snow was beginning to soften up and stick to my skies just a bit. It was time to call it a day and start the long drive home. I only had two days to spend up in the canyon. I wish it could have been more. As soon as the next big dump comes our way we'll lay down a few more trax in the Pine Creek Valley.

Cedar Run Inn

Cedar Run is located about 6 miles above Slate Run. It's a popular destination for trout fisherpersons. Especially those seeking wild brook and brown trout. One of these days I think I'm gonna try that fly fishing thing and see what all the fuss is about...

Around Slate Run

This popular Pine Creek village had it'd beginnings in 1791 when pioneer Jacob Tome pulled his family up the creek in canoes to the mouth of Slate Run. Today fly fisherpersons pull themselves up PA 44/414 in their SUV's to fly fish for trout in the specially regulated waters of Slate and Cedar Runs. It's all good.

Around Waterville

The first fork on Pine Creek.
Where it began.

Of course, we'll also revisit the Pine Creek Canyon again this year come spring and fall seasons when the temperatures are a little milder and I can leave my long johns with the drop down drawer in 'em at home.

"In seed time learn, in harvest
time teach, in winter enjoy."
-William Blake

Winterlong

2010-12-31T10:15:00.053-05:00

RB Winter Cabin

Spent the next few days after Christmas kicking back and chillin' up at the cabin in RB Winter State Park. These modern cabins in the Pennsylvania State Park system are available to anyone to rent and have to be one of the best bargains out there for the avid sportsman/nature geek. For $67/night we got a 4-bedroom log cabin with 1-1/2 baths, modern kitchen, dining room, fireplace, 2 porches, natural gas heat, and easy access to the Bald Eagle State Forest with it's miles of hiking and skiing trails. The best thing about the place and the worst thing about the place is the lack of TV.

The weather was cold, in the mid to upper 20's F, and the skies ranged from completely overcast to clear & sunny. There was very light snow cover on the ground, particularly right in the 14 Mile Narrows along PA 192 where the park is located.

Arc Light

This image was captured right from the front lawn of the cabin around 10pm. Looking east.

2-hour exposure
Canon 17-40mm L Series Lens
f11/ISO 100
Canon 40D body
Manfrotto 190XPROB Tripod
Manfrotto 484RC2 ball & socket swivel head

Dining Quarters

Living Quarters

I forgot to grab some shots of the kitchen, bedrooms and bathrooms but they were all very spacious, equally nice and clean. We brought our own firewood with us but there was also plenty of split wood already stacked on the back porch when we arrived.

Lantern Cabin

View from the front lawn.

Halfway Lake

Snow cover in and around the park was sparse so we won't be busting any drifts on this trip.

Halfway Dam

Mid-State Trail

The best hike was the one that ran up the valley right behind the cabin. RB Winter Park is the middle trailhead for the Mid-State Trail, one of Pennsylvania's premier hiking trails.

Rapid Run

This section of the Mid-State Trail starts out from PA 192, following Rapid Run downstream or south after it leaves Halfway Lake.

Brush Hollow

After about 1/2 mile the trail turns southwest and ascends scenic Brush Hollow on an easy, protracted grade.

Solitude

In about 2 miles of easy walking we'll reach the top of Brush Mountain. I've been working out a lot lately. A couple of more sessions and I'll be hot again.

The Secluded Valley

One step........higher, higher.....

Mountaintop

After reaching the top of Brush Mountain, the Mid-State Trail continues southwest along the ridge down to Stover Gap Road and then onto Hairy John's on PA 45, but since this was a loop hike I turned north on the West Boundary Trail which dropped straight over the side of the mountain on a steep slope of snow covered talus (I was too scared to stop and take any photos) before leveling off and crossing the headwaters of Rapid Run and bringing me back out to PA 192 about 1/2 mile from the cabin.

Rapid Run Headwaters

It's always nice to see something green in the middle of winter.

Rapid Run Natural Area

Ya know, some people say that winter can be the best time of them all, so don't neglect to get out there and enjoy some good old fashioned fresh air and healthy exercise in Penns Woods. And...........while we all collectively hold hands and march forward into that brand new day that is 2011, let's not forget to......

Think snow!

One love, people!

A Different Kind of Fall Bounty

2010-11-03T18:44:00.004-05:00

Even for a flatlander, this is as flat as it gets. Elevation Zero. Sea level. The autumn migration of striped bass navigating their way south along the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean.

A gentle northeast on a falling tide:

He hit in the wash of the first wave, a mere roll cast away. He would’ve taken a deceiver or surf candy as readily as this Hopkins. I cursed myself for not bringing the 9 weight:

Others who are better connected to the vast communications net that is a part of the modern surf scene and can drop what they’re doing and chase the blitzes will catch more. Live liners and bait chunkers may catch bigger fish. But I’ll take this 31 incher and the solitude of a near deserted barrier beach. This is New Jersey, for crying out loud, the most densely populated state in the country. Now gimme a fist pump and enjoy what little is left or the guidos will lay a beatin’ on ya.

Lord Stirling’s Beach – Summer retreat of my hometown Lenni Lenape. Hangout of pirates, privateers, smugglers - and an itinerant Pro Staffer:

Soft Hackle Safari

2010-10-19T18:58:00.007-05:00

From our good friend and fellow Pro Staffer, Greg G:

While it is primarily the ruffed grouse that may divert the trout angler’s autumn imagination from the river to the uplands, it is the grouse’s itinerant companion, the American woodcock, that can provide a bumper crop of fly tying material. A centuries old staple of patterns rooted in traditional English North Country spiders, a woodcock contains some of the finest feathers to ever grace a silk wound soft hackle.

Upland shooting lore would have us believe that grouse and woodcock freely cohabitate, and that may be the case in some of their range. But they are very different birds with different needs for food. However, they both benefit from early successional forests, where nature is beginning to reclaim previously timbered or abandoned land. Tattered pants, frayed bootlaces, bruised shins and sometimes a fat lip often result from working those areas correctly:

Dogs? We don’t need no stinking dogs:

But we do need light, quick handling and open choked shotguns. This is my 20 gauge Franchi 48 AL, posing with a brace of timberdoodles (sorry, no catch and release here). It has a 24” barrel and while it possesses a full range of choke tubes, it is rare that I install anything tighter than cylinder for the early season uplands:

This gun was always Nick Sisley’s favorite, and if you’re a Pee Aye upland hunter with a sense of heritage, you listen when Nick speaks. A standard load of 7/8 ounce of #8’s is the right medicine, as killing shots will all be in close. Heavier loads and tighter chokes will only turn you into an inefficient lumberjack, as the mixed oak and aspen saplings disintegrate in your muzzle blasts.

One of the biggest challenges in adding woodcock to your game pouch is predicting the timing of their migratory flights. A cold northwest wind can either kick-start their migration, or clear out a productive covert literally overnight later in the season. Personally, my recent successes are a classic example of even a broken clock being right twice a day.

So be it. Just like with my trout fishing, I’ll take what I can get until I can really devote some serious time to it and get better. Besides, there’s got to be some ju-ju associated with tying a grannom pupae from a bird you harvested next to a trout stream that also has a good population of brachycentrus. Just don’t ask me to start raising my own silk worms:

Fire on the Mountain

2010-10-11T07:43:00.043-05:00

"Fire on the mountain
Lightnin' in the air
Gold in them hills
And it's waiting for me there"

-Marshall Tucker Band

Mountain Hardware

I hooked up with good friends Mike B, Glen G and his boy Elliott for a couple of days of camping and fishing up at Penns Creek this past weekend. The weather was delightfully autumnal, the stream levels were dropping but still in great shape and a good time was had by all. We had anticipated fishing dry flies over hatching slate drakes, tan caddis and the ensuing rising trout, but upon seeing very few of those insects in the air or on the water we were content to nymph fish the weekend away. The bight sunny skies kept most of the big browns hunkered down for the day but we did manage to take a bevy of small to medium sized browns each day when the sun was off the water. The fish are spread out pretty good throughout the creek after the high water event of 10 days ago. It was one of those golden autumn weekends that takes you back to the days when life was simple and more carefree than it is today. Thanks guys.

Enjoy, and thanks for looking.

LL Bean

Poh Mills

Penns Creek

Lewisburg & Tyrone R.R. Grade

Halfway Lake - RB Winter State Park

On the Beach

14 Mile Narrows - RB Winter State Park

October Rain

2010-10-04T11:54:00.059-05:00

Bald Eagle State Forest

Everything needs water to survive. The fall rains have finally arrived in earnest here in central Pennsylvania and not a moment too soon. Aquifers that had dwindled down to their base flows during this past summers drought have been at least partially recharged, the smell of woodsmoke is in the air, the leaves have started to change colors and while the days are now noticeably shorter than they were a few months ago, the nights are refreshingly cool making for some great camping & clicking weather. Oh, and the fishing is pretty good now too.

Photo credit: Glen G.

Give 'em Bread
An army travels on it's stomach. Glen G. serves up some mouth-watering, knee-buckling, marinated London Broil sandwiches.

Elk Creek

Elk Creek Brown Trout

Poh Valley

Poh Paddy

Paddy Mountain Sunrise

First Light

Frosty Morn

Lineman for the County

Mountain Hardware©

Wade Rivers only uses the best when in comes to camping & shooting in demanding field conditions. I'm giving three (3) thumbs up to the good folks at Mountain Hardware©. This tiny stuff sack holds Wade's 20 degree Fahrenheit Mountain Hardware© Ultra-Lamina sleeping bag. It's mummy style configuration is filled with MH's proprietary Thermic-micro insulation that is welded in place to eliminate piling and cold spots and increase loft where you need it the most. Clear skies on Saturday night brought the overnight low temperatures down into the low 40's. Combine a quality sleeping bag with a good 4"-6" air mattress and I was nice and toasty like a cinnamon bun as I drifted off to the white noise of Penns Creek at 1,100 CFS. Had 2 extra wool blankets with me and didn't even need them. I laugh in the face of cold weather now - I'm easily amused.

Get out there and enjoy it while you still can. You know who you are. That's right, I'm looking right at you this time!

Detweiler Natural Area

2010-09-10T12:10:00.055-05:00

We're on a nice little roll here in central Pennsylvania. This past weekend was yet another one of those delightfully crisp late summer weekends that felt more autumnal than it did hazy, hot and humid. So it didn't take much arm twisting for my good friend, and fellow Pro Staffer, Glen G to talk me into a few days of geeking around in the Rothrock State Forest just south of State College while we camped at Penn-Roosevelt State Park.

Disclaimer: Before starting any hike in this area make sure your camera lens' manual/auto focus switch is in the "auto" position. Don't ask me how I know that.

Alan Seeger Trail

Our goal for Saturday was to hike the Detweiler Run Natural Area from the Alan Seeger Natural Area back to our campsite at Penn-Roosevelt, a distance of approx. 6 miles with a total elevation gain of 1,200 feet -most of that would be accrued climbing over the southwestern prong of Thickhead Mountain.

Alan Seeger Natural Area

The Alan Seeger Natural Area is a small stand of old hemlocks and dense, almost impenetrable stand of 6' high rhododendrons located at the head of Standing Stone Creek in Huntington County. These trees are thought to have survived the summer of 1644 when most of Pennsylvania is believed to have burnt over. They were named by Henry Shoemaker, an early member of the Pennsylvania State Forest Commission, for a young poet who served in WWI. You haven't really seen this place until you've seen it in early July when the whole area is a maze of pink & white rhododendron blossoms. Here Glen is pondering what a waste of good forest products it is to leave these valuable trees standing.

Monroe Kulp's Narrow Gauge RR Bed

After leaving the Alan Seeger NA behind we picked up the blue/yellow blazes of the Greenwood Spur section of the Mid State Trail on Monroe Kulp's old logging grade. The Greenwood Spur here forms one of the boundries of the Thickhead Mountain Wild Area. The grade here is a remnant of the old narrow gauge railroad that ran all the way into Milroy. So, how in the world did these old trees survive with a logging railroad running close by, not to mention a sawmill at Milligan Mills, and all those charcoal flats up on Grass Mountain and over at Greenwood Iron Furnace?

Shortly, we crossed Detweiler Run on a wooden bridge and followed the stream up through the valley proper.

Detweiler Cabin

We continued up Detweiler Valley for 4 miles passing a few scattered hunting camps, log bridges, primitive campsites, charcoal flats and those ubiquitous rhododendrons, hemlocks and tulip trees. Detweiler Run itself was mostly hidden under a canopy of rhododendrons. It was running fairly low at this time of the year and, like all the other streams in the area, could benefit from a good shot of rain.

At this point we come to the northern terminus of the Greenwood Spur and continue straight ahead on the orange blazed Mid State Trail.

Shortly before we came to this trail junction Glen nearly stepped right on top of a highly aggressive Eastern Diamondback Timber Rattlesnake. That viper then grabbed hold of Glen in it's jaws and shook him back and forth like a rag doll before tossing him back into the thicket of rhododendrons while I bravely tried to dose the snake with pepper spray. Luckily for us, Les Stroud came along just in the nick of time and killed the rattler and ate it raw.
-Partly true story.

Stumbling upon that viper was like coming across the Prince of Darkness himself laying across the trail and both Glen and myself agreed that snake had been stalking us for miles. We felt lucky to get out of there with only a few scratches. And no, I don't take picture of snakes -it would be bad spiritual karma.

Detweiler Natural Area

Sometimes the trail ran hard against Detweiler Run, sometimes not. That's the run, shrunken by drought, right in front of Glen in the above shot. This part of the trail was easy walking after the old RR grade evaporated but our luck in that regards would soon run out.

River of Rocks - Reichley Bros. Narrow Gauge RR Bed

As we hiked further up the drainage the trail made an excursion up the right bank of the run, crossed a pipeline right-of-way and turned into a river of rocks; big ones, small ones, loose ones, pointy ones, round ones, slippery ones, etc, that were once the bed of a narrow gauge railroad bed owned by the Reichley brothers of Milroy, Pa. This section was only about a mile long but it really slowed down our pace. I can't imagine trying to walk out of here with a sprained (or worse) ankle.

Glen said he once spent two days and one long night broken down & busted in the Sonoran Desert without any food or water and this was a piece of cake compared to that.
-Mostly true story.

Just when you think you've had about enough rocks for the day the trail makes a 90 degree turn south and slabs the south prong of Thickhead Mountain on a well maintained trail with a traditional tread. It's a relatively easy climb of about 600 vertical feet. I was kind of hoping for a nice big view once we got to the top but, lamentably, there was none.

Boilermaker

A much steeper decent down the other side of Thickhead Mountain brings us back to our campsite in Penn-Roosevelt State Park and lots of thirst quenching beer and whiskey. I know I speak for all hikers and backpackers when I say that there's nothing better to slack your thirst after a long, hot, grueling hike that a tin cup full of ice cold whiskey. And yes I know alcoholic beverages are not allowed in Pennsylvania's state parks. Not all rules are good rules.

I don't even know who I am anymore.

Penn-Roosevelt State Park

Glen G doing what he does best, serving up grub when you need it the most. Glen use to be trail boss on the Oregon Trail.

Penn-Roosevelt Lake

The lake is currently drawn down due to water seepage below the dam breast. No repairs will be scheduled until funding is in place. In other words, don't hold your breath.

Spillway Channel

O'Dell Spring Creek - Ennis, Montana

2010-09-10T07:37:00.011-05:00

Why not here, why not now?
Why not today?

Welp, here ya go:
Big Spring Creek Restoration

Big Spring Creek Restoration Paper

Germania

2010-08-30T16:07:00.084-05:00

Scenic PA Route 44 - The Coudy Pike

Major Isaac Lyman first came into this country in 1809 after serving in the Revolutionary War. He was the second person of European decent to settle in the newly created Potter County where he joined the first, George Ayers, in proving up against the inconceivable hardships of what was then a dense howling wilderness populated by the Indian, bear, wolf, panther, elk, deer, rattlesnake and maybe even a Thunderbird or two. The nearest resupply town was Jersey Shore and that was an arduous 60-80 miles away as the original Coudy Pike (todays PA44) had not been built yet. A simple trip into town often took 2 weeks by foot, packhorse or wagon and required some 80 crossings of Pine Creek going to and the same 80 coming back. If a winter storm came upon you while en-route then all bets on your safe return were off.

"In the fall of 1809 Mr. Lyman came into Potter County and erected a rude cabin.......there being not a bushel of grain, nor pound of potatoes, nor pound of meat, except wild, to be had in this country.........we lived on leeks, cow cabbage and milk....among other vexations were the gnats, a very minute but poisonous insect that annoyed us far more than mosquitoes, or even than hunger and cold; in the summer we could not work without raising a smoke around us.....We had to pack our provisions 80 miles from Jersey Shore. Sixty miles of the road was without a house; and in the winter, when deep snows came on and caught us on the road without a fire we should have perished.....My courage almost failed and I almost turned back but when I thought of my children crying for bread I took new courage......The want of leather, after our first shoes wore out was severely felt. Neither tanner nor shoemaker lived in the country so I was obliged to work and travel in the woods barefoot."

-Pioneer Life or, Thirty Years a Hunter by Philip Tome (1854)

Mr. Lyman turns out to be quite an interesting study. He built the first gristmill and sawmill in Potter County and helped George Ayers (Ayers Hill) build it's first road too. Married 3 times, his first wife, Sara Edgecomb died in child birth at the age of 28. He left his second wife behind with their first son but she and her then 18 year old son Burrel Lyman tracked him down and demanded that he suffer along with her. In an unusual twist for the times, Sara & son settled down on the same farm just west of Galeton as Isaac Lyman and his third wife. Many of todays modern day residents of Potter County can trace their lineage back to the original Lyman & Ayers families.

To say that life was hard for the early settlers of Potter County would be a colossal understatement. The extreme toil and hardships they faced of a daily basis would be hard to imagine by todays standard of living. Vigorous health and competence would be their rewards. The Norwegians of Ole Bull's short lived colony on Kettle Creek found out the hard way they had neither the stamina nor the constitution for serious mountain travel/living.

"It will be 23 years the 23rd of May, 1834 since I moved to Potter County..........I had nothing but my own hands to depend upon to clear my lands and raise provisions. We wore out all our shoes the first year. We had no way to get more -no money, nothing to sell and but little to eat, -and were in dreadful distress for want of the necessaries of life. After awhile, our clothes were worn out. Our family increased and the children were nearly naked..."

-Mr. John Peat in The Forester, 1834.

Potter County Farmscape

The countryside around Germania, PA is notable for it's open fields, meadows and cultivated soils as the traveler breaks out of the Black Forest region of the surrounding mountains and into the open, airy geometric patterns of farm & field. It must have been back breaking labor to wrestle this cultivated land from dense forest 200 years ago using nothing but axe, oxen & plowshare (if you were lucky enough to have those).

Germania Hotel

The Germania Hotel was built back in 1836 shortly after the first carriage road was punched through the wilderness. Today it is a 3-story building with 20 rooms, a restaurant and a large ballroom. There have been many lively stories and a few deaths associated with the hotel over the years, including one about "Danny the Bartender" who lived at the hotel for many years and died there, ala Jack Nickolson in The Shining. "Danny's always been the bartender around here".

It is still open today and is currently undergoing renovation. I've never had dinner there but their sandwiches are excellent and the portions are generous. Parking is ample.

Germania General Store

Serving up groceries, snacks, souvenirs, ice & gas to travelers and locals alike since 1884.

What does all this crap have to do with fly fishing you might ask? All these thoughts rolled through my head as I made the trek up PA 44 (aka The Coudy Pike) to Potter County myself this past Friday for a little R&R, fresh air and outdoor exercise. And no, I would not be pulling up any tree stumps or eating cow cabbage and milk.

Lyman Run State Park

A little background would probably be "germane" to the story. By all accounts it had been a brutally hot summer here in the northeast with scant rainfall to boot. Relief came last week when northcentral Pennsyltucky received 1.75" of rain which was soon followed by a full moon and a refreshing cool front. Time to strike while the iron is hot. I loaded up the car and made my way up to Potter County to do a little hiking on the Susquehannock Trail System, I even tossed in some fishing tackle at the last minute just in case. I missed the rain and the full moon by a couple of days but the cool weather would hang around right up till the end of the weekend.

Trouble was, as I dropped down off the mountain and drove across the West Branch of Pine Creek I was pleasantly surprised at how well the watershed had benefited from the recent rains. I then made the mistake of proceeding to fish Lyman Run after setting up camp. The fishing was good enough that my hiking pack never even came out of the car the whole weekend.

Fridays high temp: 75F
Overnight low temp: 42F
Stream temp. at noon: 52-54F
Skies: Bright & sunny

Lyman Run Vista

I first came into this country as recently as Decoration Day 1979 and I remember it like it was yesterday. We camped that weekend at Colton Point State Park on the rim of the Canyon and I caught my first trout on an Adams dry fly over on Lyman Run. I fell in love with the delicate beauty of Lyman Run right then and there and to this day it remains my favorite brook trout stream anywhere. 30 years a dry fly fisherman, indeed.

Wildcat Run

Lyman Run is a small freestone tributary to the West Branch of Pine Creek. It rises high on the Allegheny Plateau, born from several even smaller tributaries and many riparian springs and seeps. They all hold brook trout. Walking around the riparian forest is like walking on a sponge that's covered with fiddlehead ferns and dotted with moss covered rocks.

Splash Dam Hollow

Splash Dam Hollow marks the beginning of the PFBC's Wild Brook Trout Enhancement special regulations water which extends downstream 3.9 miles from the beaver dams to the backwaters of Lyman Run Lake.

Lyman Run

While I missed the best part of the high water event earlier in the week flows were still pretty decent for a freestoner in August. As I mentioned earlier, the water temperature was between 52-54F around noon depending where you were on the stream. Hatches? Sparse to non-existent as expected at this time of the year. I think I caught fish on every pattern I threw at them.

The fishing itself was surprisingly good given the time of the year and the bright sunny skies. It obviously was not sulpher time on the limestoners but it was good enough to keep your mind engaged and moving upstream. I didn't catch any Labrador sized trophies but what they lacked in size they more than made up for in numbers and sheer tenacity.

Lyman Run Footbridge

And besides, I just love the lay of the land up here in Potter County. Of all the valleys in the Big Woods Country the one I would have most like to have seen before the virgin timber was cut out would have been Lyman Run. The second would be the First Fork of the Sinnemahoning.

These dudes, and dudettes, do good work. Don't be too surprised if you see them hugging a couple of trees.

The campground itself has undergone some major renovations since I last camped here back in 1997. I camped in the lower loop where all of the sites have received a face lift complete with new gravel pads, electric service and lantern poles with the usual picnic table and fire ring. The former odoriferous pit toilet latrine has been replaced with a new modern tiled, heated bathroom/shower with fully automated lighting & faucets, composting toilets with a negative pressure ventilation system, diaper changing stations, hot air hand dryers, 110 volt outlets and a vending machine.

I won't miss those pit latrines. In hot weather they were always 50 yards too close and in cold weather they were 50 yards too far.

Those new electric outlets in the campsites sure came in handy when it was time to recharge my camera batteries.

Sausage & sirloin tip Shish-k-bobs on the grill for dinner - Jack Daniels out of a tin cup.

I washed my face in a frying pan.

Star Trails

I've always wanted to try these and this is my first attempt at star trails. I'm already pretty good at taking blurry unsharp photos so I figured I would make it work for me instead of against me. And yes I already realize I used too high of an ISO setting and it would be nice to have something in the foreground like Stonehenge or something so you don't have to point that out. I didn't have Stonehenge at my fingertips so this is shot looking straight up from my campsite. The orange glow in the trees is reflected light from my campfire. Exposure time was 30 minutes at f11 ISO 400.

Morning Moonset

Saturday morning, 0800 hrs., 45F. This was the view from my campsite while I drank my morning coffee. Folgers thank you very much, not those Frapps or that french vanilla flavored yuppie coffee that Glen G likes to drink all the time.

On Sunday the fishing finally got a little tougher as the water levels continued to drop, the sun continued to shine and the air started to heat up. You won't catch a lot of big trout in Lyman Run but I did spy a rather large brown trout beneath some deadfall in one of the deeper pools. Looked like at least a 14 incher to me and that's a monster for such a small stream. He was in a lie that was impossible to fish to with flies and he knew I was there on the bank above him the whole time.

The Old Ladies Home

Honestly, that's what the name on the sign says. The valley upstream of the state park is undeveloped except for a couple of your quintessential Potter County hunting camps/old ladies homes. Lyman Run passes right behind this camp.

People Trails

Stars aren't the only ones who leave trails in the area. The entire region is a hikers paradise with trails that circle and radiate out from the park like spokes on a wheel. The Susquehannock Trail System spurs right into the park in a little under a half mile.

Star Trails & Trees

I haven't had such a kick ass great weekend of camping & fishing all summer so I was long overdue. Still I can't help but wonder what the Lyman's would say if they could see their valley today, complete with state park, modern toilets and special regulations fishing?

Ich bin ein Germania!

Beartooth Country

2010-07-27T16:02:00.003-05:00

Absaroka Range

Where are the words? Sometimes I think it's better if I just just shut the flip up and let the pictures tell the story. Plus, even though this installment is only half finished, I wanted to get it out there before WikiLeaks gets their hands on it and beats me too it.

The following photos reflect a recent day I spent tramping around up in the Beartooth Mountains to escape the summertime heat down in the lower Yellowstone River Valley. I didn't catch any dramatic light but it was still fun just the same. The ambient temperature up top never got above 60F, the winds were at times strong enough to blow a Burlington Northern boxcar off the tracks up at Browning, the mosquitoes were well.......ubiquitous and by the time I got back down the mountain to Red Lodge the entire plateau was engulfed in a raging summer storm. I saw the whole thing play out in my rear view mirror, which is really the best way to watch a Beartooth storm play out. Thanks for looking.

Beartooth Highway

Rock Creek Canyon

Climbing out of Red Lodge.

Hellroaring Massif

Still climbing... I'm no Charles Kuralt but I think I counted 11 switchbacks. But who's counting?

Line Creek Plateau

Up close and personal.

Cinquefoils, Phlox and Purple Penstemons

Dancing in the wind.

Alpine Avens & Buttercups on the Beartooth Plateau

Dang Forest Service and their "Let it Burn" policy! Pretty soon there won't be any trees at all left in the West.

Hellroaring Plateau

Boulder River
Around the Chippy Park shipping corrals.

Around Nye, Montana.

The upper Clarks Fork Valley.

Island Lake

Beartooth Butte & Beartooth Lake

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

-John Muir

One love, people!

The Gallatin Divide

2010-07-24T07:20:00.050-05:00

Self Portrait - The Gallatin Divide

The Gallatin Range is one of my favorite mountain ranges in the world. It's towering peaks, untamed rivers, radiant stands of timber and sagebrush meadows instill in me a sense of wonder every time I visit. It's home to some of the most beautiful mountain scenery of which it is possible for man to conceive.

Gallatin River

The Gallatin River is hardly the most remote river in Montana. With the exception of it's headwaters where it's born from secluded snowfields in Yellowstone National Park, a major highway runs right beside it for it's entire length. It's not a river where you go to catch a lot of large trout either. It's brawling & dramatic pocketwater sections in the canyon can be a bear to safely wade for hours on end, and it's waters run bone-chillingly cold even during the height of of a mid summer Rocky Mountain heat wave. It's usually the last river to warm up and turn on and the first to cool down and turn off during the course of a days, or seasons, fishing. What it lacks in remoteness and large trout it makes up for in spectacular western scenery and a huge population of perpetually hungry modest sized wild rainbows sprinkled with a few hefty browns, cutthroats & cutbow hybrids. Nonetheless, it's one of my all time favorite western rivers, partly because of sentimental reasons, and I always try to make room for at least one day on it's gin clear waters on every trip. Except of course when Greg G is dragging me off into remote hinterlands of the Bridger-Teton in pursuit of Snake River fine spots.

This year I was hoping to meet and fish the annual salmonfly emergence as it propagated it's way up through the canyon around Cinnamon Basin. Two years earlier I had encountered excellent fishing to the adults at the tail end of their emergence just above the same basin during the last week of July, surely this year would be even better since I would be on the river a full two weeks earlier. Sometimes, despite even the best laid plans, things can and do go wrong. I didn't see one single adult salmonfly on my entire drive up the Gallatin Canyon to Taylor Creek. Not one. It was now painfully obvious that Mother Nature had her own timetable and the emergence had already run it's course for another year. Once again I would have to adapt my original plans to suit the nuances of her timetable and not my own.

Which really shouldn't be a problem at this time of the year since we were looking right at the onset of prime hatch time on the river. So I headed for one of my favorite sections on one of my favorite rivers, the Taylor Fork to Snowflake Spring section in the subalpine basin just outside of Yellowstone National Park. For once, I made the right choice for a change.

I was the only one there when I pulled into the small dirt parking lot around 10 am and began to assemble my gear and survey the conditions. Some of the best fishing on the entire river is in this 7 mile stretch. The Gallatin here is your typical freestone/meadow stream with some fast riffles and runs, a few longer slower pools and some nice cutbanks that provide ideal habitat. Fifteen inch fish are not all that uncommon and I've caught browns & cutthroats up to 18".

Dang, I forgot to grab some SPF30 sunscreen at Albertsons market this morning -always a fairly serious concern during a sunny day in Montana, especially at this elevation . I would pay for this seemingly small oversight before the day was done.

As was previously mentioned, it takes a few hours for the Gallatin to warm up and turn on for good fishing, even during the summer months, so there's usually no hurry for the angler to rush to hit the water early. Once noontime rolled around though the hatches started in earnest; first the caddis had fish popping all over the river, then it was the pale morning duns joining the mix and pulling a few nice fish out from the undercut banks and if that wasn't enough already a decent hatch of western green drakes began to emerge in mid-afternoon that brought some of the days better fish up from the bottom of some of the deepest pools. Those green drakes never really came off in big numbers but the fish certainly knew they were there. All this activity under a bright & relentless afternoon sun.

The spruce trees in the background of the above photo mark the confluence with the Taylor Fork which, along with Bacon Rind & Fan Creek, is one of the better Gallatin River tributaries. Downstream of the mouth of Taylor Fork the Gallatin becomes a much bigger & boisterous river.

Taylor Fork

The variety of water in this area is just one reason why this location is one of my favorite on the river. Upstream of the confluence you can fish a smaller and more intimate river that often runs much clearer that the water below, or if your in a big water frame of mind you can work your way downstream into some serious mutha-lovin pocketwater and the very beginning of the Gallatin Canyon just above Cinnamon Basin, or you can fish the Taylor Fork itself. You decide. I'm just glad to have the options.

The fishing was fast enough over the next few hours that my gnat-like attention span soon began to drift in and out. Maybe it was that big sandwich I ate for lunch but by late afternoon the easy fishing had become soporific. These days a few fish seems to be enough for me anymore and a I tend to get bored easily when there isn't any challenge involved or any problem to solve. So I decided to forgo the evening rise & spinner fall and went geeking around up in the northwest corner of YNP instead. It's just the way I roll these daze.

Daly Creek Trail

Into the heart of the southern end of the Gallatin Range.

Fawn Pass Trail

The portal to Fan Creek. Click on over here for a virtual tour of what lies ahead on the Fawn Pass/Fan Creek Trail.

Caution Horses

On the Black Butte Ranch. Just downstream from Snowflake Spring.

This is easy water to wade and fish with little brush to interfere with your casting except for a few willows. You can wade pretty much anywhere except the deepest pools. Access is superb.

Big Horn Peak

From the Big Horn Pass Trailhead.

Upper Gallatin River Valley
Away from US 191 with Big Horn Peak in the background. Dang Blister Rust!

A Bluff Charge

Got sunburn anyone? Evidently, the Rivers men have very sensitive skin, my face is just as red as my shirt. Do yourself and your skin a favor and don't forget your sunscreen. They don't call it Big Sky Country for nothing ya know.

Coming up next: Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey...

Chasing Rainbows in Paradise

2010-07-21T06:38:00.050-05:00

The Murray Hotel - Livingston, Montana

Livingston, Montana (aka Deadrock) has, over the years, become like a second home to me. I enjoy the laid back small town atmosphere, the fine fishing, friendly folk and the eye-catching views of the Absarokas & Crazies right from Main Street in town. It offers easy access to the Yellowstone, Sheilds & Boulder Rivers, two world famous spring creek systems, Yellowstone National Park's northern range, a petrified forest and even the fertile Gallatin Valley is just a short ride over the historic Bozeman Pass. And anytime I'm in town you'll find me hunkered down in one of the comfortable and tastefully appointed rooms in the Murray Hotel. A local landmark that still features claw foot bathtubs and huge soft pillows and is even on the National Register of Historic Buildings. For me, staying at the Murray, or the Grand Hotel over in Big Timber, is part of the total package when fishing the lower Yellowstone River Valley. It sure beats a lonely sheepherders wagon up in the Trail Creek drainage. Long may it run.

Absaroka Mountains

Our goal on this trip was to spend a few days fishing the pale morning duns and summer baetis hatches on Armstrong Spring Creek as it flows through the Depuy's and O'Hair's Ranches on the west side of the Yellowstone River around Pine Creek. These rare gems have been in the same respective families for generations on down. Let's hope that it stays this way for the foreseeable future as both families have turned down several generous offers over the years to sell their land to individuals like Ted Turner or other groups of individuals for astronomical prices in the many of millions of dollars. Turner paid over $20 million dollars for a piece of Sixteenmile Creek up by Maudlow. How much do you think Armstrong's or Nelson's Spring Creek is worth? Why would these families turn down such ungodly amounts of money? Because selling the land & water that has been in their family for generations would cut right through the heart & soul of their lives. They are true champions of the American spirit in every sense of the phrase.

DePuy's Spring Creek

Reservations were made almost a year in advance, proper artifices were cranked out at the tying bench, the PMD's had been reliably hatching for almost two weeks now, the heavy rains of June had passed and the region was settling into it's pattern of delightful summer weather. What could possibly go wrong?

Rainbow Bridge

Welp, for starters, my first day on Depuys I was greeted by a dry low pressure system that moved in overnight and ushered in sustained winds of 25-30 mph with gusts up to 60mph. One of those gusts almost knocked me off my feet at one point. Compounding that issue was a confounding lack of PMD's pouring out of the riffles at their usual appointed hatching time or at anytime for that matter. It was mystifying at best and unleashed a string of expletives at it's worst.

The Blue Gate

What's an angler to do? Thankfully, I had my box of terrestrials and another box of small spring creek nymphs with me. I spent the day plying the fast water along the grassy banks with black Letort crickets and the various riffles with small beadhead nymphs. Both of these techniques turned out to be fairly productive and salvaged for me what otherwise could have been a very difficult day on a very technical spring creek.

Paradise Valley Rainbow

There was even a light caddis hatch still coming off some of the riffly sections and a CDC & elk hair caddis was good for a couple of fish that weren't interested in anything else I had in my box.

Dick's Riffle

Dick's riffle is almost always good for a fish or two by deep running some small nymphs through the obvious channels and lenses and this trip was no exception.

While it's certainly true that my catch rate was down from previous years on the same creek, I took particular satisfaction in noting that none of the fish I brought to net were under 15". The following day on the Depuy's section also presented a dearth of PMD's but at least the wind had layed down. In fact, during these first two days on Depuy's I counted a total of less than six (6) pale morning duns on the water. There were clouds of PMD spinners swarming over the streamside grasses (of all places) in the morning and evening but they never hit the water.

Betty's Riffle

The evening Baetis tricaudatus emergence up at Betty's Riffle and the Ph.D Pool was pretty much more of the same however, but at least we had a few rising fish to work over although not nearly as many as in years past. The pool right below Betty's Riffle gave up a 19" Yellowstone cutthroat on this evening while I had the entire pool & riffle to myself for a couple of hours. Even Buzz's Fly Shop was closed. This hatch may have been just cranking up because it seemed to get a little thicker each night.

Dick's Pond

The Smiths (owners of the Depuy's Ranch) are currently working on narrowing Dick's Pond and building a small diversion channel around it so anglers who aren't packing float tubes don't have to risk their lives wading through waist deep muck to try and reach those free risers that are always just a little out of range in the pond. The diversion channel will help to moderate downstream temperatures in this important spawning ground for Yellowstone cutthroats who come here from out in the main river.

O'Hair's Corral Beat

So it was with mixed emotions that I said goodbye to the Depuy's Ranch and the very next day I headed up to the O'Hair's. Maybe things would be a little better upstream I thought...

Armstrong Spring Creek

And it was, sort of. The following morning dawned cool and clear in the low 50's but warmed up very quickly into the upper 80's. Finally, good numbers of pale morning duns appeared right on schedule around 10 am and the fish were up and on them in a hurry. It was some very fine fishing and rarely was their another angler in sight, and even then always at some distance. I know it sounds strange but the fish definitely seemed to show a preference for PMD cripples on this morning.

PMD's literally poured out of the above riffle on O'Hair's which is located at the upper tip of the large island by the corrals and just downstream of the main spring which is out of sight and just around the bend and to the right in the above photo. The density of large resident fish in this section has to be seen to be believed.

The Old Trail Creek Channel

The following morning we were right back where we started with another lackluster PMD emergence. The only saving grace was that the late afternoon baetis hatch was getting a little stronger each evening.

The O'Hair Ranch

On a normal summer morning this flat would be alive with large trout sipping pale morning dun emergers, cripples and duns.

Armstrong Spring Creek

It's almost time for those afternoon baetis to start hatching in earnest.

Rainbows All Over Your Blues

The summer baetis hatch on the Paradise Valley spring creeks has always been a challenging hatch for dedicated hatch matchers to successfully fish. When it's on, huge trout are boiling all around you to size #20 mayflies and 80-90 percent of them are taking emergers just under the surface. I've always been a "one fly on the terminal end of my tackle" kind of guy but this time I finally embraced a tandem setup of a #20 CDC & biot baetis dun with a small flashback pheasant tail nymph on a short dropper and experienced a surprising amount of success. I have to admit that it was quite a thrill to see the CDC dun suddenly dip underneath the surface and then set the hook into a fat slab of a trout.

She's a Rainbow
She comes in colors...

Early Summer

Blanket hatches or not, I honestly can't imagine a better way to spend a delightful summer day in Montana.

Ph.D Pool - Depuy's Spring Creek

I flunked out of the Ph.D Pool this year -a pool which I've always done well on in the past. I'll have to take some extra summer school classes again next year, I guess.

Late Afternoon on O'Hair's

Yellowstone River - Paradise Valley

Parting Shot: The End of the Rainbow

Coming up next: The Gallatin Divide.

South Fork Flathead River

2010-07-01T18:27:00.000-05:00

Around Murphy Flats

Late afternoon shadows & light in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Canon EF 70-200, f 4.0 L series glass mounted on a Canon EOS 300D camera body. Set of sticks & ball head by Manfrotto. No filters. ISO 100, f 9.0, 1/200 second Tv.

A slight tweaking of the color saturation & contrast in post processing.

No bull trout were harmed in the making of this photo. And that's no bull!

Bob Marshall Wilderness

2010-07-01T06:08:00.000-05:00

Big Salmon Lake

Canon Powershot S2 point & shoot camera with image stabilization and a 58mm wide angle circular polarizer. ISO 50, 1/80 second exposure @ f 4.0.

Guiding and horse wrangling were provided by Janice Moss of Salmon Forks Outfitters based out of Columbia Falls, Montana. I was hungry as a horse by the time we got back to Hungry Horse, Mt.

Soda Butte Creek, YNP

2010-06-30T16:35:00.007-05:00

Soda Butte Creek & Abiathar Peak

Shot from Barronette Meadows.

This slightly overexposed image was shot with a Canon Powershot point & shoot camera, model S30, with a 37mm circular polarizer attached. Image stabilization provided by a true multi-tasker; the Leki (Sierra model) trekking pole/monopod/wading staff combo. Right after this shot was taken I drove into Cooke City and knocked off a liquor store. And that's no no bravo sierra.

ISO 50, f 2.8, 1/250 second exposure and a slight tweaking of the contrast during post processing.

Sustenance provided by Helen's Corral Drive-In Burgers in Gardiner, Montana. Bear Spray provided by Counter Assault.

The Lost Horizon

2010-06-28T08:21:00.005-05:00

Shriner Mountain - Millheim, Pa.

This shot was exposed from the northern flank of Second Mountain in May of 2009 after fishing the evening rise on Penns Creek. No filters or fotoshop were used in the making of this image. I shot this one in the RAW format, but I put my pants back on as soon as I was done. I swear on a stack of bibles.

30 second exposure, f16, ISO 400, tripod & automatic shutter release. Why? Because that's how the pro's do it.

Fan Creek - Yellowstone National Park

2010-06-25T18:01:00.007-05:00

Fan Creek - July, 2006

A small but productive headwater tributary of the Gallatin River flows through expansive meadows and spring fed wetlands at 7,500' in the southern end of the Gallatin Range. Watch out for the giant anacondas. They seem to come out of nowhere back here.

Canon 17-40mm L Series glass complimented with a 77mm Tiffen wide angle circular polarizer mounted on a Canon EOS 300D SLR. The whole shootin' match is supported by a carbon fiber set of sticks & pan head built by Velbron. Aperture of f 7.1 with a shutter speed of 1/125 seconds @ ISO 100.

Headwaters

The RKO Road

2010-06-24T19:00:00.018-05:00

Snake River Plain, Wyoming

The month of September in WyMont is probably my most favorite time of the year in my most favorite place on the planet. The tourist and biting insects are mostly gone, the kids are all back in school and the weather is still intoxicatingly pleasant. Such was the case last September when my good friend Greg G, his brother Gerry and myself found ourselves geeking around the RKO Road in western Wyoming while in hot pursuit of a few Snake River fine spotted cutthroats.

The RKO Road is a 14 mile long rough & rutted jeep trail in Grand Teton National Park that runs from Signal Mountain down to the old Bar BC Ranch and parallels the west bank of the Snake River along the way. The "road" was originally hacked out of the sagebrush bench back in the 1940's by RKO Studios so they could film Hollywood Westerns on location in Jackson Hole. Nothing remains of that enterprise today but the road itself and a couple of old corrals from the Bar BC.

I shot the above image during the early evening of September 7, 2009 with a Canon 17-40mm, f4 wide angle L Series Lens mounted on a Canon EOS 40D digital SLR toggled into manual mode with an aperture of f11 at 1/80 second, ISO speed 200, and a Galen Rowell/Singh-Ray 3-stop (hard) graduated neutral density filter mounted in a Cokin "P" size holding bracket. The whole works was mounted on a Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod with a 360 degree Manfrotto 484RC2 ball socket swivel head. I was wearing Fruit of the Loom underwear at the time.

Pastures of Plenty

2010-05-23T07:27:00.066-05:00

I recently had the opportunity to spend an entire week in the Karoondinha Gorge. The fishing itself, particularly the dry fly fishing, was nothing short of fantastic, as it always is at this time of the year. The weather patterns were dominated by a couple of cool, cloudy, overcast low pressure fronts that moved through the area while the surface of the creek was dominated by abundant hatches of sulphers, caddis, cahills, baetis, march browns, green drakes, etc., etc. Highlights included fishing with my good friend & fellow Pro Staffer Glen G on a day when the fish rose in waves pretty much all day long, from 0700 hrs right up until darkness enveloped the stream. Another was landing a 19" wild brown (measured on the handle of my landing net) during a sulpher spinner fall on Friday night. I subsequently fumbled that fish back into the water while trying to snag a photo in near total darkness. Just as well, I suck pretty bad at flash photography and there was no way I could pull off a hand held exposure on the stream in the dark without one. I know, I'm a wuss.

Bonnie Bells Majestic View

Along the Siglerville-Millheim Pike.

The Great Plain
Upper Penns Valley.

Poh Valley

This is the view looking east from Pine Swamp Road as it negotiates Pine Swamp Gap. That's White Mountain in the background. The dome of Tunnel Mountain can also be seen marking the eastern terminus of Poh (Poe) Valley. Pine Swamp road was originally an old wagon road that Daniel Musser first hacked of what was then a howling wilderness to transport his virgin timber from his sawmill at the junction of Big Poe & Little Poe Creeks to the mills in Millheim (aka Home of the Mills).

In the Forest

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Penns Creek

Fast water at the foot of Sawmill Mountain provided some lonely but exciting nymph fishing shortly after daybreak on these mornings in May. Flows ranged between 250-300 CFS during the entire week.

Penns Creek Brown Trout

Blue & Green

Efflorescent scene deep in the Ralph W. Abele Memorial Glen.

Anticipation
Wash day on the Nairobi?

Lewisburg & Tyrone R.R. Trestle

Captured & Detained

A virtual Gitmo.

Ingleby

Glen G now officially own this pool. At least the trout think so. The man is a fish wrangling mo-chine.

Druids

Shortly after this shot was taken, Glen went over and hugged a couple of those trees and launched into one of his druidic rants. Just keeeeeeding! It was really before the shot was taken.

Second Growth

In the Ingleby flood plain.

Cold Morning Light

For my money, there's nothing quite as exhilarating as being waist deep in a peaceful but fast flowing river just after daybreak. By the end of the week even green drakes were emerging in decent numbers in this stretch, although I suspect they were just precursors to the main event as the main burst was still a few miles downstream. It was quite a sight to wake up to but the fish were more interested in the morning caddis hatch. I'm just glad they were interested in something. You know how persnickety brown trout can be.

Solitude

Mornings are my favorite time to be on the river at this time of the year. Most of the dedicated evening hatch matchers are still sleeping off their hangovers, the parking lots are virtually empty, I can actually see my fly on the waters surface and you can have long beats of any type off water you prefer all to yourself.

Net Gain

Round River

The fish were pretty active in the mornings too. On Saturday morning, my last day in the gorge, I caught 14 fish just by prospecting an Elk & CDC caddis in the riffles. Sure, most of those fish were only around a foot long but two of them were your quintessential fat 15" Penns Creek browns. All taken on dry flies.

Parallel Lines

It was a great way to put an exclamation point on as fine a week of angling as I've had in some time. Little did I know at that point that Tea Creek would add it's own little magic touch during a short 45 minute sortie on my way back home across the Seven Mountains.

Lovely Little Tea Creek

Tea Creek Brown Trout

The Old Duck Pond
Around Reedsville, Pa.

Here's what Woody said...

It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if it be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free

-Woody Guthrie

Thanks for looking.

The Colors of May

2010-05-17T20:32:00.032-05:00

Put your worries on hold, they’re not going anywhere.
Contemplate the number of May evenings you have left to live.

Rejoice in the unique colors of the season that few others will notice. The special significance of translucent gray wings shadowing pale yellow bodies. Of limestone green, a color unknown to the geologist who will insist that limestone is a chalky gray color but who misses the point entirely. We know better.

We know how the mixing of those colors won’t be found on the color wheel, but may lead us to red spots with white halos. Or blue patches on golden cheeks. Or brown blotches shimmering in a slight red cast, all framed in buttery yellow:

It is quite appropriate that the flies of May have ‘ephemeral’ in their very name. The colors of May are ephemeral, transitional. We may never truly possess or recreate them, but we cherish our brief encounter with a delicate dun that alights on our shirt sleeve. Or with a wild brown trout admired for a few seconds in our net:

Or with a thunderstorm that builds, flashes, then moves on, lacking the energy of July’s prolonged heat to sustain itself:

Soon, even the bright greens of the fresh spring foliage will be gone, photosynthesized into the deep greens of summer:

Limestone or freestone,
Headwater or tailwater.
Wet, dry, or somewhere in between.
The magic of the transitional, the ephemeral, the ethereal.
May waits for no one.

Brothers of the angle, grab your gear and make haste to trout country…it's on!

Never the Same

2010-05-11T17:56:00.058-05:00

It finally happened, I have been ruined as an angler, and I knew that it would happen one day. I will no longer view trout streams the same from this day forward. I know that some my find my angling tastes as a little off beat; certainly so, by standards outside the eastern US, or so I think. I live for these small streams that are inhabited by brook trout, and sometimes browns. So when my friend Mike first made the offer to fish some of these types of streams in a national park in eastern Virginia some time ago, the idea had some traction. However, the last few years, up until about 2 years ago, we had been mired in a nasty drought, and small stream fishing just wasn’t the same when the fish are struggling for survival in lukewarm, sub normal flows. But as mentioned, the weather has changed for the better as of late. So when we discussed this a couple of weeks ago, things looked to be a go. So we departed for the eastern slope of the Shenandoah National Park. There a good many trout streams that drain the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, and some of those streams are pretty nice places for trout and insects and such to thrive and flourish.

Some folks would cringe at the prospect of camping in the middle of nowhere without any amenities whatsoever, even next to a trout stream. To me, that sounds like my type of place. So after about 40 minutes of travel on a clearing through the woods that some may call a road, we arrived at Shangri-La. The accommodations were adequate, which meant that there was a level spot to pitch a tent and a ring of rocks that served as a fire ring. Other than that, things were as Mike called it, “jungle rules camping”. After the necessities were addressed, such as food and shelter, it was time to fish.

It’s always an interesting proposition fishing a new stream, as you just never know what to really expect, until you wade in a have a look around. Oh, I suppose some do the film room for hours, and all the pre game prep too. Myself, I just clumsily get there and get going. But I did have all the proper flies for such a place. A few EHC still graced a compartment in my fly box. And I just tied the previous week, some really cool/fishy looking Adams Wulff’s, that turned out quite well, for me that is. So as I threaded the end of 5X through the eye of an EHC, I wondered how things would play out. I kinda got the impression that things might be just fine, as a couple of brookies made some splashy rises taking insects from the surface in the miniature pool that I would fish first. Those free rising fish, quickly felt the point of the hook, and were quickly released after they came to hand. Just gorgeous, wild, Appalachian mountain trout. Probably even prettier than the ones back home in PA, but not by much. Unfortunately, I don’t have a bunch of fish shots. But no matter, pictures do not do these fish justice anyway, especially so with my limited photography skills and a point and shoot camera. We actually started fishing sometime around 5, I think, and dark comes early in these rugged mountains. So by the time we knocked off, we only got about 2 hours or so of fishing. But the fish were extremely cooperative, and the evening was nice. Besides, there was no need to be there after dark for a spinner fall, or emergence, and also, the next day we would get our fill of fishing.

Some of the pools in the stream defied belief, with regards of how perfectly they were formed, with the utmost consideration for the fish of course.

The next day dawned somewhat chilly, and surprising breezy even early in the morning. But it was bright sun, and today was to be much warmer than yesterday. So we commenced fishing at about 9:30 or so. Our plan, or more appropriately Mike’s suggestion, was to park at the end of the road, then walk a ways and then descend to the stream. Luckily, we didn’t encounter other anglers, and made our way to the stream.

Foot travel in this area is difficult at best in riparian zones, as there is an incredible abundance of saplings of all different kinds of deciduous trees. This though, is a tragedy from all of the hemlocks being wiped out by the dreaded wooly adelgid. I hope they figure this menace out soon, or hemlocks are going to be a scarce as chestnuts in the mid Atlantic real soon.

However, as in most of nature, things might not be as bad as they seem, as the increased light is probably helping to produce more algae, which in turn would support more aquatic insects. But that’s just my opinion, which stands a chance of being dead wrong. However, to back up my assertion, I sampled the some rocks in the stream, and they were just filthy with macroinvertebrate life. Stonefly nymphs and mayfly nymphs dominated the insect life. There were some caddis, but not many as the stones or mayflies, and mostly the October stick caddis. I suspect that we were too far upstream for significant caddis populations. Of course it will heat the water slightly more also. Whatever the outcome, it is still playing out and only time will tell. I can only hope the fish, the insects and the forest still thrive for a long time to come. One thing is for certain, I’ll miss hemlock trees, as I have them pegged on my list as one of the most beautiful trees I’ve ever seen.Once on stream, the fish picked things up, right where they left off the previous day, with brookie after brookie falling victim to the EHC. Then, they stopped taking it, to some extent. I wouldn’t say that they became selective, more that just wanted a different fly. So I tied on one of the Adams Wulff’s. Mike and I hop scotched, and leap frogged each other for about a mile and a half. To sum up the amount of fish we caught, “lots” would suffice, plain and simple. It was exceedingly easy to lose track of the number of fish we caught. I never did remove the Adams Wulff from my leader the remainder of the trip. Mike had no issues finding a magic fly either, as every time I looked upstream or down, he was bent over unhooking another one. Finally, exhausted, we stopped fishing and hiked the mile and half back to Mike’s vehicle. I was giddy with success, and felt pretty much physically drained. This was taxing work, hopping up, and down, and around, and over, car sized boulders. Also too, there was an inordinate amount of timber, from the fallen hemlocks in the streambed.

After a few cold ones and some sustenance, we resumed fishing far downstream from where we were in the morning. This was much bigger water, and of course, the thought of larger fish was at the forefront of my feeble, one track mind.

The first one Mike hooked into was in fact the biggest one of the trip. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a brookie, probably more like a copperhead. It did have an arrowhead shaped head, and it struck repeatedly at the stick/log that I tried to unhook the fly with. Who knows? At best, it was a really pissed off snake!

This water was indeed different from the upper reaches that we fished in the morning. The river seemed to pause a little more often, but still was almost violent in spots, where it ran fast and deep through chutes in the rock. But here and there, you were able to leap the entire river in less than 5-6 feet!

Sure enough, there were larger fish here than further upstream. I hit a section of water where caught no less than a half a dozen in a short, highly productive section of pocket water, interspersed with a couple of short in length, deep in depth, pools. The largest fish was right around a foot. These were not your usual, stream brookies, these were almost like river trout, where they constantly swam in the strong current, and grew shoulders. Two of these fish, actually make my reel protest in a sudden, immediate burst after they felt the business end of the hook! These guys were big league!

With a pause, I briefly reflected the events of the day, before we hit the dusty trail for the way out of the canyon. I think that the most impressive thing about this place, is that the fishing doesn’t seem eastern, with regards to elevation. This river is flippin steep! In short, this was one of the most enjoyable days I’ve ever spent fishing. And, I get this feeling that it would be that way again, next time I fish it, which will occur sometime in the future.

Looking down the lower river, late evening, wisteria blooming on the side hills.

Next morning, we struck camp early, and in haste, as Mike was going to volunteer for a Healing Waters event that was going to take place on the Rose River. I also too was going to fish the Rose, but further upstream, inside the park. There was nobody at the dead end parking lot, so geared up and raced upstream. I walked for about 10 minutes and then descended to the stream. I was somewhat disappointed when I reached the stream. I found a smallish and shallow stream, where the stream bed was scattered all over the place, and the stream was braided into a few trickles at some spots. I didn’t have to go too far however, when a found a pretty pool that seemed inviting.

A couple of nice brookies came quickly to hand, just as pretty as the ones from yesterday, a watershed apart. Still though, the stream was not the classic, narrow chute of a waterway, and holding water wasn’t abundant. So upstream I slogged. The stream hinted of changing topography, as I got to the point at which the stream started to braid.

Before long, I found the water I was looking for. Narrow chutes among room size boulders, with seemingly bottomless greenish pools.

Good sign of a healthy stream.

The further I walked upstream, the better it got.

I wanted to walk and fish for a much longer time in this magical forest, and along this sylvan stream, but the day promised rain, and I had a long drive in front of me. So it was with regret, I reeled in, packed away the gear, and departed, knowing that I would return again. Why not? This place was almost paradise for a mountain trout bum…….And there are more trout streams that beckon exploration…..so many streams, so little time….

Fair Warning

2010-05-09T12:25:00.014-05:00

Cross Fork Creek - Potter County

Lycoming County

You know, wishing won't make it go away...
Hoping won't do it
Praying won't do it
Religion won't do it
Philosophy won't do it
The Governor won't do it
The Supreme Court won't do it
The President and the Congress won't do it
NASA won't do it
The UN won't do it
The sun and the moon won't do it
God won't do it
And I certainly won't do it

That leaves YOU
You'll have to do it

BOOM!
The Monkey Wrench Gang

Earth Day

2010-04-25T20:18:00.011-05:00

In the Gorge...

Grannom Summit 2010

2010-04-19T19:14:00.046-05:00

A photo journal of the 2010 RBF Pro Staffer's Grannom Summit held this past weekend at Poe Paddy State Park on Penns Creek in the Bald Eagle State Forest. The weather at times was downright gnarly, the fishing itself was at best, arduous, but the food, drink and the good company would warm the hearts and minds of all of the borderline hypothermic Pro Staffers who came out and braved the natural elements with nary a complaint. I don't think I've ever been more proud of these guys.

The RBF Pro Staff Mobile Headquarters

The Chief's new preferred mode of transportation.

Magnificent Penns Creek Brown Trout

Photo & Catch Credit: Mike B.

Night School
Nocturnal Education

The Chief's Paella - A Culinary Masterpiece

Big Fishing Creek

The Narrows

Big Fishing Creek Brownie

Photo & Catch Credit: Mike B.

Riffle Corner

RBF Pro Staffers

Senior Field Tester, Glen G.

RBF Pro Staffers II

Travels With the Chief

Thanks for lQQking.

Coming up next: Wild ramps, tramps and brook trout from Potter County.

Spring and All

2010-04-05T05:26:00.059-05:00

Salvelinus Fontinalis
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery"

-Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Cougar Run - April, 2010

Sandstone Ledge

Bald Eagle State Forest

Cougar Hollow

Had enough of the over done water-silking shit yet? Me too, lets move on...

Poe Paddy

Karoondinha

I came to Penns Creek this past weekend expecting easy fishing and a basket full of fish. I found neither. A nuclear blast of photons bathed the glen in warm, bright sunshine and kick started the food chain making it all seem like a bad joke. The creek was bank full this weekend with over 700 CFS of 50-56F limestone green water. Rarely was there another angler in sight back here.

Penns Creek Wild Area

A smattering of black stonflies & tan caddis along with a few precursor Blue Quills and Hendricksons offered a seductive tease of what lays ahead for fellow fish hunters in the coming weeks and months. Active food chain or not it was all I could do to nymph up a couple (2) of respectable fish on each day to avoid getting hit in the face with another skunk.

Mid way through my second day on the river I chucked the whole chucking & ducking gig and ducked back onto the mountains in pursuit of the much more user friendly hemlock trout. For once I made the right decision, over two dozen squaretails were caught and released on dry flies in the 54F freestone water in just over two hours of angling. I kid you not, it was that good! I must have felt as soldiers do when they return home from combat and hear the birds singing for the first time, or perhaps the rustling of the leaves they never noticed before. Life was good and all was right with the world again.

Sawmill Mountain

Drowned

Perhaps the most interesting discovery I made this past Saturday was this weather beaten romantic tablet I stumbled upon while I worked my way upstream along the base of Sawmill Mountain. Nestled in a scenic grove of mature basswood and tulip trees, red oaks, maples and pine trees it bears the inscription of a heartbroken tribute by Lillian Sheffer, aka the Wolf Lady of Paddy Mountain, to a young admirer who drowned while swimming in Penns Creek during a September visit in 1921.

Lillian Sheffer was a track walker on the Lewisburg-Tyrone Railroad along Penns creek and she made daily walks during fire season to look for sparks and embers from the locomotives along the stretch from Paddy Mountain to Coburn. I believe she lived at the second house perched up on the rocky bench along side the Paddy Mountain Tunnel. Evidently young men were scarce during the war and women had to fill in the gaps. I often try to imagine the blizzard like hatches, and tremendous rise of trout, she must have witnessed on her long walks way back when before sedimentation and pesticides came to Gen. James Potter's "empire".

Byron Faust Krumrine
Died at Dusk
September 4th, 1921
while swimming in the waters of Karoondinhha
250 yards west of this spot
Lieut. World War I
Penn State 1919
In Memoriam

by Lillian Sheffer
Sept. 4th, 1923

Parting Shot: Nevermore Creek

Poe Valley.

Mucho thanks to Jonas Price of the Feathered Hook Inn & Fly Shop for the hospitality and Wyatt Dietrich of Dream Catcher Fly Rods for the fine boo'.

Coming next: Bad assed brachycentrus and early hatching subvaria's.

Savage River Status

2010-03-30T13:43:00.008-05:00

Clean up in aisle number one...

Here's the latest scoop on the Savage River dam repairs:

-UPRC 's contractor completed their final service gate adjustments and integrated control system tests late last week.
-As of this past Monday they now have the ability to operate all gates and the jet-flow valve from the operating level (no crane is needed).
-They have one more restoration project on the service gate babbits which should be completed by this weekend, if possible.
-At that point they plan to do an AVF flushing release of about 2,000 CFS for a day. This will help to clear out several hundred yards of silt and muck in the channel below the outlet as well as any sediment that collected above the outlet.
-Right now all the flow is going over the spillway (except for 100 CFS from the jet-valve).
-The crew has observed improved clarity in both, the reservoir and the river. Once the repairs are completed and flows return to a manageable level they will do some spot checking with electro-fishing gear. They will have a much better idea of what lingering impacts they face and the scope of the recovery work after the survey is completed.

If things go well they should know the extent of the damage before the North Branch Advisory Group meeting on 6 April.

Green Up

2010-03-29T18:41:00.004-05:00

Rails to Trails

Given that this is our very first post here at WRWT since the United States of America as we know it ceased to exist, I thought I might dwell on some of the more refreshing constants in this ever changing world. Spring is now infusing the hills and hollars of central Pennsylvania with bountiful sunshine and green grass along with ample rain and blanket hatches of baetis mayflies to warm the hearts and minds of casual and serious anglers alike.

Roads to Trails - Old Millheim Turnpike

A cool front recently pushed it way across the region dropping the overnight air temperatures into the mid-twenties with daytime highs never quite hitting the 50F mark this weekend. The thermometer was probably still somewhere in the 30's as I waded across the creek and started up the old abandoned Millheim Turnpike toward some favorite pocketwater in the Narrows above the old Turnpike Toll House.

Elk Creek

It would be too chilly for any dry fly fishing this morning so I anxiously selected a #12 Flatlander Flies© green Rhycophilia caddis larva to begin my days fishing since I knew from Greg G's previous seining efforts that this section of stream held robust populations of this popular caddis fly. I was already sorry that I left my fingerless rag wool gloves at home and I hadn't even gotten my hands wet by landing a fish yet. Hopefully the air would warm up fast once the rising sun crested Shriner Mountain.

Von Behr Brown

And warm up it would, but not from the benevolence of any solar furnace, but rather from the accommodating way in which these wild browns pounced on that Rhycophilia imitation like they hadn't strapped on the old feedbag since last November. The water temperature was only 46F at 2pm but nobody told the fish about it and they fought like they were in mid season form. It seemed like every pocket and lens where you expected a fish to hold had one, bless their little cold blooded hearts, and even spots where I'd never before taken a fish would produce for me today.

The Right Branch

This can be a tough little limestoner, even for experienced fly fisherman, so I was a little surprised at how fast the fishing was on such a bright and sunny, albeit chilly, day. We've had two good water years in a row now and the fish are fat and healthy with appetites to match their girth.

Waterhouse Gap Run
A perennial freestone tributary.

Icicles

A Mossy Creek Brown

All in all it was a great day of nymph fishing on one of the toughest little limestoners I know, but the joy would not end there for the best was yet to come. After a sumptuous feast of pork bellies, burgers, beer and bluegrass music at the Elk Creek Cafe with my good friend Mike B from NoVa, we made plans to breakfast the following day at the Feathered Hook Inn in Coburn then jam it on over to Spring Creek for some highly anticipated baetis action in the face of an oncoming toad floating deluge that was bearing down on central Pennsylvania. It would turn out to be a text book baetis day that we'll both remember until someone is changing our diapers for us.

In short, it was the mother of all spring baetis hatches. Prior to the emergence, Mike put on a nymphing clinic for all the Spring Creek Regulars while yours truly took a very public and crushing skunk on the chin. Then the rains moved in and all hell broke loose. Mike's a former duffer turned fly fisherman and is a really great guy. In fact, he still spends most of his free time setting up hot dates for Tiger Woods, so that keeps him pretty busy to say the least.

Spring Creek

A steady light drizzle slowly increased in intensity into a cold wind driven rain driving most of the fair weather fisherpersons & duffers off the creek. The baetis duns were now pouring out of the riffles in numbers that I don't think I've ever witnessed before. You would have thought you were on the Henry's Fork in Idaho as literally every square foot of stream surface was covered with freshly hatched duns that were too cold to take flight. And the trout responded by going nuts. Even I caught a few fish once I got my trip together.

Oh the Wind and Rain
Photo Credit: Mike B.

It was just our luck that we happened to be positioned at a spot where converging currents made presenting a drag free drift a real challenge but once we dropped down one fly size, lengthened our tippets and executed downstream mend casts, even those persnickety fish fell prey to our respective imitations. We finally packed it in around 5pm as the hatch started to wind down and since all our gear was now thoroughly drenched. I apologize for the lack of photos from this event but heavy rain and cameras are heap bad medicine. You'll have to take our word for it.

Fun Fact #4: These flies are virtually useless in a driving rain storm. Worse than nothin' they are. We'll be jettisoning this pattern post haste and replacing it with the Bowman Baetis©

Bowman Baetis©

Mike absolutely murdered those stupid trout on his Bowman Baetis© pattern while I went through two whole bottles of Frogs Fanny substitute trying to keep my CDC dry. It's a killer pattern and the wild Spring Creek browns will be the first to admit it.

If my gear isn't dried out yet, it soon will be. They are calling for sunshine and highs in the upper 70's for this weekend. Those Grannoms are right around the corner too. Bring 'em on!

Baetis Summit 2010

2010-03-22T07:31:00.039-05:00

The RBF Pro Staffers
L to R: Bunyan, Bowhunter, Dropper, Glen G, Chief, Agrontrutta, Johnny Paycheck.

This past weekend marked two of the most eagerly anticipated events on the Pennsylvania fly fishing calendar; the Vernal Equinox and the RBF Pro Staffers 6th annual Baetis Summit on Spring Creek in Centre County. In keeping with tradition, the weather for this prestigious event turned out to be a delightful, if not down right intoxicating, harbinger of spring and the oncoming season. Couple the great weather with a bunch of well fed Pro Staffers and you have the recipe for a potent spring elixir of trout fishing, sunshine and camaraderie. Man I love these guys - every single one of them. Not in the biblical sense of course, more in a brotherly love kind of way if you know what I mean.

Spring Creek

Ambient air temperatures rocketed into the upper sixties, water temps were 53F at noon and the water levels were around 200 CFS and still dropping from substantial rains earlier in the week. The color was limestone green and my cholesterol levels were around 960. My gross weight is down to 243 lbs. from a high of 260 at this time last year. Life is good!

Baetis Eater

Baetis tricaudatus mayflies and wild brown trout, what can you say about them? The little ephemeral sailboats started trickling off right on cue around 14oo hrs. and by and by the trout seemed exquisitely bored by the whole show. There were a few exceptions if you were in the right place at the right time as fellow Pro Staffer Agrontrutta was fortunate to be. He brought his dry fly game and managed to take a bevy fine wild browns on top that very first day while the rest of us were content to nymph up a few to keep things respectable. There were even rumors floating around of a Pro Staffer or two who got skunked up but I'm chalking this up to nothing more than wild innuendo.

Turkey Hill Beat

Welp, the reason for the trout's apathy to the baetis mayflies soon became apparent the following day (Sunday) when Midger observed schools of suckers taking advantage of the elevated water flows. They were already pairing up for the spawn and dropping protein bombs in the form of sucker eggs in the shallow riffles of Paradise.

Side Channel

I don't have much experience fishing sucker spawn for wild trout but that all changed on Sunday. Fortified by a bottle of the Chief's Gran Pescador 14 % Hard Cider (trust me, it'll make your Buffalo Run) I was lucky enough to stumble across a few pods of spawning suckers myself and all of a sudden my season was off to a very satisfying start. They weren't everywhere, so you had to hunt around to find them, but once you did you could stand in one spot and hook a 1/2 dozen wild browns in short order. Good solid fat fish that were beautifully colored up the way spring creek fish should be. Call me a sucker if you want but a size #14 Flatlander Flies© sucker spawn cluster imitation (aka Velveeta Emerger) is now a staple in my early spring fly box.

Agrontrutta

From where the sun now sets, I will fish aquatic insect imitations no more forever. Even though I did get into a few baetis sippers late Sunday afternoon on a Flatlander Flies© CDC baetis emerger, nothing can erase from my memory the tenacity in which those trout took my sucker spawn imitation. The strikes were savage and you could see the tip of your fly line shoot forward like an indicator on each one.

Salmo trutta

These brown trout sure can be capricious. One day the pool is alive with feeding fish while the next day the same pool can appear barren of any signs of trout at all.

Midger

Sucker School fishing is in session. Where do I sign up?

Antolosky & Midger
Handing off the baton.

Bunyan Brownie

Bunyan actually stumbled onto a bunch of spawning suckers on Saturday and he racked up the highest numbers (of brown trout) brought to hand that day, but his sage advice seemingly fell on deaf ears.

Counting Coup in Sucker School
L to R: Bunyan, Agrontrutta, Bowhunter, Mutt Lange, Chief, Glen G.

Piscatorial education. Even Chief Logan was taking notes.

Parting Shot: The Rock

Site of Philip Benner's original Iron Furnace in 1793. According to folks like Eli Whitney, Benner's iron was the best in the world at that time. I imagine the trout fishing back then wasn't too shabby either.

Alas, I'm now back at in the soul crushing hell hole they call work and suffering from Post Sucker Spawn Stress Syndrome. And it's raining again in central Pennsylvania...

Parting query: What's the deal with Egg Hill? Where did that thing come from??

Blacks and Blues

2010-03-04T20:19:00.031-05:00

Well, after a good many years, I finally made it for a full out, hard core, ski 'till ya drop real western skiing vacation. But that's all I wanted to say, and also that I have no pictures either.......
But not really. Actually, the pictures speak for themselves. Also too, events are still unfolding in my mind as it slowly sinks in a becomes real in my memory. In some ways, it seems more real now, than what it once did. I hope the pictures convey the openness and vastness that the mountains there possess, and the effect that they can have on person, as they they glide down a groomer, or pick your way though the bumps. This was the first time I skied so many days in a single span. Frankly, I somewhat surprised myself at the way my body held up, especially in light of the fact that last year when I skied just once, I had some knee issues for about 2-3 weeks afterward. There was none of that, and also no negative effects from the altitude either. There was however a slight bit of trepidation on my part because of my skiing skills, or lack there of, and the big time skiing that lay in front of me. The Pocono's this was not....

The first day I skied myself at Park City. Four of our party were going to Snowbird, as Doug was going heliskiing, Michele his girlfriend was going to ski Snowbird, as well as Sue and Molly. I needed rental skis before I got started. And Joe, unfortunately, had Southwest lose his bag with his boots, somewhere between Philly and SLC, so he was out of action for the time being, but was kind enough to provide shuttle service for me. I only vaguely remembered the layout of the mountain, and with the persistent light, to occasionally heavier snow, it only further clouded my memory of the place. So it was with caution I skied for a while, as I got my legs underneath me, and understood where I was at and where I was going. Park City is a very large place, even by western standards at 3300 acres. Its also somewhat fragmented, so its imperative you make the correct turns if you're planning on going somewhere specific. I missed a cut off to get back to the main lodge twice before nailing the car size gap between ropes successfully the third time. Because I was not all together mentally and physically, or at least that was my perception at the time, and mostly because of the weather, I neglected to take my camera with me skiing. Hence the scarcity of pictures from that day. All in all, not a bad day. I got some really sweet runs in on groomers that had about 3 inches of soft, untouched snow over them for a period of time, before it got skied flat. And I liked my skis, which were an all mountain pair of Blizzard demos. Soft enough for bumps and crud, yet good on the groomers. It was going to be even better skiing in the coming days...I was giddy with excitement and exhilaration.

Fortunately, Joe's bag arrive later that night, and plans were made to drive up Little Cottonwood canyon the next morning. We were going to drive until we ran out of road - we were going to ski Alta the next day. Driving up the canyon on that somewhat foggy morning was incredible, with the impossibly steep cliffs rising up from the road. Also of note, there are at least 4 avalanche gates on the road, which, yes, are frequently closed during heavy snow events, because of avalanches.

The drive in its self was spectacular, but by most accounts, the best skiing in Utah lie just ahead, at the open bowl/valley that is Alta. Although Alta and Snowbird can be skied on a combo ticket, the terrain is quite a bit different. Snowbird is a nasty, advanced mountain, and has only about 5-6 trails classified as intermediate terrain. The rest are blacks and double blacks. Maybe someday, I'd feel more comfortable skiing there. It is such a dramatic, harsh place, the buildings there are built to withstand avalanches, and have done so before.

Just a few hundred yards further up the valley, the bowl opens and Alta awaits.

The day was shaping up, to be just stellar weather wise. Bright, high altitude sun, and little wind. It would be in the 20's today. Just a brilliant, pretty day in the winter, what else better to do than ski!?! We were still finding untouched snow in the woods and glades!

Alta, while not as extreme as Snowbird, is not without its thrills, and challenging terrain. In fact, we heard the guns discharging all morning, as they tried to dissipate avalanche danger. It also has just a nasty, steep mountain face that looked about impossible to ski. The East Greeley face, is not for the meek and mild. Mistakes made there could be serious and painful, or worse. This was not within my repertoire. Catherine's area is also for the experts.

Just a blissfully nice day to be on vacation and skiing!

We took off the next day and kicked around in Park City. My body relished a break! I also dumped my 172CM skis for the same ski in a 165CM length. I was ready for a little more bumps in my life, so to speak.

The day after that, we were like crack addicts, and went back to Alta.....This day was dawning with the promise of powder in the air! By the time we geared up, it was snowing in earnest, as we waited for the lifts to commence running. This was to be my first real pow day, and it promised to be good!

This is a bowl called the Ballroom. Avalanche control was plainly evident. Visibility was sketchy at best, blind at worst.

We skied all over the mountain and found great conditions everywhere. The best was some untouched powder in the trees, knee deep and silky smooth. Save a 45 minute lunch break, we skied all stinkin' day. In fact, Sue, Doug, and I caught THE very last chair to the top of the Sugarloaf lift. They turned it off when we got off. I was just smoked after that orgy of skiing, and it was grand and epic!

This artwork summed up the day:

As luck would have it, all flights into PHL were scrubbed, and we would not leave Thursday as planned. So a bonus day of skiing was to be had the next day. Back to Park City. Another lousy day in paradise....

Not my last trip to the west to ski.....Can't wait until next winter!

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

2010-03-02T20:31:00.008-05:00

Here's the latest doin's on the repair work over at the Savage River Dam in Western Maryland.

-The two upstream emergency gates are in place as of late last week.
-Temporary electrical, mechanical and hydraulic connections have been made to render those gates operational if needed (i.e. another large snowmelt event).
-Permanent connections will be made after all four gates are installed.
-For the immediate future, they will not be using the emergency gates to control outflow unless absolutely necessary to minimize downstream flooding.
- The contractor pushed hard in February, working almost around the clock in terrible conditions, to get the two emergency gates installed so they have some control of the outflow if and when the big snow pack starts to melt.
-Most of the snow survey stations around the Savage River watershed show between 4 to 7 inches of moisture content.
-Refilling the lake this spring should not be a problem.
-Fluctuations in the lake level and downstream hydrograph last week were the result of testing the new gate seals. Expect to see more fluctuations during testing in the weeks to come.
-This week the contractors are installing the right side service gate.
-Maryland DNR will push for a partial refill of the lake as early as possible to keep as much of the lake sediment in place as possible.

And after the lake is filled, it should be a great year for kayaking in the elevated flows of the lower river.

Thanks again to our source, Deep Throat - and they know who they are, for the latest insider you-heard-it-here-first scoop on the progress at the dam.

Savage River Update #2

2010-02-18T19:41:00.012-05:00

And there always more.....

Here's the latest news as of today from our Deep Throat sources working right on the dam itself:

-The contractor has completed most of the work on the 16" & 24" lines in the gate chamber.
-The right side emergency gate valve went in it's slot on 2/17.
-The mechanical, electrical and hydraulic connections are scheduled to be completed on 2/18 & 2/19.
-Much of that work is in very tight, difficult to access locations.
-Contractors are working extra shifts during the week and also on weekends to expedite the installation and commissioning process. They are being pushed hard and are well aware of the precarious situation.
-Dam Tenders have done a snow survey at 6 different locations in the upper watershed. Right now there is approximately 53" of snowpack on the ground with 6+ inches of water equivalent.
-Present opacity in the lower river waxes and wanes with the in-stream flow rates.

And that's the way it is.

Cautious optimism? Perhaps. Keep your eyes & toes crossed for another months worth of good cold weather in western Maryland and continued good progress by the on-site contractors. Perhaps we'll even see repatriated Green Drakes on the lower river in the not too distant future.