|
info@cowboyhvn.com |
Past Month's Moccasin Telegraph
June 2004
| 6/22/04 | After record warm and dry conditions, with virtually no precipitation
whatsoever for March and April, the rainy season finally arrived in Montana in late May
and has continued through June. In fact, it’s been downright cool and wet, for the
most part, which is just what the
doctor ordered. Streamflow forecasts for later in the summer still aren’t just rosy,
but for now things are looking great. The peaks are snowcapped, the rivers are flowing,
the fish are biting, the elk are calving, the grass is growing, and life is good! True to form, we went directly from one extreme to the other; literally from the direst drought declarations to small stream flood advisories literally overnight. Here off the west slope of the Bridgers a week or so back, an overnight deluge put Bridger Creek and the East Gallatin River, not to mention a host of smaller tributaries, out of their banks. Here at our place that storm produced 1.7” of rain, and a neighbor a bit closer to the mountain reported 2.3”. I can only speculate about the amount at higher elevations, but when the Bridgers get caught in the meteorological crosshair they can catch some truly impressive precipitation (i.e. the 100”+ of snow in a 3-day period last Christmas). Based on the runoff, the rainfall higher up must have been in the 4” plus range. After several years of no significant runoff, all the streambeds had accumulated an assortment of broken branches and other detritus, and all that came racing downstream and formed blockages at the first obstacle it hit. One neighbor came home at 11:00 PM to find their culvert plugged. That’s a four foot culvert, but it was plugged solid with debris, and an impressive lake had formed behind it with spillover rapidly taking out the road above the culvert. Luckily another neighbor has a backhoe, had also just gotten home, and was pressed into service. He reported it to be a tricky bit of business, as he doesn’t normally do much in the way of midnight excavating, his tractor lights are non-functional, and so a single flashlight was illuminating the job (none too well, either, reportedly). Still, he managed to avoid driving the tractor into the channel, and was able to reach out with the backhoe and remove the blockage. By a couple of days later, the flows had dropped back to seasonal norms, although the East Gallatin stayed murky for a week and still isn’t completely cleared. As for us, we took off a couple days after the deluge on an overnight packtrip in the Madison Range. That venture entailed a notable amount of debris removal too, as early-spring packtrips are prone to. Actually, the amount of deadfall blocking the trail wasn’t all that bad, and the time spent powering the axe and saw was good exercise. Although we found some shed antlers, perhaps the most noteworthy memento from that trip is a mountain goat skull.  Finding one of those is quite
unusual, in fact I’ve never heard of anybody else coming across one. I’d taken
an evening scouting hike, primarily to see if there was a feasible route for getting
horses further up the canyon, as well as to check out a bench I’d been eyeing on the
topo map as a possible campsite. The campsite prospects turned out to be a negatory.
There’s a game trail up to this bench, which is perched up a side canyon at about
7500’, but its horse compatibility is suspect. You can only tell so much from maps,
and first-hand inspection is often necessary to determine that sort of thing…. So
anyway, I was just about up to the bench, standing there wheezing & gasping and
thinking “this is way too steep for horses” when to my amazement noticed a
mountain goat horn sticking up out of the grass!
Investigation revealed it was attached to a portion of a skull, but the other horn was
missing. A brief search of the surrounding area turned it up, though. It’s odd, there
weren’t any other bones around, and it was well below the goat rocks. Some critter
must have carried it down the mountain. I suppose to the casual observer a shed elk antler
is a more impressive find, but the rarity of the goat skull sets it apart, IMO.The evening produced another interesting event, as I was making my way back to camp, floundering through the deadfall and bogs, haven completely given up on the idea of getting horses through the canyon bottom. I was thinking the terrain was better suited to moose than horses, when sure enough, I came upon one; a young bull, sacked out sound asleep! It was really kind of funny, he had his nose sort of tucked under a front leg like a big dog or something. I was only about fifteen yards away, and crouched down with a bush between us trying to quietly get my camera out of the pack. He must have smelled or otherwise sensed me, as he picked up his head with the classic “uh?!” expression of the just woke up. People occasionally get stomped by moose, but I’ve never had one be aggressive and my luck held as he trotted off. Unfortunately, I was about ten seconds late on getting the camera out, and so have yet another poorly focused and exposed wildlife photo to add to my collection. In fact, the photo bears resemblance to some of the “Bigfoot sighting”  photos I’ve seen, but I don’t believe
I’ll try to further that myth….The recent rainfall has at least temporarily abated the fire danger, which was looking pretty grim about the end of April. The recent 90 day forecast is for slightly above normal temperatures and below normal precip, but at least for now things are looking good. Area rivers have been up a bit, and somewhat off-colored, but I haven’t heard any fishermen complaining about the improved flows. On Father’s Day we took an excursion up the Gallatin Canyon. Few people were attempting to fish the Gallatin River, although the rafters and kayakers were finding the somewhat elevated flows fine for their purposes. We took a side trip up the Taylor Fork. It’s usually one of the first tributaries  to murk up after a
rain, but while it wasn’t what you’d call crystal clear it was approaching
fishable and we gave it a brief try. Actually, my wife and son did, while I checked out
the Eldridge Cabin. Cody reported losing a decent sized trout, which his mother
corroborated, so I can’t dismiss that report as a fishing fabrication. We also fished
Spanish Creek on our way back. It was running gin clear, but alas, the fish  rejected our
enticements. Such is the fickle nature of fishing…. On a more positive note; last
evening Cody caught & released 22 trout from a neighborhood pond.So, with the streams dropping and clearing, we’re going to be in for some prime fishing. The fire danger is down, things are nice & green, and it’s prime time for some outdoor adventures. If you’ve been procrastinating, waiting to see if the rain and price of gas would come down, well, one of two will have to do! See you on the trail….. |