Slough Creek, by David Emmitt
Every year, three friends and I venture into the wilderness of Yellowstone in search of native fish in an unspoiled environment. It’s a chance to grab the backpack and boots and shake off the sedentary dust of our 21st century lives. We walk down the trail away from the roads in order to free the natural man lurking inside our white collared souls. Which basically means that someone forgot his deodorant.
As backcountry trips go, ours has managed, over its short life, to evolve into less of an excursion into the wilderness and more of a really extended version of car camping. Last summer we hired a wrangler for drop-camp service, which means the only thing on our backs during the 11 mile hike was a lingering sense of guilt about not being self-sufficient, mountain men. That was offset by the knowledge that the mules trudging up the trail carried chairs, lamps, tables, about 80 gallons of wine and enough scotch to last a man through several long winters.
After running into a couple of bears during a previous trip and emerging unscathed we were feeling pretty cocky about our prowess in the unforgiving wilds. Walking along the trail with little more than a candy bar (told you we were feeling cocky) and a bottle of water was liberating. There was none of that oppressive weight, both physical and psychological, that strapping on a 50 lb. pack brings. Instead we were positively giddy as we scampered up the trail. We might have been four grown men off to pick wildflowers in a sun-dappled meadow. That’s when we saw the mules.
This sight trigger two simultaneous thoughts and succeeded to reduce our problem solving abilities to a third grade level. The first thought was that it appeared as if the mules were going the wrong way. We were lead to believe this because they were getting bigger rather than smaller as they ran. And being relatively bright third-graders we realized that bigger means closer and really big means duck.
The second thought was that the mules seemed to have lost their cowboy. This conclusion was arrived at by observing the on the horse who was running after the mules. We wondered where our cowboy was. Did rustlers jump him? Did a snake bite the horse? And then our third grade brains clicked (fairly audibly), it was a giant bear. What else would have unhorsed our chew-nails tough cowboy? We stood a bit stupidly (OK a lot stupidly) watching as three mules tethered by a thick chain (about neck high) ran straight for us.
16 hoofs running for the barn make a lot of noise. It would have been a truly locomotive-like sound if it hadn’t been interrupted by the jingle, jangle and crash of our gear trailing behind the mules. Who knew that Winston rods had so much bounce?
The whole shebang came to a screeching halt as the mules managed to wrap themselves around the only large pine tree within 50 yards. Shivering and sweating they stood, nervous, but still. The horse, assuming that they had arrived wherever it was they were running to, immediately started munching grass. Being real men, we went over to fix the situation.
Note: watching Robert Redford movies does not make one a horse whisperer. But hey that’s not going to stop four guys who have never seen a horse that wasn’t connected to a beer wagon from turning the whole train around and hopping on the gallant steed; gallop over the ridge and scoop up our wounded cowboy just in the nick of time with one hand while firing a six-shooter at a 5,000 lb bear with the other. The reins are of course, held in our teeth.
The pack train, seeing four men approach from different directions, all apparently whispering murderously about tasty French recipes involving horse flank and carrots, promptly fled.
This time they were gone and no tree was going to stop them. Our trip was looking at a major problem. Did I mention that it was getting late and a storm was coming? We were several miles up the trail with more than several to go. We were convinced that we were facing a crisis of Donner Party proportions. Our foursome quickly dissolved into acrimonious accusations of equine incompetence, not so calmly voiced concerns over the scotch supply, pleas to go home and cries of “mommy.”
We were rescued by a middle-aged woman who caught the whole string of animals about a half a mile down the trail. She calmly guided them over to our pile of gear and handed them over to our suddenly sheepish cowboy. She even had carrots in her pocket. Who in the world carries carrots?
Well we “cowboy’d up” and moved on. Except that by now the sky didn’t look quite so blue. In fact it looked more green gray, leaning towards moody black. The wind started to blow. By the time we arrived at the campsite the temperature had dropped to below freezing. As we struggled to put up the tents and tarp in the wind – it began to hail. Our trusty cowboy said a hasty “adios” left us in the middle of nowhere with a pile of supplies that smelled faintly of a nice cabernet. We were cold, hungry, tired, we hadn’t put a line in the water all day and now it was snowing.
Several black looks later, after mumbled grumbles of a bar in Gardiner that was left untended, we managed to get some semblance of camp set up. Now all we needed was some semblance of warmth. So it was into the waders and fleece, hats, gloves – we look less like a fishing expedition and more like an assault on K2.
Feeling somewhat less giddy than we had earlier, we did the only thing we could think of to survive the wet, cold and wind – we had some scotch and went fishing.
Ten hours a day, for the next three days we fished. And fished. And fished. Lines straightened by the wind. Fingers curled by the cold. Red eyed and with runny noses we walked the length of the valley, fishing one nice run after another.
Our days became a pleasant cycle of camp coffee and oatmeal followed by a day of fishing interrupted only by the ubiquitous Cliff Bar. At night, scotch and wine augmented the warmth supplied by the fire. Card games and making dinner were the primary after dark activities.
There were wolves and rumors of bears. There were gorgeous cutthroat that came to dry flies. There were BWOs and unnamed mayflies. The fish were hard and they were easy. We went hours without fish and then caught so many fish that we got bored. We tied 7x tippet onto size 22 Sulfur Duns with no feeling in our fingers. Between the thunder and lightening that haunt the us the entire time there were some amazing breaks in the clouds that left sunny afternoons filled with beetles and hoppers.
Eleven miles into the woods we were able to forget that there was any world outside of our valley. We slipped into a natural rhythm with our only responsibility being choosing the correct fly. It was pretty much a perfect trip except for one thing – next year we need to figure out how to get a case of beer up there.
|
` 
