Yellowstone Trip Report - June 13 thru July 12, 2019
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 3:24 pm
This was one of the most unusual Park trips I've ever had. Spent June 12th and 13th at the Mammoth CG where I shot a few elk pix but nothing special. From Mammoth, we moved over to the Slough Creek Campground on June 15th. Because of the brutal weather in the GYE last winter and spring, there was still a high amount of snow pack up in the mountains when we arrived in the Park (130% of normal). That being the case, we noticed several things that were not characteristic of most of our previous June/July Park trips. Here are the highlights along with some personal observations about law enforcement and bear management.
Weather. Most days, we had pretty lousy weather. It was unseasonably cold, 40's, 50's and low 60's with rain, sleet and/or hail almost daily. We even had snow at Slough Creek on the first two days of summer, in the latter part of June. It almost felt like Ole Man Winter would never give up. The weather in the Park really didn't begin to normalize until about mid July when the sun and warmer weather arrived.
Fishing. The Gibbon River has always been one of our favorite streams for early season trout fishing and for finding rare and unusual wildflowers on the forest floor near Beryl Springs. Although hubby managed to catch a handful of smaller trout on the Gibbon, the water was still too high high and far too cold for the fish to be actively feeding on the surface. Fishing at Slough Creek was pretty much non-existent until the end of the first week in July. FYI: A #16 brown body, Parachute Adams or a Green Drake were the flies of choice and worked fairly well. It was the size, shape and color (in that order) that were the keys this year to catching hefty trout in July in the 18 to 24-inch range. Trout fishing was turning on by the time we left the Park on July 13th, so good luck to all the anglers! Just make sure you've got plenty of bug repellent. The biting flies and mosquitoes were bad by the time we left the Park.
Lastly, if you're going to be fishing in the Park this year, be sure that you read the 2019 Yellowstone fishing rules and regs VERY, VERY closely. There's a major change in the 2019 fishing regs that you need to be aware of. For years, Yellowstone Park told anglers that they should release all rainbow/ cut-throat/hybrid trout. This rule was put in place several years ago in order to help the Park's restoration of the native cutthroat population. However, if you release them in 2019 be aware that you might get a citation for releasing a rainbow or a hybrid trout (cutbow). We didn't see any rangers enforcing the new rule or issuing any citations while we were in the Park. But, in 2019, anglers are supposed to kill all rainbow trout and any rainbow that has any orange markings (rainbow/cutthroat hybrid). Apparently, the Park's fisheries management made a mistake several years ago when it introduced millions of non-native trout into Park waters. You can read more about the Park's shocking "boo boo" in the very back of the 2019 Yellowstone book of fishing regs. One would think that the new reg would appear front and center in the 2019 fishing regs because of the high number of anglers who have been faithfully releasing Yellowstone cutbows (hybrids)for several years in accordance with the Park's fishing regs. I strongly suspect that the long-time Yellowstone anglers are not going to be pleased when they find out about the Park's new fishing regulation. After all, anglers have been releasing cutbows for several years in accordance with the Yellowstone fishing regs in order to help with the Park's effort to restore the native cutthroat population. However, in 2019, the Park has has done a 100% turnaround. Now the Park is telling anglers that they must kill every rainbow and all rainbow/cutthroat hybrid trout that they catch. Huh? What the heck is going on? This new 2019 fishing reg is not only shocking but it also putts into the question the competence and credibility of the Yellowstone fisheries leadership. If you're as stunned as I am about this new 2019 fishing reg, then I encourage you to voice their concern to the Yellowstone Superintendent. For years anglers have been releasing cutthroat/rainbow hybrid trout to help with the Park's recovery of the native cutthroat population. Now, without any advance warning, except to say that Park's former management made a mistake, anglers are now supposed to kill the hybrid trout that the Park originally told them to release. How dumb is that? IMO, the Park and the top leadership of the Park's fisheries has some serious explaining to do. Are we now to believe that just because the Park has acknowledged its mistake by including a short paragraph on the Park's "boo boo" in the 2019 fishing regs, that the current fisheries management is competent to oversee the current and future of the precious Yellowstone fisheries? As far as I'm concerned the Yellowstone fisheries leadership has lost its credibility. I suspect that many long-time Yellowstone anglers who are just learning about the new regulation, will likely feel the same way. <br/>
<br/>
Fishing in the SC meadows was excellent after July 4th. But most of our time was spent waiting for the high muddy streams and rivers to go down and clear. Fishing really didn't turn on until mid July....just when the winter weather and rain subsided and we had to leave. Soda Butte and the Lamar were totally blown out when left the Park but they should be fishing now.
Wildlife Sightings - Saw a number of black bears this trip: near Phantom Lake, Floating Island Lake, south of the Tower, a couple of black bears around Slough Creek and a few along the Slough Creek entrance road. Some were bears that we had seen multiple times during our stay: ie: the male black bear that skirted the perimeter of the campground and the black sow and her two cinnamon cubs that were frequenting the Slough Creek area in June and July. Saw the SC pronghorns a few times in the SC and Little America areas. Bob and Ray, the two resident bison that have been the Slough Creek icons for several years, took a shine to our campsite this year and spent quite a bit of time rubbing against tree trunks AND scratching against our canopy poles. They also spent time watching hubby fish along lower S. Creek the day before we went home. Not only were Bob and Ray sacked out in the sage behind him, but the black sow and cubs also showed up, quite unexpectedly, with the family swimming across the Creek right next where my hubby was fishing. That was a pretty special moment for hubby...not to mention a bit scary. I had a total of 3 encounters with the black sow and her two cinnamon cubs. Once early in our stay, when mama was trying to get the cubs to swim cross Buffalo Creek, another time when mama brought the cubs through our campsite on her way to the water and the last time when the threesome showed up, unexpectedly, behind hubby and they crossed the Creek very close to where he was fishing. I didn't see any grizzlies this trip but our friends saw two big grizzlies walking through the trees at the upper end of the campground and a wolf pack right off the trail when they hiked up to the 3rd meadow to do some fishing. Fishing was fairly good in the meadows after the Creek had lowered and the sun, bugs, flies and mosquitoes arrived in mass, right after July 4th.
<br/>
Because of the cold weather, rain and hail, the bloom of the wildflowers was very late this year... about 6 weeks. And the flowers that were blooming were stunted in growth and looked drab and very pale....so I didn't take many wildflower pix this year. But I did get some nice water lily shots along the Gibbon.
Overall, our trip was fairly disappointing. The cold, dreary weather combined with all the rain put a damper on most of our activities. That being the case, we went home two days early. When we got home our neighbor said that Nye (northeast of Slough Creek) had received the same lousy weather as the Park. The only thing that was different, was the tall grass on our property that had grown over 3' while we were in the Park. I don't have many pix to post of the trip (about half the usual number). But, I'll post them on Flickr next week. The photo sequence that covers the black sow trying to get her 2 cubs across Buffalo Creek in June are very sweet. The real small cub I fondly refer to as "Tiny". That little cub was absolutely terrified of crossing Buffalo Creek. I got shots of it screaming and crying out for its mother, along with shots of Tiny clinging to the leaning, water-logged bush that was in the middle of the Creek. The cub was absolutely terrified of the raging water and was clinging to the bush for dear life. There weren't many people around who were watching the high drama of the bear family. So I think the pix will tug at your heart strings. It took over 2 hours for the sow to get both cubs across the Creek. She went back and forth between the banks at least 4 times before she could finally get Tiny across the Creek. Suffice to say that Mama was getting fairly annoyed that Tiny had refused to cross the Creek. In the end, mama swam over to the bush, growled at Tiny, crouched down and directed the cub to jump on her back for a ride across the Creek. It's this type of a wildlife behavior that has always left me in awe. After two hours of trying to get Tiny to cross the Creek on its own, I could see that the sow was getting annoyed with Tiny for being such a wuss and, more importantly, for being so disobedient. But, in the end, the sow's nurturing motherly instinct won out. So here's the rest of the story which had a happy ending. The sow swam across, back to the bush to get Tiny and carried the cub across the Creek on her back. It doesn't get any better than that! This was one of those special wildlife moments when I wish that I had my big glass, pro setup to properly photograph this experience. Unfortunately, I still have some carry-weight and stability issues so I had to use my Lumix P and S camera. But I think you'll immediately recognize and appreciate the plight of Tiny. The little cub had tried and tried, to cross the Creek. But Tiny's fear of the raging Creek was more than the little cub could handle due to its small size, age and weight. Tiny probably weighed less than 20 pounds and was just a few months old. After two hours of trying to get Tiny to cross the Creek on its own, the black sow finally had to rescue the cub and carry it on her back, to safety. What an amazing afternoon and what a happy ending. Hope you enjoy the pix as much as I enjoyed taking them. I'll post them on Flickr site in a few days.
Yellowstone Law Enforcement<br/>
We were in the park for close to a month, yet, we saw very few LEO's. And the ones we did see, were not enforcing traffic speeds nor were they looking for campground violations or doing any crowd control or handing wildlife jams on the road between Tower Junction and the Lamar Valley, which in mind opinion, should have at least one or two LEO's doing nothing but driving back and forth between Tower and the Lamar Valley, looking for wildlife traffic jams and moving the visitor vehicles off the roadway. The traffic jams were absolutely awful with visitor vehicles parked every which way, even in the middle of the road. We did note that there two rangers in the patrol car that was monitoring the Slough Creek Campground every day in the mid afternoon. Since the SC CG doesn't have many campers around at 3pm in the afternoon, it seemed to me that one ranger on patrol was enough. Seems that the other LEO could have made better use of his time, patrolling the road between Tower and the Lamar Valley. The thing that bothered us the most was that all the ranger did on its SC route was a drive through and were not looking for bears or for campground violations. Considering that the Park claims to have a severe funding shortage, we saw several food storage violations by campers and traffic speed violations by visitors that could have easily added a significant amount of money to the Yellowstone coffers. So why weren't campers cited for the improper storage of food, beverages and cooking and eating utensils or at least be given a warning. In light of the fact that Slough Creek had been having frequent bear visitations during our stay, where were the rangers? And where was the campground host who should have been alerting campers about the bears that were wandering through and around the campground? From what we observed, the hosting couple was gone from the campground on most days. But they sure were quick to wake us up at 8:30pm after we had already gone to bed, wanting to know if we were going to stay. When we first arrived at the SC Campground, we told the host exactly how long we were planning to stay along with the dates. We also told the host that we would pay for our site every four days and would fill out the NPS fee envelope with the appropriated dates written on the envelope and would also include our payment. Sounds simple, but the hosting couple woke us up at least 3 times between 8:30 and 9pm, after we had already gone to bed, wanting to know when our site would be open. We were so mad that we ended up cutting our stay by 2 days and left the Park on July 13.</t>
Weather. Most days, we had pretty lousy weather. It was unseasonably cold, 40's, 50's and low 60's with rain, sleet and/or hail almost daily. We even had snow at Slough Creek on the first two days of summer, in the latter part of June. It almost felt like Ole Man Winter would never give up. The weather in the Park really didn't begin to normalize until about mid July when the sun and warmer weather arrived.
Fishing. The Gibbon River has always been one of our favorite streams for early season trout fishing and for finding rare and unusual wildflowers on the forest floor near Beryl Springs. Although hubby managed to catch a handful of smaller trout on the Gibbon, the water was still too high high and far too cold for the fish to be actively feeding on the surface. Fishing at Slough Creek was pretty much non-existent until the end of the first week in July. FYI: A #16 brown body, Parachute Adams or a Green Drake were the flies of choice and worked fairly well. It was the size, shape and color (in that order) that were the keys this year to catching hefty trout in July in the 18 to 24-inch range. Trout fishing was turning on by the time we left the Park on July 13th, so good luck to all the anglers! Just make sure you've got plenty of bug repellent. The biting flies and mosquitoes were bad by the time we left the Park.
Lastly, if you're going to be fishing in the Park this year, be sure that you read the 2019 Yellowstone fishing rules and regs VERY, VERY closely. There's a major change in the 2019 fishing regs that you need to be aware of. For years, Yellowstone Park told anglers that they should release all rainbow/ cut-throat/hybrid trout. This rule was put in place several years ago in order to help the Park's restoration of the native cutthroat population. However, if you release them in 2019 be aware that you might get a citation for releasing a rainbow or a hybrid trout (cutbow). We didn't see any rangers enforcing the new rule or issuing any citations while we were in the Park. But, in 2019, anglers are supposed to kill all rainbow trout and any rainbow that has any orange markings (rainbow/cutthroat hybrid). Apparently, the Park's fisheries management made a mistake several years ago when it introduced millions of non-native trout into Park waters. You can read more about the Park's shocking "boo boo" in the very back of the 2019 Yellowstone book of fishing regs. One would think that the new reg would appear front and center in the 2019 fishing regs because of the high number of anglers who have been faithfully releasing Yellowstone cutbows (hybrids)for several years in accordance with the Park's fishing regs. I strongly suspect that the long-time Yellowstone anglers are not going to be pleased when they find out about the Park's new fishing regulation. After all, anglers have been releasing cutbows for several years in accordance with the Yellowstone fishing regs in order to help with the Park's effort to restore the native cutthroat population. However, in 2019, the Park has has done a 100% turnaround. Now the Park is telling anglers that they must kill every rainbow and all rainbow/cutthroat hybrid trout that they catch. Huh? What the heck is going on? This new 2019 fishing reg is not only shocking but it also putts into the question the competence and credibility of the Yellowstone fisheries leadership. If you're as stunned as I am about this new 2019 fishing reg, then I encourage you to voice their concern to the Yellowstone Superintendent. For years anglers have been releasing cutthroat/rainbow hybrid trout to help with the Park's recovery of the native cutthroat population. Now, without any advance warning, except to say that Park's former management made a mistake, anglers are now supposed to kill the hybrid trout that the Park originally told them to release. How dumb is that? IMO, the Park and the top leadership of the Park's fisheries has some serious explaining to do. Are we now to believe that just because the Park has acknowledged its mistake by including a short paragraph on the Park's "boo boo" in the 2019 fishing regs, that the current fisheries management is competent to oversee the current and future of the precious Yellowstone fisheries? As far as I'm concerned the Yellowstone fisheries leadership has lost its credibility. I suspect that many long-time Yellowstone anglers who are just learning about the new regulation, will likely feel the same way. <br/>
<br/>
Fishing in the SC meadows was excellent after July 4th. But most of our time was spent waiting for the high muddy streams and rivers to go down and clear. Fishing really didn't turn on until mid July....just when the winter weather and rain subsided and we had to leave. Soda Butte and the Lamar were totally blown out when left the Park but they should be fishing now.
Wildlife Sightings - Saw a number of black bears this trip: near Phantom Lake, Floating Island Lake, south of the Tower, a couple of black bears around Slough Creek and a few along the Slough Creek entrance road. Some were bears that we had seen multiple times during our stay: ie: the male black bear that skirted the perimeter of the campground and the black sow and her two cinnamon cubs that were frequenting the Slough Creek area in June and July. Saw the SC pronghorns a few times in the SC and Little America areas. Bob and Ray, the two resident bison that have been the Slough Creek icons for several years, took a shine to our campsite this year and spent quite a bit of time rubbing against tree trunks AND scratching against our canopy poles. They also spent time watching hubby fish along lower S. Creek the day before we went home. Not only were Bob and Ray sacked out in the sage behind him, but the black sow and cubs also showed up, quite unexpectedly, with the family swimming across the Creek right next where my hubby was fishing. That was a pretty special moment for hubby...not to mention a bit scary. I had a total of 3 encounters with the black sow and her two cinnamon cubs. Once early in our stay, when mama was trying to get the cubs to swim cross Buffalo Creek, another time when mama brought the cubs through our campsite on her way to the water and the last time when the threesome showed up, unexpectedly, behind hubby and they crossed the Creek very close to where he was fishing. I didn't see any grizzlies this trip but our friends saw two big grizzlies walking through the trees at the upper end of the campground and a wolf pack right off the trail when they hiked up to the 3rd meadow to do some fishing. Fishing was fairly good in the meadows after the Creek had lowered and the sun, bugs, flies and mosquitoes arrived in mass, right after July 4th.
<br/>
Because of the cold weather, rain and hail, the bloom of the wildflowers was very late this year... about 6 weeks. And the flowers that were blooming were stunted in growth and looked drab and very pale....so I didn't take many wildflower pix this year. But I did get some nice water lily shots along the Gibbon.
Overall, our trip was fairly disappointing. The cold, dreary weather combined with all the rain put a damper on most of our activities. That being the case, we went home two days early. When we got home our neighbor said that Nye (northeast of Slough Creek) had received the same lousy weather as the Park. The only thing that was different, was the tall grass on our property that had grown over 3' while we were in the Park. I don't have many pix to post of the trip (about half the usual number). But, I'll post them on Flickr next week. The photo sequence that covers the black sow trying to get her 2 cubs across Buffalo Creek in June are very sweet. The real small cub I fondly refer to as "Tiny". That little cub was absolutely terrified of crossing Buffalo Creek. I got shots of it screaming and crying out for its mother, along with shots of Tiny clinging to the leaning, water-logged bush that was in the middle of the Creek. The cub was absolutely terrified of the raging water and was clinging to the bush for dear life. There weren't many people around who were watching the high drama of the bear family. So I think the pix will tug at your heart strings. It took over 2 hours for the sow to get both cubs across the Creek. She went back and forth between the banks at least 4 times before she could finally get Tiny across the Creek. Suffice to say that Mama was getting fairly annoyed that Tiny had refused to cross the Creek. In the end, mama swam over to the bush, growled at Tiny, crouched down and directed the cub to jump on her back for a ride across the Creek. It's this type of a wildlife behavior that has always left me in awe. After two hours of trying to get Tiny to cross the Creek on its own, I could see that the sow was getting annoyed with Tiny for being such a wuss and, more importantly, for being so disobedient. But, in the end, the sow's nurturing motherly instinct won out. So here's the rest of the story which had a happy ending. The sow swam across, back to the bush to get Tiny and carried the cub across the Creek on her back. It doesn't get any better than that! This was one of those special wildlife moments when I wish that I had my big glass, pro setup to properly photograph this experience. Unfortunately, I still have some carry-weight and stability issues so I had to use my Lumix P and S camera. But I think you'll immediately recognize and appreciate the plight of Tiny. The little cub had tried and tried, to cross the Creek. But Tiny's fear of the raging Creek was more than the little cub could handle due to its small size, age and weight. Tiny probably weighed less than 20 pounds and was just a few months old. After two hours of trying to get Tiny to cross the Creek on its own, the black sow finally had to rescue the cub and carry it on her back, to safety. What an amazing afternoon and what a happy ending. Hope you enjoy the pix as much as I enjoyed taking them. I'll post them on Flickr site in a few days.
Yellowstone Law Enforcement<br/>
We were in the park for close to a month, yet, we saw very few LEO's. And the ones we did see, were not enforcing traffic speeds nor were they looking for campground violations or doing any crowd control or handing wildlife jams on the road between Tower Junction and the Lamar Valley, which in mind opinion, should have at least one or two LEO's doing nothing but driving back and forth between Tower and the Lamar Valley, looking for wildlife traffic jams and moving the visitor vehicles off the roadway. The traffic jams were absolutely awful with visitor vehicles parked every which way, even in the middle of the road. We did note that there two rangers in the patrol car that was monitoring the Slough Creek Campground every day in the mid afternoon. Since the SC CG doesn't have many campers around at 3pm in the afternoon, it seemed to me that one ranger on patrol was enough. Seems that the other LEO could have made better use of his time, patrolling the road between Tower and the Lamar Valley. The thing that bothered us the most was that all the ranger did on its SC route was a drive through and were not looking for bears or for campground violations. Considering that the Park claims to have a severe funding shortage, we saw several food storage violations by campers and traffic speed violations by visitors that could have easily added a significant amount of money to the Yellowstone coffers. So why weren't campers cited for the improper storage of food, beverages and cooking and eating utensils or at least be given a warning. In light of the fact that Slough Creek had been having frequent bear visitations during our stay, where were the rangers? And where was the campground host who should have been alerting campers about the bears that were wandering through and around the campground? From what we observed, the hosting couple was gone from the campground on most days. But they sure were quick to wake us up at 8:30pm after we had already gone to bed, wanting to know if we were going to stay. When we first arrived at the SC Campground, we told the host exactly how long we were planning to stay along with the dates. We also told the host that we would pay for our site every four days and would fill out the NPS fee envelope with the appropriated dates written on the envelope and would also include our payment. Sounds simple, but the hosting couple woke us up at least 3 times between 8:30 and 9pm, after we had already gone to bed, wanting to know when our site would be open. We were so mad that we ended up cutting our stay by 2 days and left the Park on July 13.</t>