Yellowstone - Part 2 (Avalanche Peak)

We did a lot of hiking on our trip out west, and my favorite hike was a climb to the summit of Avalanche Peak, near the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park.  Only 2 miles from the trailhead to the summit, this is one of the easier mountains to conquer, but there are 2,000 vertical feet in those 2 miles, making it more strenuous than you might think.

The hike began in a somewhat haunting forest around 8,500 ft above sea level.  The trail was steep from the very beginning and remained so throughout the entire climb.  We crossed a small but beautiful meadow, and from there the vegetation gradually thinned leaving sick looking pine trees and grasses. 

 Eventually it opened up onto bare rocks and scree, where we saw a marmot scurrying around, apparently not too concerned about our presence.

 

 

A false summit loomed ahead with scraggly looking trees holding on for dear life.  The trail wound around the edge of the mountain, the steep drop on our left making my partner quite uneasy.  After reaching what we thought was the summit, we discovered that we still had a long way to go.  From there it was all rocks; the trail was simply a long trench carved out of the scree.  Each step was treacherous as the stones have a habit of shifting.

The final stretch was a 5 ft wide ridge leading to a small peak inhabited by a ground squirrel(!) and covered with sharp rocks.  The view from the top was glorious.  There was actually another peak 50 yards further down another narrow ridge.  I couldn't tell if it was higher or shorter than the first peak, but I decided to go check it out anyway.  Mrs. Michissippi stayed glued to the first spot, satisfied that she had completed the climb, and not wanting to move until she absolutely had to.

On the way down we saw a pika, which I was actually quite excited to see.  I remember seeing one in Rocky Mountain National Park as a kid, and I thought it was a very cool animal.

I highly recommend this trail for its views, challenge, and nice length.

Yellowstone - Part 1

Well, I'm back.  I made it through a wedding in Michigan and a week in Wyoming and still managed to bring my new bride (shall we call her Mrs. Michissippi?) back to Mississippi with me.  This being an outdoors blog and all, I'd like to talk about our trip out west.  We spent half of the week in Grand Teton National Park and the other half in and around Yellowstone National Park.  The hiking was great.  The views were fantastic.  The animals were abundant.

Okay, I'll 'fess up.  I did a little bit of fishing too.  I brought my lightly used Cabela's Custom Glass 4 WT all the way from Mississippi and was very excited to use it on some wild trout.  Also, I had potentially my very own personal photographer with me if I could keep her from getting bored.

I convinced Mrs. Michissippi to go on a hiking/fishing expedition one of the days we were staying near Yellowstone.  We drove a few hours (it would have taken about 30 minutes if not for wildlife jams) to the Lamar Valley in the northeastern portion of the park.  There we hiked 2 miles to a certain creek based on the recommendation of a park ranger.  I hadn't heard of this place, but apparently it is fairly well known, because, while it wasn't crowded, most of the people we saw hiking had long tubes strapped to their packs.

And for good reason.  The place was amazing.  A cutthroat trout aquarium.  The creek meandered slowly through an endless meadow, and large trout could be seen, not holding a position as expected, but cruising up and down the river.  Even better, they were very eager to rise.  There wasn't a visible hatch, but every few minutes, a large nose would poke its way through the surface and suck something down.

We had only just arrived and I was struggling with my decision making.  Part of me wanted to throw my stuff down, set up my rod, and start fishing right where the trail met the river.  Another part of me wanted to walk a good distance to find less pressured trout.  Another part of me wanted to eat lunch.  I ended up doing all three.  I set up, walked down the river bank until I just couldn't handle it anymore, made a few casts, and then decided to sit down and eat lunch.  The trout would be there when I was done.

With all things now made ready, I finally began fishing in earnest.  This was ninja fishing.  Crouched in the tall grass on the bank, I would wait for a big cutt to cruise by and then make a very short cast, landing my grasshopper pattern in front of the fish.  If it was a good cast, the fish would usually make a subtle change in its course, heading toward the fly, rising in the water column, increasing my heart rate, only to pause two inches below the fly and return to its previous course.  Agonizing.  It was almost too easy, but then it wasn't.  I couldn't decide if the trout didn't like the pattern, or if they could see the line, or if it wasn't realistic enough, or what.  But the pattern I had was about as realistic as I've got, and I was already using 6x tippet, so I didn't bother changing anything. 

Trout checking out my grasshopper

On a sidenote, you can get surprisingly close to a fish without spooking it if you are not moving.  If I crouched completely still on the very edge of the river, trout would swim just 2 ft away without a care in the world.

Eventually everything came together.  I had wandered onto a small island, and Mrs. Michissippi was on the opposite bank.  She spotted a fish for me, I found it, and I made a cast.  We watched as the trout meandered over like normal, paused under the fly, and sucked it down!  I was so surprised I think I strip set the poor guy!  He brought the fiberglass to life, and after a decent battle, I pulled in a beautiful Yellowstone Cutthroat trout, my very first, about 13 inches long.

Stylish, I know...

Oops

 From there the action increased.  I had two fish eat an unweighted pheasant tail nymph only to somehow avoid being hooked.  I felt weight on the hookset but the hook pulled right out of their mouths.  Perhaps I need to start sharpening my hooks...

The highlight of the day occurred in the late afternoon.  I had been chasing a particularly large cutt up and down a long, deep bend in the river.  I was back with a grasshopper pattern and had been denied by him several times already.  I wasn't leaving because he was a big one.  Somehow I just knew that he would eat if I got enough good drifts by him.  I was right.  He slurped my fly down and my rod bent severely on the hookset. This guy slowly went deep and started a series of mighty headshakes.  Partly due to the large fish, and partly due to the small, medium action rod, I've never felt headshakes like this.  The force was frightening.  I was scared for my 6x tippet and my barbless hook.  I was relieved when the fish started swimming upriver.  Now I started regretting every time I've told people that good reels aren't important for trout fishing.  This guy just kept going.  I've never had a trout take out line like him.  He didn't make it to my backing, but I could see it through the 3 or 4 wraps of fly line I had left.

Attracting a crowd

 After a few moments of tug-o-war, I started pulling him in.  I think it was at this moment, I thought, OMG, I'm going to land this guy.  In his tired state, he started some desperate thrashing.  I made it through a nervy two rounds of thrashing and started pulling him into the shallows.  I reached out to grab the leader.  He made one more thrash, and the hook popped out.

Proof

This guy was in the 20 inch range.  Really too good of a trout for a casual trout angler like me to catch on a short day trip to a river I've never fished.  But boy it was sweet while it lasted.

I haven't been this disappointed about losing a fish since a certain redfish, and that loss was quickly avenged with many other redfish caught.  Unfortunately, this loss will not be avenged for a loooooong time.

I had said at the very beginning of the trip, I would be happy if I could catch just one cutthroat.  And I am happy.  But that big cutt continues to haunt me...

Overall, the trip was fantastic.  Fishing was just a small part of it.  I'll be posting more on the trip here in a few days.

Hiking the Black Creek Trail

This past weekend, my fiancée and I had the chance to go hiking on the Black Creek Trail in southern Mississippi.  I had read that this was the best hiking trail in Mississippi, so I was excited to check it out.  It was a very pleasant hike, with the temperature in the upper 60s and plenty of sunshine.  The terrain varied from the pine savanna common to southern Mississippi to cypress swamps and of course to the Black Creek.

Black Creek is the only designated Wild and Scenic River in Mississippi and is named for its tannic acid colored water which is referred to as "blackwater" down here.  The creek itself was muddied up from recent rains, but the small feeder creeks featured the tea colored water which reminded me of rivers such as the Fox River in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

We enjoyed the wildlife, plants, and flowers along the way, and I snapped a few pictures.  The bigleaf magnolia leaves were particularly interesting to me.  I'd love to see what the trees look like later in the year. 

It was a very nice day.  We accessed the trail at Janice Landing north of Wiggins, MS and headed west.  If I do it again I'll try a new section of the trail.  We had to hike several miles before we found the river, and the trail was much nicer after that.  When the river is lower, there are numerous sandbars that provide convenient campsites.  The trail is 41 miles total and would make a very nice backpacking trip which I would like to do someday.

Me and my hiking buddy

Hiking in Northern Georgia

A few weeks ago, I drove up from the Gulf Coast to Kennesaw, GA (near Atlanta) to visit a college friend for the weekend. We decided to head to northern Georgia for a day hike.  After much deliberation, we chose Fort Mountain State Park and the Gahuti Trail as our destination because it was one of the closest options and it offered a long loop instead of an out and back.  It took about an hour and a half to reach the state park, which is just east of the bustling metropolis of Chatsworth, GA.  Much of the drive was over fairly flat land, as Fort Mountain lies on the extreme southwestern tip of the Appalachian Mountains. 

A view of the Chatsworth area from Fort Mountain at the end of the Appalachians

The Gahuti Trail is an 8 mile loop around the mountain.  It never actually reaches the summit of the mountain, but there are still some good views, although they are rather few and far between.

Pictures and more after the jump.