Elk Fork Outfitters

Just west of the town of Wapati Wyoming, the Elk Fork trail sits at the bottom of a wide canyon.  Rising up above the Elk Fork River, cottonwoods thread a fall-colored yellow line following the river southeast up to the snow covered mountain ranges separating this valley from the Yellowstone Thoroughfare.  Foothills, softened by time, make up the next level of topography along this river trail.  Covered in six inch yellow grasses, the brown foothills wear a cloak yellow looking somewhat like a mink coat over their softened shoulders.  Sheer brown cliffs rise above these foothills in various monolithic formations carved by water, weather, and time into spires of rust and brown.

The valley is wide and the trail trades sides with the river, meandering from east to west staying low and flat most of the way.  Our horses and mules amble along, not working too hard with their loads of gear, food, and camp supplies.  The layer of fallen leaves which get stomped into the dirt on the trail smell of fall decay, sweet and musty and organic.  There is a slight breeze which rattles the drying leaves still holding onto the tree branches above. 

We work our way down the trail and ride into the Cabin Creek Camp about three and a half hours from the trail head.  Sunlight shines down on a yellow grass filled meadow punctuated with white canvass tents.  The creek flanks the camp and provides easy access to clean cold water.  Easy, clean and ample water is a bonus for any remote camp.  The abundance of stock grass is another and there are meadows upon meadows here, blocked at a narrow point below by a drift fence, keeping all stock from considering a run out to the trail head.  Dead and dried trees litter the ground and there is plenty of firewood to harvest.  

This is Seth and Alden’s new outfitting camp.  Summer trips and fall hunts will be how they prioritize their lives as they begin to build their livelihood around this wilderness retreat.  Outfitting is not easy business.  It requires a big investment; horses and mules, saddles and pack saddles, tents and cots, stoves and saws to cut the wood for the stoves,  insurance coverage, trucks and trailers, barns to store all of this when winter arrives, and lots of lots of work.  This is their summer and fall home.  There is no where they would rather be – and it is a fine, fine place, indeed. 

The story of the hunt will come later.  This place, set deep in the wilderness, is magical and unique.  Check out their website at Elk Fork Outfitters

Hunting Memories

Dad taught me to shoot a gun.  I started with a 20 gauge shot gun and quickly advanced to a 12 gauge shot gun.  Mom sewed me my own custom shooting vest.  I remember it had greens and blues and flowers with a sueded shoulder patch.  It was the coolest thing ever!

Tonight I pack as we prepare to join friends, Seth & Alden, to ride into the backcountry and see their new hunting camp.  These new outfitters in Cody got the camp late so finding hunters - for this year - was tough.  We got an invitation and bit hard!!  Heck yeah, we'll come hunt with you!

The ride in is reported to be about 3 1/2 hours.  Not much different that the ride into Mike's old camp.  We will haul our two mules over with us, guns, gear, some dinners, and hibiscus margarita mix. 

Memories of hunting.  Walking down the yellow-grassed field to the south from my childhood home in Illinois, sun angled to the south, yellow light coloring the scene in front of me.  Shot gun in hand, yellow lab Precious out in front, smelling for pheasants.  We never brought one home, but oh, do I remember our hunting walks.

A goose hunt in Nebraska.  Sitting in a blind, dug below the ground, looking up to a rectangle of sky, hearing geese honking out there somewhere.  I shot the shot gun and had no idea it was an automatic shotgun.  This was quite a surprise and I was embarrassed yet laughed out loud at my ignorance.  White geese overhead.

My first deer.  Shot in the timber down below Chuck's house.  A single slug shot and off she ran.  I was horrified.  How could I miss?  It was a good shot.  With my head hanging, I drug myself up the hill in the direction I came.  And there, in the middle of the harvested soybean field, there she lay - my deer!  Exaltation!

I shot my first elk in Jackson on the Elk Refuge.  An enormous herd of elk came stringing up the hillside and through the gully just below me.  Like my deer, I shot and off ran my elk.  I was again horrified.  A hunter, nearby, asked me if I was going to go get my elk!  There it was, just below the hill.  A nice tender young calf.  I cooked one of its loins on a small Weber charcoal grill that afternoon.  On the deck of my AFrame, the property which 20 years later would buy our 83 acre farm.

Mike and I ride two hours to a hill overlooking a valley.  A cow elk runs below us.  I shoot and she drops.  We walk our mules down the steep hill, gut and quarter this fine elk.  Load her on our mules and begin the climb out of the valley, the two plus hour walk out of the back country.  The snow is deep.  Mike leads, walking, cutting the trail through foot deep snow.  I slog along behind him and his mule.  We stop to break.  He comments, "we may be getting too old for this."  That was at least four years ago. 

There are many who dislike the thought of hunting.  They eat their store bought, cellophane wrapped artificially colored meat - once a living animal - and pontificate on their thought-up vices regarding hunting.  They have never known the golden grasses in the afternoon light, the dog and friend running aside, the ride into the wilderness, the howl of a wolf, the foot prints of a grizzly bear on the trail below one's mount, the silence of a dark night and the wonder of the galaxy above, the wind through drying aspen leaves, the taste of clean mountain spring water, the roar of a hot fire in a canvas tent, the sound of a fuel lantern heating up, the satisfaction of a day spent hunting. 

How lucky are we to hunt.  How lucky are we.

Success

This is a picture of success!  Last weekend, I took the "our honey" box off the two "bee's honey" boxes and harvest exactly this much honey (well, minus the honey licked from my fingers!), captured from the 2018 harvest.

Success? you ask with disbelief.  Yes, success!  The bees have put their work into their honey and if it is a decent winter, that supply might just be enough to get them through the long, cold winter.  We shall see. 

Also success because I don't know what I'm doing!  Harvesting honey is a sticky mess.  Leave the stuff to the bees - I am thrilled with all the pollenated plants!  There are seeds everywhere!  Sunflower seeds, columbine seeds, poppy pods filled with seeds, fuchsia seed pods, and more.  Next year, a hive for Hoback so the cherry flowers will be pollinated and there will be sour cherries!

Thank you our friends the bees.  Thank you for your hard work.  May your hard work take you through the cold, dark winter with ease and plenty of food stores to keep you and your Queen well taken care of.  I'm thinking already of all the lovely flowering plants I can grow for you next season. 

 

 

Musings, Kraut & Jam

Mike is on the Roosevelt Fire.  The big, monster fire is getting slayed, bit by bit.  There are now over 1000 fire fighters fighting the beast.  Sunday was the biggest day.  Houses turned to dust.  Chimneys stand, totems to the altered landscape.  All that is left on barren, ash-covered ground.  Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  A moose lays, swollen in the heat, its hairs singed off in the fire.  The killing hand of the monster touches more than homes and trees.  Luckily, there were no firefighters that were injured or killed.  Many took enormous risks for sticks and bricks.  A culture of risk-taking drives them to desperate and ridiculous measures. 

A friend loses her family cabin.  This is all that is left. 

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.

On The Green River

At last, Mike and I got away to use the gift certificate we were highest bidder for at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation,  May 2016!  After a really nice drive, less than four hours, we landed at Sweet Lorraine's Bed & Breakfast, early Friday afternoon.  Check it out here What A Wonderful Place! 

Dave and Lorraine are well-seasoned and wonderful hosts.  We had the place to ourselves and enjoyed a delicious meal of lamb chops.  (Dick Cheney fishes with these wonderful people every year!)  Given their B&B sits in Dutch John, UT and they are the only show in town, their B&B includes dinner (and booze!) as well.  We sat in their lovely yard, sipping drinks, grazing on appetizers, carrying on conversations that included grizzly bears, rivers, fish, and more, oh so much more!  Oddie, the laberdoodle sweet dog, came around for scratches.  Good dog, Oddie, good dog! 

Saturday was our day on the Green River.  We launched just below the Green River dam and did an 18 mile stretch of the Green.  Dave maneuvered us down the river, around rapids, and into the fish!

“He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”  Henry David Thoreau.  









Floating down the river was beautiful, relaxing, and fun.  We saw some big horn sheep along the shore.   I was called a "Lion Tamer" due to my fly casting skills - thanks for your patience Guideman John!  Still, despite my lack of technique, I caught a couple of fish.  The below picture shows the first and best fish.  Returned to the river to carry on! (Guide Dave held the fish which really wanted to flop out of my hands!  We had to get a picture, of course!)

The weekend adventure ended with our drive through the Roosevelt Fire.  We paused, took pictures, and almost got turned around with the road closure -prompted by the big fire activity.  By the end of today or tomorrow, many many homeowners will be hearing the news of their homes burning to the ground.  Sad. Sad. Sad.  This is a Fire Monster of magnitudinal proportions.  Press reports today indicate it is the Nation's number one fire concern.  It is certainly ours!

Back home.  Back to work.  It was a wonderful get-away weekend!!  

This is Not a Fairy Tale

There is a Monster to the south.  He raised his frightening head yesterday afternoon and got everyone's attention.  He spits ashes that fall fifty miles downwind, fluttering like snowflakes to the hot, dry vegetation there.  He is not alone.  Another monster works the same evil magic to the southwest, devouring forest land by the acres.

The Monster laid down overnight.  A red sun rose in the east, foreshadowing the firey day ahead.  Fed by wind and acres of dry timber, the Monster has plenty to eat.  He will raise his smoke columned head again today.

This is not our fire.  It sits in an adjacent county and is managed by a Type II team, its members assembled from other parts of this western country.  Equipment and people arrive to attack the beast. We watch it from the north.  Waiting.  Holding our breath.  Planning.  Expecting it or one of its friends to show up here.  Soon.

Fire season is late in Teton County.  By now, we usually have fall weather; snow in the high country, rain on the valley floor.  But not this year.  Now, our only hope is the efforts of prevention and cold nights.

Hot. Dry. Windy.

It happened this weekend.  You could feel it coming on.  Saturday night, at 10pm, the wind swirled around the outside thermostat - temperature 70 degrees.  I was quite happy to pass on the duty officer baton at 0700 Sunday morning with my shift came to a close. 

And Sunday was the day.  Fires kicked up all over the region.  This one, pictured below, is the Roosevelt Fire.  It started in a meadow we camped in on one of our pack trips years ago.  The winds whipped so hard, the fire overtook a couple of hikers who were high-tailing it out of the country.  They found some refuge in a stream, but still received burns significant enough they were life-flighted to the Salt Lake City burn center last night.  They are lucky they lived.

The weather forecast gives us no hope for relief any time soon.  Shorter days and cooler nights will help, but this afternoon's 81 degrees and 12% humidity kicked this fire into high gear. 

Framed in the foreground, our new Munger Mountain School.

Flooding in the east.  Fires in the west. 

Preditors

Well, it finally happened.

After all these years of raising chickens, we have suffered our first loss.  Today, a dead and headless chicken was found. 

Ermine in the area. 

I have declared war, of course.  The live trap is coming out, along with the .22!  The chickens are in the secure outside coop for a bit now.  We are down to 5 hens.  The ermine will be back.  Hope the security system works! 

Solemn Day

It gets in your throat, like a fish bone, sharp and precariously lodged there, afraid to cough for fear it may push deeper.  You choke on the pain and gasp for air as your eyes tear up and you remember.

This is a hard day for those of us engaged in emergency services.  We think of our brothers and sisters (although there were very very few women that day; a reflection of the disparity of diversity in the fire service) who looked up at the towers as they went through the doors.  As they climbed and climbed, sucking in their last breath of air and of life.

We walk into this arena without being pushed.  We are proud and able.  Most will have no
more than a couple of raging structure fires and plenty of false alarms.  Several will have close calls, looking a death right in the face and cheating it.  Cheating it this time.  Walking away, knowing what a close call looks like.  Every one of us works to make sure those around us, who walk with us side by side, go home at the end of the night, at the end of the event.  We come back day after day to help those who experience the worse day of their life.  It is an honor.  It is a privilege.

How could we ever forget September 11?  Now, 17 years later, there is a generation that did not experience that day.  They read about it in their history books - like we read about the Holocaust and the Civil War.  Time ticks on as towers fall and desperate people jump.  How can we forget?

I am lucky I found this path and thank Michael and September 11 for showing me the way.  Never having been full time employed, I initially shied away from the offering of a career.  But I felt like I could do more and I wanted to help others.  So here I am.  Feeling sad and thankful all at the same time, tears dripping down my cheeks and a heart filled with sadness for the many many families who are missing their loved ones today.

There is a live video of our 9/11 Commemoration on Facebook Facebook Video

It's a hard day.  Let us never forget.

Row Your Boat

Mike and I floated the Salt River Sunday morning.  What a weekend-like thing to do!!  Instead of throwing a party, or baling hay, or weeding the garden, we stepped out of our comfort zone and did something crazy like this!  As we left, I looked at the wilting horse radish, the mound of purple potatoes still needing extrication from the mounded dirt bed, the dog-printed floor where Ruby dotted the laminate after taking a bath in the irrigation ditch and I blocked it out of my mind as we made way to the boat launch, ten minutes from the Freedom place.  The shuttle took 15 minutes each way and we would float for three hours!  Rivers are so cool!

And because it was cool, the fishing was slow until around 11am.  But I caught a few fish, Mike practiced his rowing skills and we had a wonderful time.  How generous for him to row the entire way!  However, having seen my rowing skills, there was good reason!! 

Here is a picture of my monster fish!!  I hold it to my shirt to keep my skin off its skin as fish are so sensitive.  They do not fare well when humans touch them.  Maybe he will grow up and I will catch him again - cause we will be back!!

Birthday Party Joy

You could not have asked for a prettier day!  Warm, but not hot.  A breeze, but not windy.  Sunny blue skies overhead.  People started rolling in around 3:30 and at the peak of Mike's party, there had to be close to 75-100 here!  Wow!  We didn't run out of anything but lemonade!  It was a beautiful party day!!  Let the pictures tell the story!  Thank you George Hill for taking so many great pictures during the party!

Another Project

I like projects!  Things that you find for killer deals that you know are gems - they just need a little love from Mike!! When I found this heavy, metal, rusted light, I knew this was a project! 

Friend Ken, forged a long hanger which Mike precariously mounted to the ceiling beam way too far off the floor.  Frightening would be the word I would describe for the effort.  Then a hook hangs from this hanger wherein the chain for the light hooks through. 

The light fixture itself required some figuring and thinking and welding - and electrical work.  The new feature - an 18" LED light with the added lights in sockets above.  The chain cost close to $100 - we got the heavy duty version!!

Of course, we hung it too high and had to bring back the scaffolding on Sunday to lower it.  Now, Steven will probably hit his head on the light!! 

It is lovely!  There is a mule in the design; gold miners working at the base of a mountain range!  And it is just perfect for the home where most everything has been re-purposed!! 

Thank you Mike!!

Here seen hanging before we lowered it another foot.  Hoping the 4 screws hold it securely!! 

Gearing up for Saturday's party!  Arrivals begin Tuesday night!!  And the weather is supposed to be good once we get through this rain/snow storm - yup, snow!!  Fall has arrived.  

SOLD!

First batch of hay is now sold out!!  Second crop cutting starts today and may possibly be completely pre-sold out too!!  If we are lucky, next year, there will be twice as much to cut, bale, stack, and sell!! 

Gearing Up!

We are gearing up for the big birthday bash, September 1!  Planning, ordering, thinking.  Hoping for good weather.

The mammoth cabbage has been harvested.  I regret I did not weigh it, however, easily a ten pounder!!  The purple potatoes are a success.  The corn still has time; we haven't frosted yet, but Thursday night looks dicey....

Pictures to come from the party.  Second cutting of hay starts tomorrow.  There might still be work in the field when some start arriving....

Another 363 Days to Go

And just like that, the Hoback Picnic is done for another year.  After months of planning - securing tents, portapotties, beer orders, rib orders, food items, etc - and logistics, the picnic went off without too many hitches.  3000 pounds of pork ribs cooked.  230 pounds of coleslaw served.  115 punds of brown sugar used!!  Everything is inventoried, cleaned, and stored for 2019.  It is so much work.  And this year was most likely the hottest year on record.

The cooker!

With a short weekend, Sunday was a full day too.  Here is the 5 tons of hay we delivered to a farm about 20 miles from our Freedom place.  At mile 18, we had a flat tire.  Mike is getting very good at fixing flat tires!  I think this is number 5 or 6 flat tire of the year!  That took $160 off the profit of the hay!  Oh well, cost of doing business.  Sold the hay to a very nice couple just moved to Wyoming from Colorado.  Final 5 tons to be delivered next weekend.  We (I say that loosely; Mike is doing all the work) loaded the 5 tons by hand and unloaded it at their place by hand.  Working on a plan to refine this process a bit!!  The swather is broken; a part is coming overnight.  That old thing is a repair waiting to happen!!