Although it has always been my favorite time of year and is
perhaps the most splendid of seasons in the Northern Rockies, for me, fall is also
a time for reflection, celebration and anticipation of what lies ahead. Yet another wondrous Yellowstone summer has
gone by, leaving behind fleeting memories of dust plumes and guttural songs
filling the Lamar River bottom, courtesy of rutting bison; seductively rising cutthroat
trout lazily gulping foam grasshoppers; soaring ospreys casting winged shadows
over deep dark pools of liquid gold; and, of course, river and mountain
adventures that fill our summer hours, and our winter dreams. The passing of summer in this part of the
country is almost akin to losing a loved one and, in my mind, it is honored and
treated with such reverence.
We can’t ever get those summer days back, but we can rejoice
in the memories made by gathering for one last evening barbeque, with favorite
drink in hand, and tip our hat to a fading sun beginning its descent behind the
massive hulk that is Electric Peak. As
we reflect upon and celebrate the fish caught, trails walked, peaks bagged, and
rapids run, one quickly recognizes that we are being fooled by these 80 degree
mid-September days. Perhaps for those in
more southern latitudes summer actually lasts until the equinox of September
22, but here, at over a mile in elevation, fall announces its arrival much
earlier. Unlike the dog days of summer
when it is nothing to stay out shooting baskets in the driveway in summer
shorts and t-shirt regalia long after the sun hides behind the tallest peak in
the Gallatin Range, now, within minutes of the sun’s final descent, the
temperatures plummet to a point where a fleece and hat seem more appropriate
for a game of horse.
It was the week of September 7th when the signs
of fall gently reminded me that the long days and warm waters of summer will
have to wait another year. On our
morning float from McConnell to Corwin Springs on the Yellowstone River on the
8th, the water temperatures read a fishy 60 degrees and the willows
lining the gravelly banks of the longest free flowing river in the lower 48
still held a dulling green appearance. Two
days later the water temperatures had dropped to 56 degrees and the willows
dancing in the wind struggled to hold tight to their life support system, the
arrival of fall revealed by the deep yellows suddenly dominating the river
bank.
Now is the season where the mournful cry of the sandhill
crane and the busy chattering of the grasshoppers give way to the regal song of
the rocky mountain elk. With the onset
of cold nights and cool mornings, one of the most impressive animal displays on
the North American continent has drawn visitors from around the globe to
Mammoth Hot Springs for an up-close and personal encounter with rutting
elk. I vividly remember commenting to my
father on the last day in August that, after one of the busiest summers in
Yellowstone’s history, Gardiner felt like a ghost town. But all it took was a drop in temperatures to
bring the freakish behavior of Yellowstone’s most abundant ungulate to the
surface, and, as always, tourists quickly followed suit.
The days are now drastically shorter, with darkness taking
hold by 7:30 each evening, and though I am sure we will see many of the
brilliant fall days that make October a month of reverence amongst residents of
this region, I have a funny feeling that this past weekend was our last chance
to truly celebrate a passing season in summer-like fashion. After the single best hopper fishing season
of my lifetime and the most productive summer of dry fly fishing with clients I
have on the books, two beginner clients of mine who had never so much as held a
fly rod in their virgin hands experienced a day of magic on the Stone.
Not being one to ruin a good thing with too much detail
regarding patterns used and holes fished, all I will say is that we ventured
into the depths of the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone with black bodied bugs
in tote. What ensued was fishing
bliss. The water was low and clear,
making our drifts from steep rocky outcrops a visual extravaganza, as one big
fish after another welcomed my jubilant clients to the art of fly fishing.
Wind is easily a fly fishermen’s greatest nemesis and autumn
made its presence felt as voracious gusts threatened to blow us off our
perch. On at least three occasions my
clients excitedly announced, with a pointed index finger, the presence of a
trout floating through the water. With
delicate care, not wanting to embarrass them or worse yet, diminish their
enthusiasm, I gently told them that the golden and spotted entity gracefully
flowing with the current was not one of the finned critters we were pursuing
but was, instead, a cottonwood leaf ripped from its stem by the winds charging
through the canyon.
Anticipation. My
summer-like day in the canyon with two enthusiastic beginner fly fishermen and
dozens of eager-to-please yellow bellied cutthroat stirred me to celebrate the
days of summer and to reflect upon their brilliance. But the shedding of fall leaves is also a
time for anticipation. What comes next? How bad will this winter be? Will I get an elk? Will my Gardiner Bruins boys’ basketball team
pull it together this season? Will we make divisionals? How much will the wind blow?
All of these are reasonable questions to ask in anticipation
of the fall and winter that now lie ahead--all but for one. We know how much the wind will blow. The pulsing winds of autumn will begin to
build speed and consistency as the days pass, as if in training for the
constant winter barrage right around the corner. This, the most powerful common element (the
supervolcano, even more powerful, but not so common) in Yellowstone Country,
will tear at the still green stems of the cottonwoods and yellow leaves of the
willows lining the banks of the Yellowstone, littering the waters with paper-thin
fish bayonets that will eventually gather in a pool of frothy water.
The suds from the bubble line, swirling in sequence with the
once living leaves, will become a temporary home to an emergence of tiny, tack-sized
mayflies that anglers welcome as blue winged olives and that trout will greedily
gobble up as one last source of surface food before a long winter of struggling
to survive. And with the disappearance
of BWO’s, the snows will fly and winter will be upon us. But not yet…
Winter is still many weeks away, and though the celebration
of summer has been digested with the last bits of smoky chicken at the
barbeque, the great awakening that fall brings this particular Yellowstone
resident has now arrived. All summer
long, when contemplating the hikes left undone and the fishing that I still
hope to do, I am comforted by thoughts of how distant is the time when the
leaves begin to fall, the waters cool and the song of the elk rings through the
meadows of a holy landscape. Such thoughts
allow me to stay home to rest, watch a movie or a mountain stage in the Tour de
France. But I receive no such comfort
when thinking of the dark days of winter lurking around the next bend.
The days may be shorter, the waters cooler and the nights
darker; still, this is a time we will never get back. I will never saunter along the banks of the
Gardner River or climb the flanks of Electric Peak or journey into the eerie
wonders of the Hoodoo Basin again as a 30-year-old young man. Next year I will be 31, one year closer to
the end of my walk on this earth. This
story holds true for all of us.
So get out there, walk the earth, climb the mountains, stalk
the elk, wade the big river, and pursue the trout; because soon enough the
waters will be frigid, the mountains frozen and the earth hardened. Don’t wait until next summer or next
fall. This is the last autumn 2009 we
will ever know. Now is the time of our
becoming, now is the time…
~Michael Leach, Director
