Catching Up

A couple of my faithful readers have recently admonished me for not being diligent with my blog entries. To these I must confess I have been most negligent. These are the dog days of summer and I have been lazy as a dog myself.
Two weekends ago I met up with a friend from Polson over in Ranchester where we camped Saturday night. A hot weekend, too hot to camp and too hot to fish even if the Tongue River was not slow, low and algae ridden, so we lazed around and talked and listened to music until the batteries ran out on both the XM and the ipod.
Last weekend found me again in the Bearlodge Mts, but the heat kept me from hiking or fishing, so me and my dog just hung out, took an evening and a morning photo-hike, and got some reading done. The temperature was over a hundred both Saturday and Sunday, and without rain for a while all was dry and the roads thick with dust. The photo of the tower was taken on the way back and made cool looking with PS.
Now, this weekend I am hanging out in town, the first weekend since last April I have spent a weekend here. They say record heat (106 today), and even Barley says he’d rather stay inside. So reading “The Best American Short Stories” edited by Michael Chabon. For a brief review, let me say, the BASS series has finally gotten it right again, for the last decade they’ve been too concerned with the form and the story has suffered; now they are back to good story telling. The other reading is a couple photo books by Freeman Patterson. I can say whoever reads his books will either become a more observant person and a better visual artist, or become a more frustrated artist. Patterson makes it all look so easy, but the nice thing about it, he tells you how he makes (not takes) a photo.

A Man, His Dog and The Crazy Woman

It’s been getting hot in the prairies of northeastern Wyoming, so I decided to head for the Bighorn Mountains west of Buffalo. This time of year the established campgrounds are pretty full, so I took off on the side roads in search of a good place to spend the night. Towards the end of Sourdough Creek Road I found a spot with a flat spot, a fire ring, plenty of firewood and an ample number of squirrels. What more could a guy and his dog want. After setting up camp, we took a hike down an abandoned road where we found the swampy willow-lined headwaters of Sourdough Creek. I could not help but tell my dog that it looked like serious moose country. And it was not long before we came across a couple of cow moose. To avoid a confrontation, we headed back, in my many years of hiking the backcountry I have seem lots of wildlife and lots of wildlife has seen me, but only once have I been charged, and that was by a moose, but that is another story.
Sunday morning I got up early and fished the beaver ponds downstream and after catching only 8” brook trout, I headed over to the next drainage, Crazy Woman Creek.
There is a campground on Crazy Woman Creek (I’m sure there is a story behind that name), where it meanders through some fields and is spotted with beaver ponds. After an hour of fishing and catching small trout, we headed downstream. Downstream is really down a very steep rocky canyon. The forest service road follows it all the way into the prairies. I fished for a few hours in various pools and once again caught only small bookies. It is a fine drive, but the road being narrow and steep and not wishing to venture the steep uphill in a two-wheel drive Passat. I followed the road out of the mountains to the highway and thus completed a circle back to Buffalo.