spent the last week in yellowstone, I go every year to volunteer with the park foundation and arch ventures in order to rebuild old corrals and fish while there.
this year we worked on the west corrals in west yellowstone.
I get invited back every year since I have been building corrals and fences most of my life.
all these pics were from my cell phone since my camera didnt survive baggage handling.
this year I had a bit more freedom than normal since most rangers are bound by red tape and administration, so I was able to build a pretty nice gate arch/header and design a decent corral that actually is a historic reproduction and actually works well with pack animals and back country ranger stock.
step one of gate header building, post layout and holes, since there was a ton of other volunteers this year I was able to get some help with people to debark the logs with draw knives and timber sheaves.
step two is to set the posts. I was able to find some schoolmarms with some pretty cool forks for the header posts
found a good straight header log. this header needed to be at least 16 feet tall in order to get large snow removal equipment into the corrals to remove snow in the spring for back country packing operations.
the finished gate arch, I topped it with a elk rack and a sign I did free hand with the router.
here is a collection of poached elk racks the rangers have tagged for investigation purposes
once the work was finished it was time to fish, we started out on the madison river just before daylight
the pre dawn daylight was a little nippy, had a temp of 21 degrees wich made the water feel pretty warm. the air was so cold the eyes/line on the fly rod were constantly freezing
once it warmed up and the morning fog lifted it was in the 80's for the rest of the day,
apparently this year has been bad for fisherman/bison incidents, the flyers were everywhere
we fished the gibbon and got shoved around by bison that were lumbering around the waters edge.
the gibbon was a pretty narrow stream that had some neat little holes
we then fished the fire hole, got pushed around by bison as well there...
by the time we got to the fire hole there was a caddis hatch on the water that was insanity for fishing. everything was hitting
the trip was a great time this year, we fished some new waters, learned some new fly patterns/techniques for stubborn fish and got some good insight for next year. no near death experiences this trip......kind of nice
this year we worked on the west corrals in west yellowstone.
I get invited back every year since I have been building corrals and fences most of my life.
all these pics were from my cell phone since my camera didnt survive baggage handling.
this year I had a bit more freedom than normal since most rangers are bound by red tape and administration, so I was able to build a pretty nice gate arch/header and design a decent corral that actually is a historic reproduction and actually works well with pack animals and back country ranger stock.
step one of gate header building, post layout and holes, since there was a ton of other volunteers this year I was able to get some help with people to debark the logs with draw knives and timber sheaves.
step two is to set the posts. I was able to find some schoolmarms with some pretty cool forks for the header posts
found a good straight header log. this header needed to be at least 16 feet tall in order to get large snow removal equipment into the corrals to remove snow in the spring for back country packing operations.
the finished gate arch, I topped it with a elk rack and a sign I did free hand with the router.
here is a collection of poached elk racks the rangers have tagged for investigation purposes
once the work was finished it was time to fish, we started out on the madison river just before daylight
the pre dawn daylight was a little nippy, had a temp of 21 degrees wich made the water feel pretty warm. the air was so cold the eyes/line on the fly rod were constantly freezing
once it warmed up and the morning fog lifted it was in the 80's for the rest of the day,
apparently this year has been bad for fisherman/bison incidents, the flyers were everywhere
we fished the gibbon and got shoved around by bison that were lumbering around the waters edge.
the gibbon was a pretty narrow stream that had some neat little holes
we then fished the fire hole, got pushed around by bison as well there...
by the time we got to the fire hole there was a caddis hatch on the water that was insanity for fishing. everything was hitting
the trip was a great time this year, we fished some new waters, learned some new fly patterns/techniques for stubborn fish and got some good insight for next year. no near death experiences this trip......kind of nice
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Does he walk on water, too? 
