Waterfalls, Cliffs, and Cutthroat. All in a day’s work.

E-fishing doesn’t sound that hard, right? You just have to walk through 100 meters of stream and scoop up all the fish you stun. No biggie. The hidden challenge is getting to the sites. Armed with our trusty GPS, we look for the easiest way to get to the stream from the car. Sometimes it’s an easy hundred meters. Most of the time it’s a lot farther.

Gorgeous Waterfall on Wyoming Creek

Last week we headed into Wyoming Creek, in Targhee National Forest. We followed a deer trail for a while, which was pretty easy-going, but then the banks of the creek turned to cliffs, and we realized we needed to walk up the stream in order to reach our site.  We put on our waders, only to realize that Chase managed to grab two left wader boots. He managed to stuff his neoprene cover feet into his Chacos, and we started splashing upstream, only to hit a series of 10 ft. waterfalls. We managed to climb over the first one with our gear, but the second was above a deep pool. Time to improvise. Luckily Charlie, the resident rock climber, had some webbing and carabineers in his pack, so Matt climbed up and we hauled our gear up and over the cliff next to the falls, and then scrambled up ourselves.  All in all, our site was only 1 km as the crow flies. Unfortunately we are not crows, and the trek took us over 2 hours.

Hauling our e-fisher up the cliff

Two left shoes :( 

Our next stop was Squirrel Creek, which is pretty close to Ashton.  Our first site was right off the road, and we were excited for what we though was going to be an easy day.  We started hiking in to the second site and it wasn’t too bad: we just had to walk around a swamp. Suddenly we broke through an aspen grove and found ourselves on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the creek far below. We were momentarily stumped because there was no way we were going to be able to climb down safely, much less get back up. Hmmmm. With a little scouting, we found a tiny break in the cliff that was less steep, and made it down to the bottom in one piece.  Found some great looking cutthroat at the bottom, so the adventure was all worth it!

Nessa and a Cutthroat from Squirrel Creek

Stopping Erosion with Native Plants

A few weeks ago we teamed up with North Fork Native Plants and Intermountain Aquatics to restore a portion of bank on the lower Henry’s Fork. They have done several restorations in the past and have determined a method based on trial and error. The status quo for stopping erosion is to use large rocks, which works when the natural substrate of the river is rocky, but is not effective in sandy riverbeds because the rocks are just washed away. Rocks also do nothing to re-establish native vegetation. 

Bio-logs

Partially restored bank

            Instead of rocks we used organic materials and native plants to secure the banks. After an excavator had leveled the steep slope, we staked down a burlap cloth made of biodegradable coconut fibers on the tow of the slope.  Above this, we dug a huge trench and dropped in bio-logs. Bio-logs are pre-planted with a mixture of native grasses and young willows and are given their cylindrical structure by more burlap. After the bio-logs, we planted coyote willows of various sizes, and a mixture of hawthorn, currant, roses, and snowberries. As Katie Salsbury of North Fork Native Plants explained, diversity is the best insurance policy when it comes to successful restoration.

Check out the awesome video that Matt put together about our week! Watch it to the end, it gets really good.