It's a sunny day in Yellowstone Park and I stand on a bluff, looking down at the Lamar River, which appears like a wide silver ribbon, speckled with giant boulders, and framed on both sides by rolling hills colored with silver sagebrush. The Lamar River meanders to the west, on a snaking course to the Yellowstone River, through rugged timbered mountains, and dark canyons.
Herds of buffalo, or bison, dot the Lamar valley, the Serengeti of the mountain West. Buffalo ground. On the drive up the Lamar we passed a couple of herds that were lingering near the road, the adults a dark brown color, with short curved horns, high shoulders, and odd shaggy patches of hair on a few of the animals. The bison calves, reddish-brown in color, are born in late April or May, and they shadow the sides of their moms, always on the lookout for sneaky Grizzly bears or packs of wolves.
Large bulls roam around giving out an occasional bellow, seemingly inspecting all they animals around them. They are close to entering breeding season, and the bulls will soon become very possessive of their herds and brawl and clash with other males in dusty head butting duels.
My wife Louise and I decided to hike into a quiet spot on the Lamar River in Yellowstone Park, in search of the elusive cutthroat trout. We parked the truck on the road and hiked up a bunch grass and sage covered knoll, following a sandy, well trodden buffalo trail, treading through a few recently tended wallows. The wallows were several feet across and formed a circular depression a couple of feet deep. The bison, or buff, had been busy at wallows, trundling, stirring and stomping the soil to a fine dust, then rolling in the powder, to tend their hides and scrape off pesky bugs and unkempt hairs.
Looking to the north I can see several patches of snags or dead trees, and probably half of them have fallen to the ground, spore of the fires of 1988. The woody boles of the downed trees, line up in a northeasterly direction, and apparently strong sou' wester winds have mowed them down, with unknown purpose. I wonder if it's natures design to have all snags fall to the east, as if the mountain gods must be appeased.
The standing snags are a silvery, gray color and many of the dead branches have fallen off, and they look like porcupine quills. Humongous quills, 60 feet tall. As if some giant porcupine swatted the hills with its tail, leaving swaths of quills stuck in the rock and sand, in hundred acre chunks.
We continued on the buffalo trail, following a low ridge to the north until we discovered a side path to the Lamar river, that wound its way through a wet meadow or cienaga, with tall, dense grass and hidden seeps of water. At the river the trace followed along the cut bank, the trail stomped in the tall grass, with a few deep footprints in the mud.
We came to a breach in the cut bank where there was a sandy beach with an easy access to the the waters edge, which was obviously a ford for the buff to cross the Lamar River, and on the opposite bank I could see a wide trail coursing up the steep bank. The river was very clear with a slight greenish tinge, lined with rocks and gravel and a sprinkle of large granite boulders with quiet deep eddies of water in their shadows. The hideout of lunker trout and the lair of the fly fisherman and an occasional grizzly bear, also known as a “silvertip”. This trace has probably been used for hundreds or thousands of years by herds of buffalo and elk, with its strategic geographic location.
There were a couple of large whitish colored bones laying in the sand, probably from a buffalo and nearby more bones buried a two feet deep in the rich dark loam soil, deposited by water over the eons. Historic bones of drowned or winter killed buff or elk, or the ancient kill of prairie warriors. Newly printed deer, buffalo, and sandpiper tracks marked the beach, a watering hole for thirsty animals, or birds in search of sneaky but tasty bugs.
I unlimbered my fishing rod, rigged up a bug, and soon had my fly line weaving with the blue sky in arching patterns, and delicately landed a dry fly on the rippled surface of the river. A series of large boulders, in the water, made for great trout habitat, with deep waters and eddies on their downstream side. The water was crystal clear and the winds were light which made it easy to watch the dry fly float down the stream, in a seemingly perfect ruse or deception, for a hungry fish looking for a meal of an insect. It doesn't get any better for fisherman.
I fished for a couple of hours, keeping an eye out for wandering buff and silvertips, to make sure there wouldn't be any accidental encounters, with stomping hooves and sharp teeth. My catch of cutthroat at the end of the day is slim, but the fishing was fine, and I snared a heap of memories, of silvery waters, mountains, herds of buffalo and a grand picnic on the banks of the Lamar.
Walking back to the truck at the end of the day, I stop at a buffalo wallow and mull over the existence of buffalo, and a couple of hikers, and wonder if perhaps there is something to a good roll in the dust. After all, look at the bison and how large and healthy they look and maybe all that powder does a body good. Pondering my gray beard, perhaps I qualify to get down on all fours, roll in the dust, and pulverize and pound some perfectly good soil into powder, and kick up a few dusty geysers. Maybe another day.
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