Further up its course, the Madison has been dammed to generate power for the valley, and the huge lake behind it provides water and recreation for everyone. From my fish's perspective I can no longer look at a dam without thinking of the impenetrable barrier it represents.
I must look like a sorry character, because in the space of five minutes, I had two unsolicited acts of kindness bestowed on me. The first was an ice-cold beer from two fishers from Michigan, and the second was two chocolates give me by a Japanese tourist. Remarkable, as I neared the town of West Yellowstone, which appears to have no residents. Every single person on the streets here is a tourist, with the single objective of seeing the Park. It gives the town the feel of impermanence; there is no reason anyone would linger here more than a day or two.
Mr. Babcock has gotten to the Park boundary by the road from Livingston, having left most of their baggage at the Albemarle Hotel. Their description alludes to Montana's fishing heritage:
The road up through paradise valley is beautiful, and a view of Immigrant Peak on the east side, would alone repay one for the run to Cinnebar. The Yellowstone and its tributaries are full of trout, and the good fishing season has just begun. At one ranch we stopped for lunch and the urchin by the gate was just impaling a grasshopper on a hook, "to catch a trout under the bridge yonder," as he expressed it. While his mother was getting our lunch, we concluded to try our trout flies, and we followed him to the bridge. It was the old, old story, the boy and the grasshopper proved too strong a combination, and he landed a four pound trout while we scarcely had a bite.
Tomorrow they (and I) will enter the Park and witness some of the most amazing geothermal phenomena on earth.
78 miles and the wind is still my friend.
Leaving Montana (temporarily) for a trip into another world,
Dennis