I first visited Yellowstone National Park (YNP) in early October 1975, when I was training at the Naval Nuclear Prototype facility that was  50 miles west of Idaho Falls. I qualified there to operate nuclear power plants on submarines. That first visit was memorable. Almost nothing was open and traffic…

No fly fisher goes looking for crowds, at least none I’ve met. One of the attractions of the sport is finding a stream or beach where no one else is in the vicinity. A place where the casting and fishing is only a part, even if the greatest part, of…

Cathy Whitlock, PhD, is a paleoecologist at Montana State University in Bozeman. She has written over 200 peer-reviewed articles for scientific journals, and was the lead author  of the 2017 Montana Climate assessment, that among other findings forecast continued decreasing winter snowpack; increasing numbers of wildland fires; increased forest mortality,…

I’ve written of the problems of crowds and traffic in Yellowstone National Park (read here). Now the Denver Post has an extensive article on the problems faced by a number of western national parks and the communities that surround them. Essentially we are loving our parks – to death. Add…

Visit Yellowstone National Park whenever the park’s roads are open (typically April to late October), and there’s always the possibility of crowds at popular highlights (e.g., Old Faithful), long waits at restaurants, and gridlock caused by animals on the road or nearby. The possibility increases to certainty – particularly crowds…

Trips to Montana in early October can mean a possibility of cold and snow. But then again, an October trip to Montana means a chance to see the autumn colors and wildlife, and an opportunity to fish for spawning brown and rainbow trout. My wife Terri and I made the…

National Geographic has a troubling article on how one fish has, and is, changing the ecology of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). The introduction of lake trout into Yellowstone Lake has led to the demise of the native cutthroat trout (see photo above). That in turn has led to a cascading…