Boating: How to Boat: Advanced: Paddle Sports
Paddling Our National Parks: Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Paddling the Land of Wow: Rivers of our National Parks
by Ben Long
Courtesy of Article Resource Association www.aracopy.com
Yellowstone is the granddaddy of all national parks. It's fabled for wildlife and geysers, but five percent of its 2.2-million acres is water. That includes some of the cleanest, wildest, and most storied rivers anywhere. Rivers like the Yellowstone-with its waterfalls and its Grand Canyon-and the steaming Firehole, but also the Madison, Lamar, Lewis, and Gardiner rivers.
Yellowstone Park is not welcoming to river paddlers. The rivers are cold and swift, and boats are generally prohibited. Still, there are many other ways to enjoy the park's running water. Most famously, there is fishing. Yellowstone's eighteen species of fish attract flycasters from across the world. The native Yellowstone cutthroat trout are the most prized, but there are also exotic browns and rainbows.
Flyfishing in Yellowstone suffers, though, from its own reputation. You can literally be shoulder-to-shoulder with other fishermen. The same trout may be caught-and-released dozens of times annually in the park's most popular waters.
The alternative to this zoo is simple: Walk. Most park visitors seem to be attached to their cars by an invisible rope, and the quietwater is just beyond the length of that rope. Another tip: Don't overlook the small streams and tributaries.
The other way to avoid the hordes is to visit in the fall or spring. September is my favorite month in Yellowstone: The fishing is the best and the bull elk are bugling their challenges through the high country. I hope Heaven is half so good.
Just to the south is Yellowstone's little sister, Grand Teton National Park. Here, the headwaters of the Snake River flow from jagged 12,000-foot peaks. The Snake coils through a cottonwood-forested bottom, each bend offering a gleaming new view of the Tetons. Driftboats bob past, filled with anglers casting for the Snake's fine-spotted cutthroat trout.
The thirty miles of the Snake that flow through Grand Teton are divided into 3 segments, rated from beginning to advanced. The advanced segment presents paddlers with logjams, sweepers, and braided channels. "It's a seemingly innocent river, but will hammer anybody from beginner to advanced on a given day," says one river ranger.
Wow Factor? Take your pick: Feeling the mist from the falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Watching bison ford the Lamar. Soaking in the geothermally heated Boiling River as snowflakes melt in the steam.
Contact: Yellowstone National Park Superintendent, PO Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. Phone: (307) 344-7381. Grand Teton National Park, PO Drawer 170, Moose, WY, 83012. Phone: (307) 739-3300.
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