A dispatch from the Grey Reef in WyHOMEing.
Read MoreMax gets the Wyoming CuttSlam
I spent last weekend in Wyoming with our close family friend, Jeff, working on the Wyoming CuttSlam. The way it works is you catch the four native subspecies of Wyoming Cutthroat Trout in their native waters, document it, send it in the Game and Fish and you get a sweet certificate. FOR FREE! You can read all about it HERE. That certificate is pretty bitchin' right? Wyoming is a really special place for me. It always feels like home every time I am there. For real, they should probably call it WyHOMEing. Even when the wind is blowing and the weather is cold I still love it, especially when I am with my family or friends. I guess you just have to be from there to understand. Here are my fish.
The Bonneville cutthroat trout.
Maybe the smallest Snake River/ Finespot Cutthroat Trout ever entered. I can't believe that it actually ate the fly, but I am proud of it.
The Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout.
The Colorado River Cutthroat Trout. I caught this one in 2010. There is no time limit on catching the trout.
Here are some pictures I took of Jeff fishing. Wyoming in early September is amazing!
Here is the biggest fish that we caught on the trip. It is a Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout, and it came out of a tiny pool on a tiny creek.
That fish is probably 16-18 inches of native, wild, Cutthroat Trout.
I am the third in my family to get the CuttSlam. My mother and my father both have CuttSlams, so I guess the pressure was on. The CuttSlam is a really cool program that the Wyoming Game and Fish put together, and I am honored to have completed it. It feels like a connection to my family and to where I come from....If that makes any sense.
If you have 3 to 4 days to spend fishing in Wyoming I highly recommend giving it a try. We pretty much had the water all to ourselves, the scenery was spectacular, and it was a really fabulous time!
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
snowy cabins in Wyoming with friends
At the crack of the new year (is that a phrase? like the crack of dawn, just the crack of 2015? and crack like "snap!" or the sound a whip makes, not butt crack, yes?)
Let me start over- in the wee light of the dawn of 2015-
//////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Earlier in January we were invited to spend a delightful weekend away in the woods of Wyoming to celebrate our friend Luke's birthday. It was a super blast! (shout-out to Cale who had the NoroVirus and couldn't come with us- missed you!)
The boys (read: men) rented a snowmobile to haul in all of our things (read: booze) and to drop people off, since the cabin was a hefty 8-mile snowshoe-trek in. I stayed back at the parking lot/lodge (read: drinking wine at 10am) until Luke came back to return the snowmobile, and we were going to do the final snowshoe in to the cabin together. I was stoked! Until about 27 steps into the journey when my guts turned... like ruhhlll bad. I attempted to keep on for about a mile or so, but I couldn't do it- I spent some 'alone time' in the deep woods (I'm sorry nature!), and thought I would be okay after that- but the wind was starting to pick up, and the sun was starting to go down, and I could see a hint of panic in Luke's eyes (read: terror)- mostly because I insisted on being the one to stay back and hike in with him, however I was now the one with the cold sweats taking poo-treks into the trees every two minutes, so we were seriously NEVER going to get to the cabin.
We decided to throw out our thumbs and were immediately saved by two snowmobile angels who are now our best friends. *shout out to John and Renee* Our snowmobile adventure (which would have taken us another 4 hours to complete at my pace on snowshoes) was over in mere minutes, and we arrived at the cabin JUST in time for me to use a real bathroom! Yaaaay!
We arrived to a tidily primped cabin, with fresh (read:old leftover from people before) popcorn and a beautifully set table that Ryan, our new housemaid/ghost, had prepared for the evening.
We were trying not to panic about the rest of our group who were hiking in after we did, AFTER dark- but they were beasts and totally rolled in ahead of schedule, in the dark, headlamps and all! Total Bad-Asses!! We then all warmed ourselves by the roaring fire, ate a delicious dinner of Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes, and played games until it was time for bed.
We only almost died once in the middle of the night when we all woke up (from sleeping on our mattresses circa 1974) to the smoke alarm going off- whewps! We wanted too desperately for our boots to dry, and sadly they had begun melting into a smoky puddle in front of the floor heater, filling the cabin with toxic plastic-y smoke. Mmmmm. Thank you smoke alarm! *note to all readers (so, Mom- but you already know all this stuff) don't go to sleep in a new place without checking for smoke alarms and CO detectors*
The next day brought snowshoe adventures, sledding adventures, oh heck, ghost stories, naps, food, food, more food, slender man, Sigourney Weaver, munchkin battles, goulash, CHEESECAKE, champagne, birthday toasts, and late night glittery snow shenannigans under the full moon. The next morning it was time to pack up, and after the 8 mile hike out on Sunday, in mostly beautiful, a tad-bit Wyoming-y weather, we were ready for giant cheeseburgers in Laramie.
Thank you for the wonderful memories- cheers to a new year, friends!