Canyon Still Closed

US Highway 26/89 remains closed through the Snake River Canyon since a massive mudslide hit the road on May 16th. The mudslide has finally stopped creeping across the road, and WYDOT has now hired an excavating company to begin the process of removing the debris. They have cautioned that if any instability in the slide begins again, they will need to stop removing debris until it is safe. This past week ended up being a little drier than was forecast, which probably helped the situation. If the rains return, we may see the mudslide come back to life. Check out this video below that WYDOT released...it's an incredible time lapse shot of the moving debris from last week. When it was filmed, the slide was moving about 1 foot per minute. Make sure to visit the WYDOT website for the latest.

On Thursday night, I attended the spring water meeting held by Mike Beus, the operations manager for the Bureau of Reclamation. Dozens of anglers, river runners and ranchers were in attendance to hopefully learn details of how our water will be managed this summer out of Jackson Lake. Although Mike was well prepared with tons of historical data on the river and snowpack, he fell short on predicting what our summer flows will look like on the Snake. The situation we are in most resembles the 1996, 1997 and 2010 years, with a cool, wet spring on a very large snowpack. With our regional snowpack at 200% of average, and no crystal ball available on our weather forecasting, it's just too hard to tell exactly what the runoff will look like right now. Mike Beus certainly has a tough job. He's in charge of managing flows from Jackson Lake Dam, as well as Palisades Reservoir downstream. It's a balancing act of predicting runoff levels with how much water they want to end up in the lakes at the end of the summer. Anglers, rafters, kayakers and ranchers all have different questions and needs in years like this. Hopefully, we will begin warming soon and the Snake and its tributaries will peak by mid-June.
I spent the day near Pinedale last Wednesday with Scott Smith and Ben Brennan exploring the lower New Fork River in search of a spring fishing option. With some clients showing up tomorrow to fish a few days, I am in need of somewhere to take them, and this seemed like a good option. It was tough; relentless streamer action and nymphing only netted us a couple of fish. The water was still cold, and the clarity was marginal. It was a fun outing with some good buddies...here's Ben and Mokie doing a great job keeping Scott on the goods. Not sure where we'll fish this week...