I'm pretty sure I have one of these posts every few months, and at least once every year or two, but here is the most recent version of water, water everywhere. Rainfall yesterday (Saturday, March 27, 2021) into early this morning produced flooding across middle and east Tennessee. My wife and I decided to go for a drive and perhaps a little hiking today and see if we could get some good pictures. The water was even more than I had expected.
Our destination was Lost Creek Falls. This out of the way gem is not much as far as a hike goes, but it is scenic and also offers some nice wildflowers. While in the area, we also like to head down to the upper Caney Fork at Big Bottoms and also stop by Rylander Cascade. We accomplished all of those, but the water was so high we almost didn't.
We had barely left home when we started coming across lots of debris in the road from high water. Huge rocks, leaves, branches, and just normal gravel were all strewn across the road in places. We carefully drove over what looked like some serious tire popper rocks and kept going.
As we descended off the Plateau, we came across the first excellent waterfall for the day. Wildcat Falls is right on highway 70 between Crossville and Sparta but much closer to the latter. You pass the falls as you drive up or down off of the Cumberland Plateau. Today it was really rolling. We stopped along with several other people to take some pictures of what is normally a small trickle.
After enjoying the impressive sight, we continued our drive towards Sparta, Tennessee before turning off to take back roads to Lost Creek Falls State Natural Area. As we meandered through the countryside, we began noticing several lakes and ponds we hadn't seen before. Then we realized it was just people's fields full of water. Several houses were completely cut off by the flood waters. Thankfully, most of them at least appeared to still be dry.
As we made our initial drive past Lost Creek Falls, we both were in awe of how much water was going over the falls. Before stopping to take pictures, we decided to head further down the road and visit the upper Caney Fork River and Rylander Cascade. The new canoe launch down at the Caney Fork River was inundated with water. Not a good day to be canoeing!
The road was covered with water here. We saw a big truck drive through the flood waters and almost not make it. Next, an ATV did the same thing and came even closer to getting swept off of the road. This was a good reminder that flood waters are not a joke. If water is over the road, don't risk it. The power of flood waters never ceases to amaze me.
Turning around, we stopped to take pictures of the water surging through fields along the main Caney Fork River channel, then we headed back up to check out Rylander Cascade. Turns out there was a little water there as well.
After some careful negotiating of the trail, we were able to enjoy an impressive view of the cascade before heading back to the car to finally hit Lost Creek Falls.
We carefully made it back down the trail and back to our car, ready for the final adventure of the day. Lost Creek Falls is an impressive sight no matter what the water levels are. This is very similar to Virgin Falls which isn't all that far away. Both falls emerge from caves before falling into a sink and disappearing. Lost Creek Falls is not as large as Virgin Falls, but still impressive nonetheless. Normally, Lost Creek Falls disappears immediately at the bottom of the drop. Today, however, the sheer volume of water had overwhelmed the usual outlet holes and it was flowing down through the large sink and into Lost Creek Cave. I took pictures and video of what we saw. Here are a couple of the pictures.
I also took a quick video or two of the falls. You can see it on YouTube HERE or watch it below. Remember to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Listen to the water roar over the falls! So much power in the water today...
Yellowstone National Park is at it again. If you remember from my piece on the Gibbon River back in 2010, park management in Yellowstone has done some rather curious things over the years. At that time, it was "restoring" a stream with a species that had never occurred there naturally. Lots of pushback appears to have encouraged them to modify that plan somewhat. Still, I'm guessing that at some point they'll have some interesting ideas about that again. In other words, the fisheries department in Yellowstone does not always operate on good science.
Now, Yellowstone National Park management has found an opportunity to hopefully increase revenue and is specifically picking on anglers in the process. Apparently we have not been paying enough for our Yellowstone fishing licenses all these years. The remedy is an over 100% average license fee increase for 2021. Yes, you read that correctly.
Here is the overall breakdown. The 3 day Yellowstone National Park fishing license is going from $18 to $40. The 7 day fishing license is going from $25 to $55. Finally, the Yellowstone National Park annual fishing license is a true deal, going from $40 to only $75. Seriously, who dreams up these types of license increases?
I'm tired of hearing about how costs have been increasing as has been argued locally when license fees have increased. If wages had increased over 100% since the last fishing license fee increase, then this would have made sense. By the way, the last fishing license increase for Yellowstone National Park was apparently in 2012. I sincerely hope your paycheck has increased over 100% in that time. Mine hasn't and I'm guessing most other people haven't been so lucky either.
So, in only nine years, Yellowstone National Park needs more than double the fishing license revenue? That is absurd. Thus, now you have a Park who has obviously poorly managed their resources in the past (go back and read the article I mentioned above before disagreeing please), looking to get more than double the revenue for managing the same resources
If you are interested in the full press release from Yellowstone National Park, you can find it HERE. While Yellowstone is still extremely high on my list of favorite places to fish, I'll be making far fewer trips now than before. If I'm going to pay fishing license fees on par with what states are charging (part of their logic in raising fees this much), then I'll buy one for a whole state where I have a lot more fishing options at my disposal. I love Yellowstone. This won't completely prevent me from visiting, but it leaves a bad enough taste in my mouth that my overall number of visits are going to be drastically reduced. And maybe that was their goal all along. If they can reduce the number of visitors and anglers, then some of the crowding issues will be resolved. Hopefully for those of you that still visit regularly, that can be a possible silver lining.
One piece of my trip to Glacier National Park last summer was much more personal than just great scenery or even good fishing. You see, my grandpa, great aunt, and great uncles on my dad's side were originally from near Kalispell. I have heard about Glacier National Park for many years, especially from my great aunt. It was clearly her favorite national park, and now I see why. The one thing I hoped to do, but really didn't have much expectation of pulling off, was to find the old homeplace just west of Kalispell.
So, on the day we left Glacier National Park to head towards Idaho, we had a mission. That morning, we packed up camp. In the process, I got a few last good pictures of the local wildlife. Then, it was on towards town where we intended to make one last grocery stop to stock up for a long week of fishing in Idaho. The coolers needed to be topped off with ice, and we were hoping to find a good safe option for takeout at lunch.
Camp food is delicious and filling, but since we were traveling, something delicious like pizza was going to be a lot easier. After a little searching, we selected Bullman's Wood Fired Pizza which proved to be a winner. We got pizza takeout twice on this trip, and both times were delicious. At Bullman's, we were so hungry we ordered two pizzas, settling on the Gallatin pizza and the Pesto & Goat Cheese pizza. Both were delicious although we got full before we made it through two entire pizzas. Oh well, they made an excellent snack a few short hours later.
After getting the pizza, we took some hazy directions west out of Kalispell on highway 2, hoping to find the old homeplace. The Knapp's had settled here on 80 acres and raised my grandpa and his three siblings. We followed the directions we had, but there was so much new development that it was very difficult to follow. In fact, we made one or two wrong turns and were actively considering giving up when we found another possibility. A couple of turns later, we were looking at something that was incredibly similar to the description I had. I took a few pictures including a couple of the cellphone variety.
Then, I had a brainwave. I called my great aunt to ask a few details about the property. She still remembers it well, and when I started to describe what we saw, she assured me that it was the property. Later, she again confirmed that the pictures were it. I had found the old Knapp homeplace. The 80 acres were still intact, and I was left wishing that it was still in the family. I semi joked with my wife that we should ask the owners for right of first refusal. I think it would be pretty neat to live back on the old Knapp farm again. I'll probably never have that kind of money though. This beautiful land close to Kalispell is now worth quite a lot. It is nice to dream though! If you ever want to buy me a really big present, now you know what to get. Here is the old place we found...
