Category: Bakers Hole

Bakers Hole Campground, Fly Fishing – Thursday June 8, 2017

I was 31 years old when I took this picture of my hiking boots looking at Mt. Olympus in Olympic National Park.  We started at Soleduck Hot Spring, carrying a 100 pound pack up to the High Divide across the Cat Walk to Mt. Carrie.  The valley below between us and Mt. Olympus is the Hoh River Valley.
This picture was taken today at 67 years old, my new wading boots setting in front of my motorhome after a day of fly fishing in Yellowstone National Park on the Firehole and Madison Rivers.

Today I want back into the park and fished the Firehole River.

Bakers Hole Campground – West Yellowstone, MT – Tuesday June 6, 2017

We spent most of the day looking at campgrounds and fishing access points on the Madison River between here and Ennis, MT.
Drove 168 miles and this is what we found:

The river is currently unfishable from where we are now to I-90.
Fishing Access Site (FAS) Valley Garden by Ennis has several sites but road is in bad shape.
FAS Ennis just south of Ennis has have a dozen sites right on the river, 7 days, $12.00 a night.
FAS Varney Bridge has 7 sites 1-2 bars of cell, 7 days, $12.00 a night. is 4 miles of gravel road off Hwy 287.
Ruby Creek Campground BLM is a big campground with really nice sites, 1 bar cell, 14 days, water available, $6.00 a night with Old Guy Pass.  Good gravel road
FAS Palisades 15 nice sites right on the river, 1 bar cell, 14 days, no current water (not turned on), 14 days, $4.00 a night with Old Guy Pass.
FAS Reynolds Pass has 7 sites right on the river, river very narrow at this point, not a good place for us.

We will be staying at Bakers Hole for another week.  I can fish here and will go back into the park and also fish there, at least the water is clear, to high but clear.  At this point I think we will go to Palisades for two weeks and then two days to drive to Tanya, Mike and Jack’s.

Internet is really bad this morning hopefully this will post.

 

Bakers Hole Campground – Sunday June 4, 2017

One of my big house projects was to add this solar panel: Go-Power 120 watt portable panel with built in controller. 

It is working really well and supplying all the power we need for lights, changing iPads, phones; running WeBoost, TV, satellite TV etc.  Will still run generator for microwave and A/C.  Glad I got the 30 foot extension cable we have had to use it here and at Yellowstone. 

It does have several weak points:

There is no way of locking it up so it doesn’t walk away, I drilled holes in the frame to attach a lock and cable. At home I had set it up to make sure it worked and set the controller to flooded batteries. I thought the handle was held on with rivets like the closing clasps but I was wrong, the handle is screwed on.  I was going to hook the lock to the handle. 

The panels fold in half for storage however the locking clasps are just a half a step above worthless. I will keep my eye out for replacements. 

The controller is on the under side of the panel with a nice hinge so it will tip out and it can be read. The controller is held up against the the panels for storage and to keep it out of the rain with Velcro.  The problem is the quality of the glue on the Velcro. It works just fine until the panel is set out in the sun, for some reason the panel gets hot and the glue releases from the panel and controller.  Richard gave me some good double back tape to retape the Velcro. This tape works fine on the back of the panel but releases from the Velcro. When we get to the big house I will use JB Weld to glue the Velcro to the double back tape, I did this with the strap I put on the generator door to keep it from vibrating open.

Bakers Hole Campground – Wednesday May 31, 2017

We left Yellowstone this morning and drove 19 miles to Bakers Hole FS Campground 4 miles north of West Yellowstone.  We are in site 63 only a few feet from the Madison River. This site does not have electricity but it has the view and with our portable solar panel and generator we are fine.  We can stay here for 16 night at $8.00 a night.  Signed up for seven nights to start and the level fishing will decide what we will do next.

View out the couch windows.