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The Thorofare in Yellowstone Park is a trip of a lifetime! It is one of the most beautiful places in the lower 48.
We just finished up 10 days in the most remote area in the lower 48, The Thorofare! What a trip certainly one of the most scenic places in our country. Day one was a long 18-20 mile ride in along the east shore of Yellowstone lake. We set camp, had a great meal and hit the sack. An early 5:00 AM wake up call got us up to pack up camp and move again to a camp on Mountain creek. After we set camp we knew the trip was on. A beautiful camp about 30 miles in. As we rolled into camp I saw one of the largest piles of bear scat I had ever seen. Grass was great, horses were happy and tired and so were we however we were in for 2 nights. Day 3 we tried our luck flyfishing on the yellowstone at the confluence. It was tough fishing, did not see a fish rise at all. We were fishing streamers and had a few strikes but did not hook anything up. Another spot that I had fished before on another trip we could not get to as the yellowsone was running to high and could not cross without taking a swim. We hiked back to camp as disappointed anglers, however looking up at coulter peak and our surroundings we soon forgot about the lack of fish we encountered. At camp we were able to spot a couple of bachelor herds of some BIG Bulls at 10,000 FT on these high divides. the Elk were high as the bugs were bad. Day 4 our horses did not want to leave however they were reminded that it was time to trek on. We headed into the absolute southeast corner of yellowstone about 40 miles in and hit the south boundary trail and camped near the conflunence of the Thorofare and the Yellowstone rivers. This camp was in the trees and bugs were bad however a few steps out and The scenery of the TRIDENT was staring back at you. It moves your soul. We set up our spotting scope and saw elk, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats all up at 9500 FT or higher. No Bears yet as the thorofare has the largest concentration of grizzly bears in the park. We were able to get into some nice Cutthroat trout but nothing like it used to be a dozen years before. A combination of the 88 fires ,drought, and lake trout have really changed the flyfishing in this area. Quite , tranquill, remote, peaceful, beautiful and wild is what we all feltabout this spot, but tomorrow it was time to ride over the continental divide over 2 ocean plateau and into the upper snake river canyon and we did just that! The upper snake camp was used as a rejuvanation camp as we all rested up and relaxed around this beautiful camp in the trees and the shade. Our animals rested as well and we were all looking forward to my favorite ride in Yellowstone, BIG GAME RIDGE. The next day we were up early and embarked on a Big horseback ride about 15 miles @ 9200 ft or so. It is from this ridge you can literally see the whole Yellowstone park, no joke! We looked at our whole journey thus far and where we were headed. It was here on top where our packers saw our first bear. We jumped about a dozen big bulls that were up on top enjoying the cool breezes and limited bug activity. We then started our decent into harebell creek and rode past the actual headwaters of the creek. We then headed to our last of 5 camps on the snake river again for some fishing and some well deserved swimming. the fishing got back to normal on the last 2 camps on the snake as we were fishing Adams, stimulatours, caddis, wulff, and a few beadheads. Water levels were lower than expected at all of our camps but water tempertures were just perfect ranging from 50 to 60 degrees. Fishing was better late morning,early afternoon and 7-8 pm. We were blessed with 2 grizzly bears in our last camp hanging close by that we saw in 2 separate times but did not bother our camp. We determined that the 2 bears were the cubs of a sow that we saw the year before with our kids on our family pack trip. The bears probably brother and sister, were on there own now and trying to figure out how to survive. That was evident by a unsucessful attempt by one bear at chasing some cow elk that were drinking down river from camp on our 2nd to last day. As we all rode to our final destination it was a mixed bag of emotions. I was sad to leave one of my favorite areas, and thought about all the things that we experienced in this trips and others in the thorofare, yet I was excited to be greeted by my 3 kids on which I had not seen for a month. Seeing them brought tears to my eyes.. It was a great trip and a special thanks to the O’dell Family, Issac, Dick and Anna Kendall and our wonderful crew and our awesome animals. On a different note we head back into pebble creek. The bear in the picture of our previous blog was destroyed which we encountered at 60-70 yards the day before this bear killed one grand rapides man and chewed up a couple of others. The cubs were captured and sent to the Billings Zoo. An investigation is underway why the bear acted in such an aggressive nature. One report not confirmed has a photographer baiting that bear in the pebble creek campground to get some pictures. I do not know if that is true, however if that is the case he should be……………, well you can fill in the blanks. This is there land and we are just visitors we ALL 
should remember that!!!