Not much has changed since when I was back in school.  I have put off an assignment way longer than I should have.  This monthly column is supposed to be in our Editor’s inbox no later than the 20^th of each month.  As I type this, it is Father’s Day, June 21^st.  I’m sorry Mark.  Like everyone on our Board, I work for free.  The chance of me getting fired is pretty low.  Anyway here it is.

“Once you start tying your own flies you’ll save tons of money at the fly shop”, said no one (truthfully) ever.  Let me relay to you my latest foray into tying a fly that I just had to have.  The story starts with the booking of a guided trip into Cheesman Canyon to fish the South Platte River in my newly adopted home state of Colorado.  The trip is scheduled for mid-July.  Wanting to be prepared as I could, I went into my favorite local fly shop, Charlie’s Fly Box, to get some local intel. 

I went into the shop hoping to find a few favorite “guide” flies.  You know, the super easy to tie, few material flies that guides tie the night before a trip, that catch fish.  Sam, the very helpful shop employee, was more than willing to help me with fly selection.  It turned out that Sam and I had different ideas about what a guide fly is.  He picked out the Killer B fly.  It is a very accurate rendering of a yellow jacket wasp.  The shop owner and former guide, Charlie Craven came up with the pattern after pumping the stomachs of a few South Platte trout and finding at least one yellow jacket in many of the fish.  This pattern would allow me to fish a fly that these heavily pressured fish rarely see.   Sam had me hooked.

Lucky B - Fly Tying Instructions by Charlie Craven

“Why don’t you set me up with the materials I would need to tie this fly”, I told Sam.  Off we went on our quest.  You’ll need hooks, yellow foam, tying thread, leg material and macramé yarn for the wings.  I was on board until we got to the macrame yarn.  Sam pulled packs of yellow, rusty brown, gray and tan yarn.  I stopped him and asked, “Why do I need so many colors for the wings?”.  “You have to blend them together to get the accurate color needed to match the natural and they’re only $3 each.”  There was no turning back now.

Mixing Polypropylene Macrame Yarn Custom Colors For Fly Tying

I went home and looked up how to tie this new fly.  It turns out I needed still more materials to be able to finish this fly.  The foam abdomen is tied on a sewing needle.  It turns out single sewing needles are hard to come by.  I had to buy a small sewing kit that contained the needle I needed.  The macrame yarn wing material needs to be separated and combed out in a time- consuming process using a wire dog brush.  I don’t own a dog.  Off to AMAZON to get the brush.  

Postscript – A single Killer B fly retails for $3.50. Don’t tell my wife, please.

Back of Beyond                                             Stephen Neal
In Wildness is the Preservation of the World - “Henry David Thoreau."

Two Million Year Cycle of Change and a Disappearing

and their Native American names, as the Cascades’ history predate European place names. Starting from just outside Sacramento CA., going north, they are: Mount Lassen - Kukaklek, Mount Shasta - Uytaahkoo, Crater Lake / Mount Mazama - Giiwas, Mount Jefferson - Seekeekqua, Mount Bachelor - Klah Klahane, Mount Hood - Wy’East, Mount Saint Hellens - Looit, Mount Adams - Klicktat, Mount Rainer - Tahoma, Glacier Peak – Dahkobedc, Mount Baker – Kulshan, Mount Garibaldi – Nch’kay, and Mount Meager – Qwelqwelusten.

These majestic conic beauties draw the eyes of all that view them and figure prominently in the oral history of Native American tribes. I use the term “current” in this discussion because while the Cascades Mountain Range is forty million years old, the current volcanoes are only around for two million years. Over the mountain range’s forty-million-year history, many crown points that have come and gone and are supplanted by new volcanoes.

In an approximate two-million-year cycle, new volcanoes arise and eventually erode. We know this because of a professor of geology from Portland State University. Paul E. Hammond spent 58 + years studying the geology of Mount Rainer and its surrounding area, collecting samples, and mapping the area. His field research revealed the presence of ghost volcanoes and opened a new and deeper understanding of the geological history of the Cascade Mountain Range.

Your next question very well might be “Where are the volcanoes that stretched from Alaska to Mexico?” Once the Farallon Plate completely submerged, the heat that formed the magma necessary for volcanic eruption died. This let the magma chambers beneath the volcanoes cool. Those giant magma batholiths beneath the volcanoes turned to granite. That granite makes up the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Erosion and uplift have brought those magma batholiths to the surface, and they are now the sawtooth shaped peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; they are ghost volcanoes. (Note: Not all magma batholiths form granite, as the exposed batholiths of the ghost volcanoes around Mount Rainer are diorite.)     

In five million years our Cascade Mountain Range will disappear, the Jaun de Fuca Plate will complete its subduction beneath the North American Plate, and the heat engine that produces the volcanic Cascade Mountain Range will cease. The magma chambers below the volcanoes will cool, and in time a mountain range like the Sierras will replace the Cascade Mountain Range. Its peaks will be diorite instead of granite. The Pacific Northwest will become a geologically quiet area, since the Pacific Plate is moving away from the North American Plate and subduction will cease along our section of the Pacific Rim.

As a resident of the of the Pacific Northwest, I am fortunate to have visited five Cascade Volcanoes. The two I am most familiar with are Tahoma (Rainer) and Uytaahkoo (Shasta). I live on Tahoma’s skirt and spend a week in the fall each year with friends fishing the waters of Uytaahkoo. Both volcanic mountains create their own weather, and most days they are attired in moisture-rich clouds.  On moody days they “mis-appear”, (a word coined by Colin, my grandson, that I have appropriated, much to his chagrin), and they are gone altogether for 

with her full-body snow cover shimmering in the full sun of late spring. Her forested skirt is dark green, accentuating the snow-white color of her blouse. In the fall her skirt is speckled with yellow as the aspen, maple, and cottonwood trees transform from green to gold. Once their leaves drop from the speckles of brown appear, adding to her skirt’s hunting tweed appearance. I imagine that Shasta displays many of the same attributes.

Our natural world fascinates me. Each time I learn something new I see the world from a unique perspective. A mountain is not just a mountain; a footprint is not just a footprint, nor a leaf just a leaf. Each is a new pathway to understanding, to growth, and insight. Nothing in life is one-dimensional; the more one changes one’s point of view, the more life reveals. Hundreds of things must come together for a fish to survive and procreate in a lake, river, or stream. Hundreds more are required for fisherman to catch one.

Do not take your life or our earth for granted. You may never pass this way again. Even if you believe in reincarnation, you will be different then than you are now. This is your only chance to see the world that is here and now, with you as you are at this moment. Whatever your circumstance, look deeper. That you are here is a miracle. Consider the process of conception when a single egg unites with a single sperm. A female has approximately three-hundred-thousand eggs during the fertile period of her life. Each male ejaculation has about three-hundred-million sperm. That equates to a hundred-thousand-billion different combinations of DNA. You are just one of those one hundred-thousand-billion different combinations. Embrace the wonder and beauty of the moment; always stay curious and get outside. There are mountains out there and they touch your life in more ways than you will ever know. Life is a journey, not a destination.

A Big Thank You, to Tennis Terrance for his editing suggestions.