Page 65 - Flathead Beacon // 8.31.16

MOUNTAIN EXPOSURE
OUTDOORS IN BRIEF
FOREST SERVICE ADDS HUNGRY HORSE RESERVOIR CABIN TO RENTAL PROGRAM
The Hungry Horse Ranger Dis- trict has made the Anna Creek Cabin available to rent by the public. This cabin is the only rental cabin in the Hungry Horse Reservoir area and provides a new base for multiple rec- reational opportunities. The Anna Creek Cabin rental season is June 1 through Oct. 31.
The 1,400-square-foot cabin is located 22 miles south of Hungry Horse Dam on the west-side Hun- gry Reservoir Road #895. The Anna Creek Cabin is available to rent for $75 per night and provides accom- modations for 12 people, with a max- imum group size of 15. The cabin has a propane heater, stove, refrigerator, and lights; as well as basic dishes, utensils and cooking pots and pans, and a vault toilet. Visitors need to bring their own bedding, water, and basic camping gear.
The Forest Service built the cabin in 1953 as part of the Anna Creek Work Center and used the cabin for administrative purposes until the 1990s. The Forest Service restored the cabin and updated the facilities to make it available to the public.
The Anna Creek Cabin joins 14 other wilderness cabins and re lookouts for rent on the Flathead National Forest. Nine sites are in the Hungry Horse and Glacier View ranger districts, while others, like the historic Wurtz Cabin, are in the North Fork Flathead River drainage, a wild expanse stretching north of Columbia Falls to the Canadian bor- der along the western edge of Glacier National Park.
For more information or to reserve Anna Creek Cabin visit www.recreation.gov.
If you would like to be featured in “Mountain Exposure,” email information to news@ atheadbeacon.com.
OUT OF BOUNDS ROB BREEDING RIVERS ARE THE
ELIFEBLOOD OF MONTANA
VERY MONTANAN KNOWS RIV- the air conditioning acts up.
ers matter, and no Montana Malfunctioning air conditioning is river matters as much as the kind of a metaphor for what happened to
Yellowstone.
OK, so the Missouri’s right up there.
But the fact that two of the state’s water- ways belong on the short list of the great rivers of the United States — a list that includes the Mississippi, Columbia, Snake, Sacramento, Colorado, Chesa- peake, the Ohio, and the Rio Grande — says a lot.
The Yellowstone is the last of our great free- owing rivers. Other than some irri- gation diversions in eastern Montana, it ows undammed 692 miles from Yel- lowstone National Park to its con uence with the Missouri River in North Dakota.
Lower Yellowstone Falls is one of the iconic vistas of the planet. Yankee Jim Canyon is a hoot on a whitewater raft and the late, great writer Jim Harrison declared the Yellowstone near Living- ston to be the nest brown trout shery in the country.
What perplexes me about this is why, with such treasures in our midst, we can’t seem to take proper care of them.
The outbreak of a sh-killing parasite and the closure of 183 miles of the Yellow- stone is just the river’s most recent indig- nity as thousands of dead white sh now line its banks. But in 2011, and again in 2015, pipelines crossing the river burst, spilling oil into the waterway.
It’s still too soon to know the exact cause of the parasitic infection, but there’s certainly reason for us to look in the mirror. The world is getting warmer and the science points to the CO2 humans produce as the most likely culprit.
Warmer water stresses salmonids such as trout, char, grayling, and espe- cially white sh. White sh are much maligned by some anglers, but they are the trout stream equivalent of a canary in a coal mine. White sh are river divas, more easily stressed when things aren’t just so in their dressing room, or when
rivers in the Northern Rockies this sum- mer. The snowpack was in good shape in early spring, but summer temperatures arrived too soon and by July rivers were low and warm. Too warm for salmonids.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks o cials say the parasite that caused the sh kill seems to be swamping sh in the river, so massive are the levels of infection they are nding dead sh. The parasite causes proliferative kidney disease in white sh and trout, with a fatality rate approaching 90 percent.
While folks in the Livingston area are hurting due to the river closure — out- door recreation is, after all, a $6 billion industry in Montana — FWP o cials have said they won’t consider reopen- ing the river until water temperatures drop to at least 55 degrees. Recent cooler weather did have temperatures dipping down into that range overnight.
Temperature is key for salmonids. They need that diva air conditioning run- ning full tilt. And that need for cold water is apparently why previous outbreaks of the parasite have been in freestone rivers rather than tailwaters. We may not like dams, but they can cool o rivers.
When the water warms, sh get stressed, and stressed sh can’t ght o infections the way they can when healthy. There’s a bit of a chicken or the egg ques- tion here. Does the warmer water allow parasite populations to explode, or is it that the stressed sh can’t fend infection o the way they do when the river is cool?
I feel for the guides and out tters in the Livingston area, as well as the busi- nesses that cater to their clients. Outdoor recreation isn’t harmless, but it’s a heck of a lot easier on the environment than the CO2 producing activities some argue are the solution to economic growth.
But if we’re going to build livelihoods o our rivers and streams, we rst need to protect them.
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AUGUST 31, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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