Friday, May 31, 2013

Today was another cool and cloudy day. Temperatures pretty much stayed in the mid 40's all day but luckily the rain held off and we only had a few sprinkles. It seemed like a good day for a walk so we drove to an area of Gallatin National Forest out mill Creek Road and went for a walk. The road pretty much goes along Mill Creek and the water in the creek is still quite high. There is still plenty of snow on the mountains and we heard some places got a couple more inches last night. Until the snow all melts, I imagine water levels in most of the streams and rivers will remain high.

Speaking of the water levels, one other difference we noticed here is that the water levels in the rivers apparently is very closely monitored and recorded. If you check fishing conditions for any area river online, they give the latest water level for that river in CFS (cubic feet per second). For example, today the Yellowstone River is running at approximately 8,000cfs. If you go in one of the many area fly fishing shops, they have fishing conditions posted in a board and they, too, post these water level numbers. People seem to be very aware of what the numbers mean. The last couple of days have been very cool so the numbers went down because the snow melt slowed. When the temps warm up, water levels will rise again because the snow melt will increase. There seems to be a big interest here in these numbers. We don't see anything like this in NY.

One other thing we have noticed in Montana is that the people here are exceptionally friendly. If you go in a store and ask a question, the clerks are very helpful and offer more information than you might expect. We have found we have learned a lot about the area just from talking to the employees at various stores. The same is true of other people we have met. Everyone has been very friendly.