A friend from France we’ve met through Chi Wulff recently emailed this article to me asking if he should cancel the trip he’s planning with friends coming to fish the Northern Rockies, including significant time in Yellowstone during the traditional late spring mayfly hatches.
He’s a delightful guy with a well-developed and very wry sense of humor, though it does appear an armchair scientist in his group “has done the research” and is convinced that travel in Yellowstone during the upcoming months is simply too damned risky given “all the crazy geothermal activity going on now” (I’m presuming he’s referencing the Steamboat geyser news that’s made the rounds the past few months).
The USGS publishes a weekly newsletter titled the Caldera Chronicles, and their post from 25 March spoke to the issue in question here. Bottom line, current evidence suggests the caldera isn’t going off anytime soon, though from the diagram attached below (from the post linked), when it does, it’s going to kick some ash around once again…
All things considered, I hope the Express keeps up the Yellowstone doom and gloom catastrophe predictions and cuts the summer fishing crowds down a bit. With current snowpack, this is looking to be a pretty damned good water year, and fishing will likely be dandy. When Yellowstone blows, I plan to be standing in the Firehole swinging blue wings or chasing that afternoon White Miller caddis hatch…
