Greetings Fellow Extravaganzers:
Well the groups are now (finally!) set, trees are budding out in their annual rebirth ritual, March Madness is now in the offing and all of that means that, slowly but surely, we are creeping up on the advent of Extravaganza 2012. Just today, your Hostess With The Mostess, Kookin’ Kathy, and I met for lunch to do our final E-12 prep list and we have been on the phone all day long with the many, many suppliers and purveyors who will be actively participating in this year’s annual event.
It is hard to believe that this is the tenth Extravaganza. In one way, the annual event is such a part of our year-long daily life it is hard to imagine a time when the Extravaganza was not a part of our life; in others, each event has its own special characteristics and make up that one year is like an individual pearl now added to a longer stream of gems. Whether short or long in recall, E-12 is nicely shaping up to be one for the record books in all respects, particularly in its most important respects: winter snowpack.
It is the snow that is currently amassing in the upper climes of the mountains that surround Missoula (the Bitterroot Mountains and those that feed the wonderful Big (“A River runs Through It”) Blackfoot River) that will tell the tale of our fishing waters come June. And, believe you me, over the last decade we have seen it all— from the barren year of 2007 where the snow and water levels were so low (and resultant water temperatures so high) that we could only fish half days [one of my favorite all-time Extravaganza pictures is a (very) weary Group Three posing at 5:00 a.m. in the pitch dark just before heading into town—we fished from 7:00 a.m. to noon, for that group] (2007 was the resultant fire year for us as well—see the 2007 blogsite for a day-by-day diary of that horrific experience for us) to the high water mark of E-11 where the water levels were so high that for each of our nine (count ‘em!) days of fishing we had to charter a motor coach to take us over the Continental Divide to fish the (no so) Mighty Missouri just below Holter Dam upstream of the town of Craig (with amazing fishing results, as you veterans of last year experienced!).
Just where are we snowpack-wise for the most currently relevant year (2012), you ask?? Well I am delighted to report to you that, now well into the winter months now (daylights savings time is just a couple of weeks away, folks!), the Bitterroot River Basin is reporting snowpacks 104% of twenty year averages (which include the lows of 2007 and the highs of 2011) with the snow water equivalent tipping in at 91% of normal. Last year, both the snowpack levels and the snow water equivalents ended up at 200% of normal, creating a combined water content equal to 400% of normal—by comparison, we are on track to have one quarter of the runoff volume that we did last year. And the snow continues to fall…
Soon ahead is the rainy season for Montana (with May and June being the wettest two of Montana’s months). Witnessing so, daughter Trina “Boots” Clausen just reported to me that it is currently 50 degrees in downtown Missoula and, looking at its long range forecast, temperatures are set to be highs in the 50’s and lows in the 30’s for the next several weeks, with rain in almost the daily forecast. Rain in Missoula (around the 3300 elevation) means snow in the upper climes (3 degrees per 1,000 feet is the gradient) and, hence, a wonderful water insurance policy for our summer fishing (ad)ventures!
And, earthquakes, you ask?!? Yep, as those of you in the immediate Bay Area know, around 5:40 a.m. this morning a 4.0 tremor in the East Bay hills awoke us all—never a dull moment as we prepare for this year’s quickly upcoming monumental event.
For you rookies out there, don’t get to afar from your email in box for, as you veterans can attest, things are just getting warmed up on this end and you will be getting a sufficient number of continuing updates from yours truly to eventually cause you to ask, “enough, already?!?...let’s go fishing!”
Best to all in the mid preparation stages of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
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