Monday November 29, 2021
Jackson Hole News and Guide —
Leslie Steen stepped carefully over the boulders and cobble strewn along the southern shore near where Spread Creek spills out of a mountain canyon and spreads out in the plain on its way to the Snake River.
This was a streambank — and these were rocks — that Trout Unlimited’s Northwest Wyoming program director knew well.
“$350,000 worth of rocks,” Steen said. “A lot of it was donated by the park, so it was in-kind.”
Why spend a third of a million dollars to strategically dump rocks in a streambed?
Part of the answer is to carve out a path so that the Snake River watershed’s cutthroat trout can easily access 50 miles of Spread Creek and its web of tributaries coursing through the Leidy Highlands. The rocks, additionally, will help ensure that Jackson Hole ranches like the Moosehead and Triangle X have reliable sources of water without toying around with the river annually to make sure it waters the diversion.