So many happy memories here on Targhee Creek cradled between Sawtelle, Black Mountain and Two Top, and overlooking the sometimes peaceful and sometimes angry Henry’s Lake.
I was a young 30-something living in Idaho Falls and working at the INL site when my folks often came to visit me from California on their way to fly fish in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. As so many of us have, they soon fell in love with life up here and decided to look for a property in their favorite areas. For a couple of years, they drove around and around places with rivers like the Madison, Foxhole, Gallatin, Yellowstone, South Fork of the Snake, Green, Missouri and others, and (always) the Henry’s Fork and Henry’s Lake while looking for a place that called to them. It most certainly needed to have pines and quakies, a meadow with wildflowers, a cabin and most of all, a creek running through it. Finally in September 1989, Mom wrote in the family journal, “Chuck and Jeanette looked at the Crystal property on Targhee Creek. It was exactly the property!”
Finally, upon becoming the proud owners of the beautiful property with some serious deferred maintenance, they started cleaning up the grounds and made dozens of dump runs. Dad tore off the outside boards of the main house, reinsulated and then replaced them. We tore out the fireplace and replaced it with the same stones. Tore the interior wall panels off the bunk house (now the guest cabin), cleaned inside the walls and replaced the panels. It was Dad’s vision to preserve the original look and feel of the Crystal ranch, so that even today we still have the corral, tack house and well pump shed. Although unused now and propped up (because it fell over in a windstorm in 2009) the outhouse is a sentimental relic of days gone by which hopefully will stand resiliently through another generation of the Stockon family.
They didn’t visit me anymore. They drove right straight through Idaho Falls to what Mom lovingly called “the cabin.” For me to see them thereafter, the kids and I made the trek to see them in Island Park. But really, it was ok. I also loved it here on Henry’s Lake and Targhee Creek! We worked a lot (so much to do), but we fished and laughed a lot too. Those were some happy times!
The Crystal Brothers “Wild Horse Stampede” used to hold the rodeo the first weekend in August in the rodeo grounds just below and adjacent to our place. Demont and Randy let their rodeo stock roam and graze in our meadow and the cattle gave us many hours of pleasure as we hung out on our deck watching their antics, especially as they tried to get to the “greener” grass on the other side of the fence. Many of our friends came for the weekend and for a brief time we got to drink beer, cuss and pretend we were cowboys and cowgirls! I still have that way-too-expensive cowboy hat that I wore once a year. I remember one year a bull charged straight at the fence breaking through right between the bleachers. It was comical listening to the screams and watching people scatter. No one could decide which way to run!
Besides the hilarity of the rodeo clowns, there was a calf tail pull for the excited young kids. A bright ribbon was tied to the tail of an equally exuberant calf before being turned loose in the arena. As the kids chased it, the scared-silly calf ran darting one way and then another. Some of the bravest kids dove headfirst at its tail before emerging from the dust with a face full of dirt and manure. One year my little niece from Florida, Domonique, did a daring dive and came up with a hoot and a holler and an ear-to-ear grin. With ribbon raised high in the air, no little girl was ever prouder!
Some years we held our annual family reunion during rodeo weekend and sometimes over 4th of July because there were so many events to attend, but we also made our own fun. One of the favorite activities with kids and adults alike was the family boat race. The boats had to be handmade that week from natural materials found around the cabin.
One 4th of July, we got up early anticipating the big race. Some of the kids had made more than one boat in an attempt to beat Grandpa, a marine civil engineer, who often won with his solidly constructed barge-like vessels. Two of the medium-sized young’uns, Jessie and Trent, stood in the creek with the snow melted freezing water surging around their legs, and released the boats in elimination rounds. Amazingly, three of the kiddo boats that year beat out Grandpa’s barge!
Every year the boats became more creative and so we added new categories. “Best of Show” awards included a clever canoe with outriggers and another year my sister won with a craft that resembled her VW bug. One year I came in last place and received a rock labeled “First Place Submarine Class” for my sticks and mud contraption that immediately sank and then slowly crept along under the surface bouncing a little on the bottom all the way to the finish line. I treasure that rock even today as a memento of a memorable day with my family!
My dad passed away this year. Our trip to the cabin this summer with my 94-year old mom was bittersweet. We admired the meadow wildflowers, especially the bright red Indian Paintbrush which were my dad’s favorite flower. She loved the night around the campfire with hotdogs and s’mores. She took a ride in a Razor with one of her grandchildren at the wheel. She was again awed by the orange and purple sunsets over Henry’s Lake and the afternoon thundershowers that forced us under the eaves to watch the lightning and listen to the mighty thunder of the clouds as they clashed together.
As the only flyfishing enthusiast in the family, I inherited my dad’s many flyfishing rods and reels, flies, fly tying vises, and more feathers, fur and hooks than I could use in ten lifetimes. Dad was a reader; some novels for fun, but mostly he liked guidebooks and instruction manuals. I now have three more shelves of “how-to-do anything” books related to flyfishing and fly tying. I found a copy of “Fishing Henry’s Lake” by Bill Schiess with a treasure map of Henry’s Lake fishing areas and a fly box of Henry’s Lake flies tied by Bill that Dad bought or won at the 2006 Henry’s Lake Foundation Dinner. The dinner at Meadow Vue Ranch was always one of the high points of Dad’s summer. He had another Henry’s Lake fly assortment of “killer fly patterns” tied by Phil Barker from the 2008 dinner with a letter describing the flies and funny stories associated with each of them. These treasures make me wonder why Dad and I never fished Henry’s Lake together.
So many happy memories. I miss you, Dad.
By Jan Stockon
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