Crystal Creek Boys

Crystal Creek Boys 2011

nicklochman — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 07:46:56 +0000

Photo courtesy of Scott Mitchell

Crystal Creek Boys and The Beaumonts

nicklochman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:15:06 +0000

Water Aid Benefit!

mattlochman — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:10:57 +0000

We are committed to spreading awareness over water issues. This is but one more way we can help to do that. We hope that EVERYONE will come out to participate and support Water Aid in a fundraising effort. Water is one of those things that you can’t live without, and there are more and more straws drinking from the same glass everyday. We need this to be a top issue in our lives. Please, come out and get in on the raffle and festivities!

Panoramic Places

mattlochman — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:49:59 +0000

Crystal Creek Boys, Lonesome Heroes, The Black – Oct. 20th 2011 – Triple Crown

mattlochman — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:26:21 +0000

This is gonna be fun. We haven’t seen or played with the Lonesome Heroes since our Wyoming, Montana, Idaho excursions. Their new album has been the most played record in my car since I obtained it several months ago. It’s awesome. If you haven’t heard it yet than come on out and give it a listen LIVE! Plus, The Black? It’s gonna be a dance yer ass off kinda evening.

October 20th, 2011 – Triple Crown – 10pm – $5.00

Grebe Lake

nicklochman — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 23:10:55 +0000

After the grueling hike to Heart Lake, we thought we would do something a bit shorter when the gals arrived. Grebe Lake is a short three mile hike, but takes you to one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. The lake has Arctic Grayling, Rainbow Trout, Trumpeter Swans, Mosquitoes, Caddis Flies and hosts Bald Eagles and Osprey. The fishing was quite good, we caught many fish although they were pretty small. At one point we actually witnessed an Osprey diving into the lake and successfully catching a fish, awesome. Here is some of what we found out there.

My Hard Drive was closer to my heart than I thought.

mattlochman — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:39:30 +0000

When one broke, the other followed. I lost a lot of stuff I wish I still had- song lyrics, photos, music, etc. It set me back for a while, as now I’m back to a slow computer, and a bitter attitude toward posting. I’ll try to get over it.

The Hike: Heart Lake

nicklochman — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:21:27 +0000

It all started as most things do, as an idea. Matt and I had been in Yellowstone National Park for about three weeks at this point and had yet to make an adventure inside the park itself. In preparation for the arrival of two friends, Nikkye Reanne and Cindy Jacoby, we decided we would do some back country camping as a learning experience for ourselves. We went down to the Ranger Station to get our permits and reserve a campsite near Heart Lake. The kind young lady we spoke to informed us that most sites at Heart Lake were already taken except one on the far side just twelve miles down the trail. In her sweet kind way she said quite simply ” Well it’s only twelve miles, not a bad hike at all…” to which we said, “Oh, well if it’s just twelve miles we should be fine.” In hind sight, twelve miles is really not that bad at all. Three hours in and three out, right? Not when you have an eighty pound pack strapped to your back and the trail is straight up hill both ways. We hiked about six miles when the lake first came into view and we thought we must be getting close and as we stepped out of a young forest burned in the Great Fires of 1988, we paused just above a geyser basin to peer out across the lake and what a view we had. We trudged on and came to the lake shore where a Ranger Station was with a map clearly showing us that we were in fact just over half-way to the campsite. I should say by this point we were pretty tuckered out practically cursing the young Ranger mocking her in a sweet tone, “Well it’s only twelve miles…” We hiked on. About one mile down the sandy shore we get back on a more traditional trail with three or four miles to go. We begin passing campsites, the ones we couldn’t reserve, and start to feel like we’re finally getting close. We pass the first site, then the second and figure just around the corner will be the trail head to take us to our campsite. After many corners and no campsite we really start to question the advice of that sweet little Ranger we spoke to because by our calculations we’d passed the twelve mile mark a couple miles back. We pause for a moment and ask ourselves, ” Could we really have missed our campsite? No way, the Ranger must be mistaken.” Finally after the most grueling hike I’ve ever been on, we arrive at the trailhead for our campsite. We’re getting close. We head off down the trail and it’s looking like a really nice spot to spend the night. Two creeks come together before flowing into Heart Lake and our site is right where they come together. But before we get there we came to a creek crossing, which normally would be no problem but nobody had been to this site since the year before and high water had washed out the trail markers on the far side of the creek. We scanned the area and found the normal river ford to be way too deep for us to cross but we hiked upstream a ways and found a log jam that got us about half way across the creek. We then tossed stones into the water until we could cross the creek and rejoin the trail. It was then we found the most beautiful place we had seen since being on the trail, our campsite. Although the mosquitoes were out in numbers and large enough to carry you off, we made camp and lifted our bags out of reach of bears. That night dinner was crackers, tuna salad and a sandwich that Morgan had made us the day before. It was the most delicious food I’ve ever eaten. The next morning we awoke and got ready to go fly fishing on the Heart River that flows out of Heart Lake. It was about a two mile hike to the spot but in no time we were hooking up on fish although not in great numbers but great in size. A four pound Cutthroat Trout is large and especially on a fly rod. As quickly as we began to fish we had to wrap it up knowing full well the long hike that awaited us but not before running into a back country Ranger who checked our permits and followed us to our campsite to check if we had properly stored our food and reserved the site. So we brought him down to the creek crossing and he wondered how we made it across the creek the first time. We smiled and said we’d be glad to show him and across the log jam we went. He must have been surprised to see that we had in fact done everything correctly because he explained to us that we weren’t like most Xanterra employees who come to get wasted and abuse the park’s trails and campsites. He hung around for a bit telling Ranger jokes and stories relentlessly until he apologized explaining that back country Rangers are not used to seeing people and to excuse his onslaught of words. It was then time to pack

up and hike out. We set out after lunch past all the campsites, through the geyser basin and up a steep two mile hill to the edge of the forest where we came across two hikers sprinting down the trail in our direction. They explained that two miles ahead they had been just ten yards from a huge male Grizzly Bear and had almost shot the bear with the pistol they were carrying. We talked them out of hiking back to the Ranger Station and into hiking out with us altogether because there are no documented cases of bears attacking groups of four or more. They calmed down and agreed that was the best plan and we set off together down the trail and almost immediately starting seeing bear tracks coming directly toward us. The bear had been following them for the two miles they had backtracked. Let me tell you it’s an unnerving feeling to head straight down a trail with bear tracks and fresh scat everywhere you look and we made as much noise as we could to let the bear know we were coming down the trail. We had four hikers, one pistol, two cans of bear spray and about seven miles to go. Obviously the hike out took just a fraction of the time as the hike in! It’s very difficult to describe the feeling we had when we saw the car parked at the foot of the trail, and all the smiles and handshakes turned to agony from the sore muscles we never knew we had. We could barely walk for the next few days and that is not an exaggeration. The next day we limped into the Ranger Station to report to the Ranger that we had lived and filled her in on the bear encounter. When she asked us how it went we simply replied, “Oh not bad for just twelve miles.”

Crystal Creek Boys, Lonesome Heroes and Old Faithful

nicklochman — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 22:26:24 +0000

From the natural wonderland that is Yellowstone National Park, two bands come together for a day filled with sights and sounds of nature and humanity. Enjoy.

We found the Heroes in the parking lot of Old Faithful, we decided we’d go and see the sights before playing the Parkwide Talent show later that night.

This is Old Faithful, just before eruption. It was pretty awesome, the best time to see it though is late at night under a full moon.

The Heroes on a boardwalk on the way to Grand Prismatic.

Matt trying to catch some dinner. Upstream Grant Cross was bathing in the Madison River and probably drove away the fish.

The Lonesome Heroes closing out the Talent Show at Old Faithful Lodge. Crystal Creek Boys took 2nd place in the show but the best part was getting the Heroes in on the fun.

After sleeping in the car, Jackson Hole, Wy

mattlochman — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:33:40 +0000

We are here on Jackson Hole- recovering from a night at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. We have stumbled into a little coffeehouse called Jackson Hole Roasters (which is a far cry from Redbud Roasters, but it’ll do ) this is our first time out of the Lake Area in Yellowstone since we arrived on the 4th of June. We plan to hike around Jenny lake this afternoon. nicks up here reppin D’blaZios. check in later