Our group of five runs a gamut of experience. Nancy's been a half-dozen times and Stacy only once before. This is my first time out with flies I don't swat or zip. On our first morning, we and two guides pile into a minibus and head for Beaver Creek. The willow-lined stream meanders through the centre of a broad valley.
Mountains dominate one side, a plateau the other.
We spread out and the guides alternate among us. Steve starts with the more experienced quartet. Hayes goes with me. In his 20s, mild mannered and quiet, Hayes Lajeunesse is a member of the Shoshone Tribe from the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Scouting upstream, he hesitates beside a creek bend.