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PrintCameras, Cutthroats, and Camaraderie
The irrepressible Liz McCabe specializes in all three.
At age 98, Liz McCabe finds she is happiest when she is on the river with a fly rod in her hands.
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One of the first things many repeat visitors ask upon returning to Jackson: “Is that woman still taking those great wildlife and outdoor pictures for the newspaper?”
“That woman” is Elizabeth (Liz) McCabe, and she has been a foundation of the Jackson Hole community almost forever, it seems. Even those who have never met the cheerful dynamo will immediately identify her with the warm, sensitive images that front the “Valley” section of the Jackson Hole News&Guide every week of the year. Even legendary stretches of longevity racked up by professional athletes like Cal Ripkin pale when compared to Liz’s successive weekly newspaper photo output: forty-plus years and counting. Week by week this diminutive woman, now ninety-eight, extends her photo string.
Liz’s second passion is fly fishing; in fact, using a dry fly to fool trout may even supersede photography on her favorites list. As a young woman, she was a competitive tennis player who also enjoyed swimming. But something really clicked when her father, San Francisco Bay Area businessman Eli H. Wiel, presented her with a fly rod back in the 1940s.
Today Liz is on the Snake or other surrounding rivers at least two times a week during the optimum, ten-week Jackson season in summer and fall. Armed with a featherlight 5-weight Winston graphite rod and Hardy Lightweight reel, as an angler this lady is relentless.
Liz characteristically shuns personal recognition, but when she’s in a good mood, she might discuss her extensive fishing history. As she does so, she is occasionally self-deprecating, talking about her lack of skills and ongoing skirmishes with the wind. But don’t take it too seriously.
“It took me forever to learn how to fly cast,” she says, chuckling. Among her early mentors were Albert Schwabacher, Felix Buchenroth Sr., Jimmy Mercill, and her parents, Eli and Elsa, who both loved to fly fish. Elsa was Albert Schwabacher’s cousin. He was the early owner of the Block S, now called the Lost Creek Ranch, situated east of the historic Snake River Overlook. The Albert Company was Schwabacher’s San Francisco-based business, a major-league stock and bond house. Also involved in large scale printing and fine stationery operations, he was a fabulous character, who especially enjoyed early Jackson Hole for the fishing.
Liz recalls that long before many dared to float the Snake, Albert was famous for tackling the river’s twisty maze of channels in his canoe. “If you floated with Schwabacher, you were going to get wet at least once,” says the lady who outlasted several “Schwabacher Survivor” episodes. “He always packed dry clothes for himself, but his passengers were strictly on their own.”
Schwabacher lured Liz’s parents to visit Jackson Hole in 1929, knowing that they, too, loved to fly fish. After several glimpses of the valley, the Wiels purchased forty acres on a bench southeast of Moose. The property borders Grand Teton National Park and winds down to the Snake. Eli moved a few cabins to the place and, to honor his family name, called it the Circle EW.
