Officially Meandering the PNW (08-12-24)

 

Well, if we were “weaving around” in my last blog post I think we can officially say we are “meandering” through the northwestern states in this post. If we make a reservation, its only a day or so in the future (not always a good idea) but mostly if you ask where we will be in two days, we have no idea.

After leaving La Grand Oregon, we made a short two day stop in Kellogg Idaho. For the first time in a loooonnngg time, we are not here to hike, but to bike. Hiawatha Bike trail is a historic rails to trails path. It is federally owned but run by a concessionaire. The trail is about 14 miles long, and is known for it’s tunnels. There are about 10 that you ride through.  If you have your own bike you can use that- otherwise you have to rent one, which is what we did. They give you a helmet (optional to wear) and a flashlight- mandatory. We didn’t want to trust their flashlights, so we brought our own, and our headlamps.

Turns out that was very smart. We picked up the bikes in one location and then put them on the bike rack they lent us and drove to the trailhead. I, for one, was a bit wobbly on the bike at first. It’s been years since I have ridden one.

Unfortunately the first tunnel begins about 100 yards down the path, so I had no time to acclimate before I was thrust into darkness. And it was DARK. This tunnel is 1.7 miles long- yeah, you read that right. It took us about 15 minutes to reach the other end. There is water seeping into the tunnel constantly, so there are puddles, and you have the choice of riding fast and getting it over with, or riding slow enough that the mud does not spray up all over your back. 

The first time through (yep, you have to go through this particular tunnel on the way back, as well. Oh Joy.) I went slow enough that I didn’t my back muddy.  I can honestly say I did not enjoy my first trip and definitely wasn’t looking forward to the return. It was really hard to see where I was going, and all the kids were having a grand old time screaming at the top of their lungs to hear the echo. I understand, but I didn’t enjoy it. 15 minutes of screaming.

I was terrified of falling off the bike, haha and had to keep reminding myself of the old adage “if you think you are going to fall, you will.” I did make it the whole way without falling. My pictures are blurry because I couldn’t use my cell phone so I had to lift the camera, turn it on, aim, take a picture, and shut it back off, all with one hand as I am riding the bike, trying not to fall off.

None of the other tunnels were nearly as long as the first one, and they weren’t wet either, so that was nice.

In addition to the tunnels, there are several trestles that you ride over, with some pretty decent views.

The ride itself, once we got used to being on a bike, wasn’t difficult because it was mostly downhill with a gentle grade.

There were signs along the trail detailing the history of the railroad. It was built in the early 1900s to carry freight and passengers to areas out west, which it did, until 1977 when the last train made it’s last trip. Over the years the trains changed from steam, to electric, and then to diesel. The last passenger train, the Olympian Hiawatha, was known for its luxury seating and it’s top speed of 100 mph.

Although I am not a fan of the tunnels, at one time, they played a huge role in saving lives. in 1910, the largest forest fire in U.S history destroyed 3 million acres in Montana and Idaho. When the fire came roaring into town, the train engineers loaded townspeople onto the train and drove it into one of the long tunnels. Everyone in the tunnel survived the fire.

Oh, and as a side note, when we started out, I had to pull over, stop, turn on my headlamp, and then stop again after the tunnel to shut it back off. After a few tunnels, I mastered the art of turning it on and off without stopping- yay me!

Next stop on our meander was the town of Post Falls Idaho- it’s very close to Coeur D’Alene, which we have been to before.

Post Falls gave us a chance to do some laundry, shopping and some hiking. There are two local forests with hiking- Q”emiln Park and Post Falls Community Forest.

We hiked in both. The parks are adjacent to each other, so our trails each day actually overlapped. Each hike was between 4 and 5 miles long and gave more bang for the buck than we expected.

They also both have views of the Spokane River, which runs through the town.

Our next main destination was Leavenworth Washington, but we stopped a couple of places on the way there. The heat is such that we weren’t looking to do too much hiking, so we were more interested in scenic drives.

The one hike we did during that time was 4.5 mile hike up and around Mill Butte. The trail meandered through the forest before leading us to the actual butte.

Once at the top, both of our phones pinged and we realized we had gotten cell service. Looking at the clouds we decided to take advantage of the signal and check the weather. We elected to hightail it out of there, and although we did get rained on, it wasn’t too bad.

We finished that day by driving through Little Pend Oreille (pronounced Pondoray) National Wildlife Refuge, stopping at most of the interpretive signs.

In addition to the wildlife refuge, we took several other scenic roads- one had an interpretive area showing some of the history of the lumber companies who built up this area- it also talked about the work that the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) did in the 1930s. Created by Franklin Roosevelt, The CCC did incredible work all over the country. It was an innovative solution to abject poverty during the depression, to pair young able bodied men who needed work,  with the need to shore up and strengthen our natural resources. In the Pacific Northwest these men built 600 forest lookout structures, 85,000 miles of roads, and planted millions of trees- among other things.

Their work truly withstands the test of time. This building is still standing, having been built by them in the mid 1930s.

Not every “scenic drive” is all that scenic, and the other one we went on pretty much fit into that category. Along the drive there were signs pointing out where mining towns had been,  and explaining why they weren’t there anymore (usually the gold ran out.)

This particular mine, Bodie, was owned at one point by the Wrigley Brothers (of chewing gum fame). Several of the towns were actually moved to new locations, following the gold- hence  town names like Old Wauconda and New Wauconda. 

In addition to seeing a lot of information about projects done by the CCC, we also frequently come across projects done by Eagle Scouts.  We always find these fun to see, because Paul was also an Eagle Scout.

T

he funniest part of the day was when we drove down a small federal road looking for a place to have lunch. These cows stared and stared at us, as if they had never seen a human before.

Weaving through Idaho (8/1/24)

 

Idaho has a lot of scenic drives and back byways, and by the time we manage to get across the state, we will have driven on most of them. Not really, but we are definitely taking the road less traveled.

Our backroad travel took us to the small town of Challis, where we took a day trip along a historic road that was used to run supplies from towns to mining camps. Now it’s called Challis National Forest.  We veered onto small side roads to explore, whenever we felt like it.

There are several mining towns along this route- most have been allowed to fall to ruin, but Custer City has been partially restored and is an interpretive area. In the 1800s this was a thriving area, but the decline in the quality of the ore caused the mine to closed permanently in 1904.

Each building describes who lived there or what it was used for. It always boggles my mind when we are in these very remote places and we see a sign that says “General Store”.

Paul always gets excited and says “ Oh boy, ice cream!”.  And sure enough they usually do sell ice cream. This place was no exception. Homemade ice cream, made fresh that morning. Price? Whatever you want to donate.

A new complication has been added to our summer travels. In addition to dodging the heat, we now have to dodge all the wildfires.

At least 2-3 times a day I check numerous websites for updated fire information.

Google maps now has two overlays that are actually helpful. One shows the smoke and air quality, and the other shows the location of the wildfires. In addition to Google, I check the federal website for fire and smoke activity, and individual states’  departments of transportation websites, checking for road closures.

In this particular area we had to give up on visiting the Stanley ID area due to an active wildfire.

Instead, we found a place in Council ID, further north and west. The road we took to get there follows the Payette River, and leads to Payette Lake. We stopped several times along this scenic road to check out the river.

My new favorite overlay for my GPS app (GaiaGPS) is the NatGeo Trails Illustrated map- it showed us the names of all the rapids on the river, and as we drove by we could look for them, and sometimes stop to get a better look.

This river has many Class VI rapids- pretty much too dangerous for rafting. One of our guides this summer said that rapids are not classified by how “big” they are, but by how hurt you would get if you fell out of the raft.

Our first day in town was busy- after hiking 3 miles along a creek, we drove into the small town of McCall for lunch. Being on a lake, this is definitely a resort/vacation town. We had lunch at the brewery overlooking the water before driving around the lake.

There are quite a few beachy areas to swim- most of which were extremely crowded due to the heat. We did blow up our tubes and float around for an hour or so though. No pictures because I left my waterproof camera in the camper. It was nice to cool off.

The following day, our last day in Council, we headed up the hill to Council Peak to hike. Even at elevation, it was still hot. It is an 8 mile hike but we just did two miles up, then two miles back. Although we only saw a couple of deer and a grouse, we had fun trying to identify all the hoof prints on the trail.

After leaving Council, we headed briefly into Oregon, via Hell’s Canyon Scenic Byway.

We have driven this road before, on our way to Alaska in 2014. It is the deepest river gorge in North America.

We also stopped at an interpretive center for the Oregon Trail, and soon realized we had also been Here before. That’s ok, we always learn something new.

 

Our destination is La Grande Oregon, where Northwoods Manufacturing builds Arctic Fox campers and trailers.  Our camper is a 2018 Arctic Fox. We took a tour of the facility, which lasted a little over an hour, and left Paul reasonably impressed with the build quality of their RVs.

When we arrived at the RV park in La Grande, we were surprised to learn that the highway had been closed the day before, due to a nearby wildfire. 

It was obviously open when we came through, although evidence of the wildfires was everywhere.

While driving through town we noticed more than a hundred 18 wheelers parked along the side roads and off ramps. 

Turns out the highway was closed again. In fact, they closed more of the highway in this area because the small towns were “full”  and couldn’t handle any more big rigs parking in their towns. 

Idaho/Wyoming/Idaho/Wyoming (7/22/24)

 

I definitely feel like we are zigzagging quite a bit in our travels this summer. It’s mostly because we are in search of cooler temperatures- it is a very elusive thing to find right now, but then again, nothing competes with how hot it is back a the house!

Looking at the map while at Dinosaur National Monument, another national monument caught Paul’s eye- Fossil Butte National Monument- and it was only a few hours away.

On the way there we drove through a national forest campground, just to check it out, and liked it so much we decided to spend a night there. It was the first night cool enough to have a campfire!

While there we drove down to the visitor center at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. We walked along the ridge, looking at the reservoir, but elected not to do any hiking.

The following day we arrived at Fossil Butte, mid afternoon. We have a dispersed site, so, no hookup, and therefore no reason to swelter, so we headed for the visitor center.   We also managed to find time to drive the scenic drive, which gave a decent view of the entire area, most of which had been Fossil Lake 52 million years ago.  

This area has some of the best preserved fossils in the world.

The one thing that Paul really wanted to do was do his own digging for fossils. You can’t do it in the national monument, but there are several quarries nearby that let you dig, if you pay them money. Paul bought a 2 hour window, and I elected to watch.

Traveling in the truck camper for months, he didn’t want anything too big.  There is more to finding fossils than we thought, but the workers were more than willing to show him how to do it. You use a chisel to slice the rock, a little at a time, hopefully exposing a fossil.

Of course, most of the time there isn’t much there, but Paul actually did good- finding one piece with 3 fish on it (he even got both halves) and a snail that was so detailed, the guide asked for a picture of it. So it only took  an hour or so in the sweltering heat to find all he wanted.

They also explained how to preserve them so they won’t fade. The nonprofessional way of doing it is to fill a tray or bucket, whatever the piece fits into, with a 10:1 solution of water to Elmer’s Glue. The kicker is it has to be original Elmer’s, not the newer “school” version. Turns out its a little harder to find.

We are still continuing our trek north, although we were planning on being a little further west by now-but the cooler temperatures at Henry’s Lake near Yellowstone National Park were calling our name. Paul grew up coming to this area so he never minds visiting. We stopped for a few days in Irwin ID on the Snake River to check it out, on our way.

This area of the Snake River is really beautiful, with powerful water…

… a reservoir for boating activities, and gorgeous scenery.

We drove around taking it all in. What it didn’t have, that we could see, was any Bald Eagles. Lots of Osprey nests but no Bald Eagles. In fact, we haven’t seen a single one this summer. Bummer.

 

Arriving at Henry’s Lake, we immediately extended our stay from two to 4 days.

The weather was just a little cooler than anywhere else. At one point we watched a storm come across the lake- always fun, as long as we remembered to pull the awning in.

I guess cool is a relative term because our first day we elected to drive up the nearby mountain to check out Black Butte- the highest peak in the Gravelly Range.

We packed a lunch, so we could take our time. The gravel road up the hillside was a pleasant surprise, lined at times with bright wildflowers, and other times with ponds and meadows. 

At the top, of course, was Black Butte.

We continued our drive to make a loop through West Yellowstone. Our first stop was at Quake Lake. Quake Lake is actually part of the Madison River.

In August of 1959 a massive earthquake shook the region. Within seconds, one side of the mountain essentially collapsed down into the valley below and continued up the other side. You can still see the scar left behind from the falling hillside.

There were almost 300 people camping in the valley along the Madison River. Falling rock created hurricane force winds as it displaced the air below, and sent the waters of the Madison River flying in every direction. The debris settled in the valley, cutting off the river, creating Quake Lake.

The visitor center displays placards with the stories of the families and individuals who were there that night. Although most of the campers made it out alive, 28 people did not survive.

Our one hiking day we opted for a 4 mile hike to Coffee Pot Rapids. The first part of the trail was along a quiet river-Henry’s Fork.

The trail was great and when we reached the rapids, the river was no longer peaceful and calm.  It was fun though.

Continuing our drive we stopped at Big Springs. Big Springs is one of the headwaters of the Snake River. 120 million gallons of pure water gush out of the ground here every day. Enough to supply the water needs of a million people. The whole area was beautiful and there was a paved trail, which we walked for a bit.

Our final stop of the day was the grocery store, to pick up a few things before leaving the next morning.