Yoho National Park, Glacier NP of Canada, Banff NP, Kootenay NP, Bonner’s Ferry, Coeur d’Alene, Moscow, Lewiston, Hell’s Canyon, Payette National Forest, Boise NF, Sawtooth NF, Ketchum, Sun Valley, Craters of the Moon National Monument (whew!)(posted from Shoshone-Bannock Casino, Pocatello, ID)
(This post covers 27 August- 1 September)
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Monday, 1 September-
SURPRISE! In the night I had heard it raining very lightly and by early morning I was hearing soft thumps on the roof. I thought they must be pine-cones and wondered exactly what set of conditions caused so many trees to drop their cones in such a short period of time.
But when I moved the blackout curtain aside, I saw what it was. Snow. On the first of September!
The snow would collect on the branches above and occasionally dump off, making the soft thumps on the roof. We had about two inches on the ground and it was sticking to our windows (until we fired up the Buddy heater).
The snow was still coming down pretty heavily. We talked about whether it would be smarter to leave before it gets deeper or to wait for the morning to warm up. We decided we’d go ahead and leave after our normal breakfast and wash-up rather than wait for the more crowded roads later as the RVers head home from their Labor Day campout.
As we drove down the gravel road to the main road we noticed the snow was gone at the slightly lower elevation. Our campsite had been at 6600 feet and at 6200 feet there was no snow! We could see the snow line very well defined on the hills around us.
We drove through Stanley and it was stunning this morning. All the hills around were powder-coated but the town itself was snow-free. With their light dusting the Ponderosa pines stood out really well on the hillsides.
From Stanley, we turned down 75 and our worry became the Galena Pass. At 8300 feet, it would definitely have snow. And that it did. But we only had a mile or two of slushy road at the summit and no ice. And as we rapidly dropped down toward Ketchum, the snow soon disappeared entirely and the sun came out. In Ketchum and SunValley we saw golfers in shorts.
We stopped briefly in Ketchum and Labashi said she’d like to have a ‘real’ breakfast as she occasionally does. We tried an upscale deli/breakfast restaurant (Perry’s) but it was very crowded and noisy. We drove up to Sun Valley and took a short walk to the Hemingway Memorial, then circled around to Healey and had a McDonalds lunch.
We replenished supplies at the Albertson’s right up the street from McDonalds and were surprised to see bikini-clad girls hosting a car wash in the parking lot. It seemed so odd to have been in snow just a half-hour ago. Labashi didn’t think Mocha Joe needed a wash, though.
We then drove an hour to the Craters of the Moon National Monument. We watched two good films in the visitor’s center before deciding we’d stay in their campground for the night ($10). Craters of the Moon is a 750,000-acre preserve, almost all it covered by lava which oozed from the Great Rift, a series of long fissures in the earth. The oldest lava in the preserve is about 15,000 years old and the newest about 2000 years old.
As part of our tour we climbed to the top of Inferno Cone, a massive cinder pile and walked to the top of a spatter cone, from which we could see snow down in its depths. We then walked to the top of Big Crater and back, then walked to (and through) Indian Tunnel—a lava cave 30-feet high and 50 feet wide. We entered one end and exited the other, then crossed the lava bed to get back to the trail.
We then returned to our campsite for supper before attending a ranger presentation—the last one of the 2008 tourist season.
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Sunday, 31 August-
We could see thunderstorms and massive evil-black clouds in the distance yesterday evening and had several rain showers through the night. The wind was blowing a steady 10-15 knots and temperatures quickly dropped into the low 50’s by bedtime and the low-40’s by morning. Our campsite was just a pull-off at an intersection of the forest road and two tracks into a meadow obviously used for grazing. We had been surprised how slim the pickings were for potential campsites here. Much of the National Forest is very steep and the whole area is a patchwork of private and public lands, the former all posted with no-trespassing signs and the latter only occasionally signed to indicate it’s National Forest land (where dispersed camping is permitted). We had lucked out in finding a reasonably good spot.
The road took us into Council and I noticed that the GPS didn’t show this hard road either (FR 002 from Bear to Council) --- which seems very strange. I’ll have to check into that. I’ve been surprised how good the Garmin maps are so it seems odd several of the hard roads out here are missing. Of course the Garmin map set IS called ‘City Navigator’ and we aren’t exactly close to a city so perhaps I’m being too picky.
We backtracked up route 95 to the one-street town of New Meadow where we came very close to being trapped by their Labor Day parade. We were wondering why all the vehicles were around and then saw clowns (literally!) directing traffic at the crosswalks. Further on the parade was starting to assemble. If we had been a half-hour later we would have had to wait out the parade.
From there we took route 55 through McCall, a very busy and prosperous-looking town. McCall has it all— a nice big lake, public and private ski hills, a hard-surface airport, upscale lodges and restaurants and (apparently) a good real-estate market. But those things also made it crowded on this big weekend and we were happy to get past.
Below McCall we drove through a picturesque valley of cattle-ranches and lakes with mountains on both sides of the valley. We then started seeing the North Payette River and before long turned toward the mountains with the river below. Today it had whitewater kayakers and rafters and the waves here were easily class III and perhaps a few class IV.
At Banks, we turned north up the Middle Fork of the Payette and again followed the very gorgeous river, this time via route 21. This route is called the Wildlife Scenic Byway and it was indeed scenic. It took us up through the Boise National Forest and soon turned into the Ponderosa Scenic Highway into the Challis National Forest and then into the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
By 1430 we were road-weary and decided we need a break. We turned in at Stanley Lake to try one of the four campgrounds there but signs at the turnoff said they were full. Of course—it’s Labor Day weekend.
We found Iron Creek on the map and decided we might have a better shot at it since it lies a few miles back a dirt road. When we saw the road was heavily wash-boarded, “so much the better” we thought.
As we neared the campground a large dually pickup came zooming around the corner in an area where I couldn’t go further right without going into the ditch. I got over as far as I could and he did too but we hit mirrors. We both stopped and checked for damage and miraculously, there was none—it had been a glancing blow, helped, perhaps by the fact that my mirrors fold in easily. There’s not even a scratch on it.
The campground was full but as we had approached it I noticed several informal campsites along the creek. They had occupants but on closer inspection one had multiple campsites and only one tent. But to reach the one I wanted I’d have to go between some very narrowly-spaced trees.
Mocha Joe did well through the first few turns but then I cut one turn a bit short and caught a tree with the protruding hinges on the side door (that’s how close the trees were spaced). Unfortunately, momentum carried me past and the body banged up against the tree. Worse, I couldn’t back up. The hinges just dug into the tree. On the second try, though, I got loose, backed out, and inspected the damage. The panel in front of the right rear wheel-well is dented and the door is scratched. I think the dents are accessible from the back so maybe a paintless-repair specialist can push them out when we get home.
We then moved to another of the available spots and again had to maneuver in very limited space (obviously this is why these spots weren’t taken). This time I had to maneuver around a boulder. Smart-aleck Labashi jumped up on the boulder to make it more visible and this time I made it without damaging poor old Joe (and without running over Labashi).
We spent the afternoon relaxing and took a short walk to inspect the tree that attacked my van. I’m happy to report the tree was a dead one and the scars I made were inconsequential.
We read and blogged the evening away. I sure do miss the ten o’clock sunsets we had in Alaska, though.
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Saturday, 30 August-
We had a perfect night in the Payette National Forest above Grangeville. The stars were incredible. Labashi had wanted to see the northern lights on this trip but we had been too far north in Alaska, Yukon, and Northwest Territory (Land of the Midnight Sun and all that) or too cloudy (British Columbia). So as I worked on the blog I’d occasionally glance toward the north, just in case. And when I saw lighter sky in that direction, I took notice.
But it wasn’t the northern lights. It was the Milky Way. I roused Labashi from her reading and we stepped out under a fantastic starry sky. The Milky Way was not only clearly visible, we could see the lighter and darker parts of the cloud of stars. There were so many stars that we had trouble picking out constellations. Labashi saw a shooting star but I missed it. We’ve not seen stars like this for years.
This morning we drove back through Grangeville to catch 95 south. We spent the day driving down 95 to Cambridge, then turned northwest on Idaho 71 for Hell’s Canyon. During the drive down to Cambridge we had passed through Salmon River Canyon, a particularly pretty stretch of highway. The white-water rafters were out in force on this Labor Day weekend and seemed to be having a wonderful time.
After Cambridge, we drove 50 miles through increasingly-rugged terrain to the beginning of the Hell’s Canyon Scenic Drive, then another 23 on the Drive to the dam. The further we went, the better the scenery. The entire time the green-blue waters of the impoundment were beside us. And for the last several miles, the scenery is both beautiful and scary. Massive rock walls overhang the road on the right and it’s a killer drop to the Snake River to the left. Below the dam is a boat launch for trips through the narrowest parts of the canyon.
We then headed back but instead of going back to 71, we took the ‘Kleinschmidt Grade’ out of the canyon. This is a steep, gravel, heavily-switch-backed road where you must pause at the wider turns to look ahead to see if anyone is coming down. If so, stay put for you will not be able to pass. The road is only one lane, there’s no guard-rail and the drop is precipitous and goes the whole way down to the water. The good news is you do have, for the most part, a good view of the road above and would see anyone coming down. The climb out had to be done in first gear and took a half-hour, maybe a bit more.
Once at the top we started following the forest road but soon realized (with a bit of a shock) that the forest road didn’t appear on the GPS. It seems odd that forest roads in British Columbia appeared on the GPS and our Payette National Forest road yesterday appeared on the GPS but there’s nothing for this portion of the Payette. Nor did the roads have number signs. We knew we wanted Forest Road 002 but there were no signs until we finally reached an intersection which indicated the Council-Cuprum Road. That’s not on our maps (or GPS) but we did know about where Cuprum is and we wanted to go to Council. We also dug out the Idaho Atlas and Gazetteer and we appear to have made the correct turns to be on Forest Road 002.
We finally found a reasonably-flat pull-off at 1830 and decided we’d spend the night there. We’re on top of a mountain at the edge of a meadow and have a great view of the sky and an open valley off in the distance to the south.
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Friday, 29 August-
This morning we did shopped for some small items in the Fred Meyer store, then headed through Coeur d’Alene toward Moscow. While the landscape had been changing from Bonner’s Ferry to Coeur d’Alene, now it changed over almost completely to wheat fields. Great, golden, rolling-to-the-horizon wheat fields. Many hilltops had a stand of pines to offset the color of the fields.
In Moscow we tried following a sign to a local park for a nice place to have lunch but instead ran into a Wal-mart along the way. I’ve been having trouble with my cell-phone charger so I went in to try to get that resolved while Labashi fixed lunch in the parking lot.
After lunch we drove through Moscow and, again, we liked what we saw. It’s a college town and I could easily see us living here. With the university in town, Coeur d’Alene and Bonner’s Ferry nearby, the Canadian Rockies just over the line north, and Spokane and the west coast immediately west, there would always be something interesting to do or see.
We continued south on 95 to Lewiston and there visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Hell’s Gate Canyon State Park. Several years ago we had followed quite a lot of the Lewis and Clark along the Missouri and as far as Montana so this visit just picked up from there.
We continued down 95 and visited the Nez Perce National Historical Park headquarters at Spalding. There we talked with a ranger who asked how we were traveling. When we said we like to use informal forest-service sites, she directed us to a forest road outside Grangeville which would take us up into the Nez Perce National Forest.
We followed her directions up past a closed ski area and into the national forest where we very easily found a suitable camp for the night. On the way in we passed a trailhead parking lot where we saw dozens of ‘toy-hauler’ RVs and campers parked and ATVs running around and across from it a USFS (Forest Service) pay campsite but that looked too busy for us. But then again, who knows? Maybe we’ve inadvertently parked beside an all-night logging road.
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Thursday, 28 August-
We had a little surprise last night at our remote campsite. We were 3 miles back a forest road at one of three campsites along a creek. The area certainly LOOKED remote. But at 0200 an empty logging truck went by, headed up the mountain. An hour later, another. Then a few minutes later, two more. And another. And a few pickup trucks. And about 0500 some loaded ones went down past and even more unloaded ones went by upbound. The sign at the end of the road had said it was an active logging road but we had no idea they work at night. And it really wasn’t all that bad—it was just a surprise.
After breakfast we drove the few miles to the US border and crossed with no problems. The drive south from the border to Bonner’s Ferry is a pretty one, through forested area with the Rockies as a backdrop. At Bonner’s Ferry we first stopped at the Visitor’s Center for Idaho maps and local info, then stopped at a sporting goods store to see how best to find forest campsites. We checked out a couple of recreation maps but they were too general so we bought an Idaho Atlas and Gazetteer. These use an open tent symbol to indicate a public campsite and those may be campgrounds where you have to put money in the iron ranger or they may simply be a pull-off, generally with a fire-ring. Since we’re self-contained we’d just as soon have the latter.
We also stopped at the U.S. Forest Service office at the edge of town and asked the same question. They had a list of forest service campsites, most of them fee sites but they also said dispersed camping is okay in the National Forest.
There we also learned this area (actually, west of here) is the only place in the Lower 48 where the Woodland Caribou still lives. Also, it’s one of only six areas in the US where grizzlies live today.
We continued south to Coeur d’Alene where we decided we needed some library time. We followed the GPS to the Coeur d’Alene Library only to find an empty building. But they had posted directions to the new library only a few miles away.
The Coeur d’Alene Library is a beauty and sits at the edge of a town park and Lake Coeur d’Alene. While Labashi worked on a letter, I walked through town and liked it quite a lot.
After Labashi finished her letter, we walked into town for supper. We first took a look through the windows of ‘Cisco’s Antiques’, a store I had visited that afternoon. I had been amazed at all the Western antiques for sale and the incredible prices for them. I saw $30,000 rifles and $20,000 hat-trees. I could have bought original mid-1800’s hand-made knives which had been the personal property of specific Indians known to history (for $2500 - $4000 each). But then again, some of the stuff was ridiculous….like turn-of-the-century papier-mache owl decoys for $225.
We then ate at the Ironhorse Restaurant where we had excellent halibut-and-avodcado tacos and eight-layer dip.
Afterwards we walked on down to the water and found a fancy hotel—the Coeur d’Alene Resort. We walked through, looking at art and expensive crafts and jewelry. We then followed the water’s edge back to the van and drove to the nearby Fred Meyer’s (a Kroger version of Wal-mart) for the night.
I don’t feel I’m doing Coeur d’Alene justice in my description. We loved the library, the park, and the whole downtown area. I could do that again.
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Wednesday, 27 August-
Our night at Golden Municipal Campground wasn’t quite as quiet as I thought it would be. Golden is on the TransCanada Highway 1 and also the Canadian Transcontinental Railroad. It was the latter that woke us up several times during the night.
This morning we turned east out of Golden rather than continue south. By doing so we could hit three--- count ‘em--- THREE additional National Parks as we wind our way south toward the Lower 48.
Two summers ago we visited Jasper and Banff National Parks, both in Alberta. From the former, we took a day-trip west on the Yellowhead Highway to Mount Robson and Valemount in British Columbia. From the latter we could have also dipped into British Columbia to visit Yoho and Kootenay National Parks but we didn’t. So today I was remedying that oversight. By driving east from Golden we could hit Yoho National Park up through Kicking Horse Pass to come out into Banff National Park at Lake Louise, then drive a few miles south and turn back west through Kootenay National Park.
These parks (and nearby Glacier National Park of Canada) have major city-to-city highways going through them and therefore have a problem—how to collect park fees without impacting thru traffic. They’ve solved it by enacting laws which allow you to pass through for free but to stop anywhere in the parks you must have a parks pass.
Our decision on whether or not to buy a parks pass for today was pretty much made for us by the weather. Our original plan was to go to the Yoho and Kootenay visitor’s centers and decide whether we wanted to see any of the featured areas. If so, we’d pay the park entrance fee, if not, we’d still have a full day of spectacular scenery as we drove toward the States. As it turned out, our decision was made for us. We woke to rain and it rained (lightly) much of the day.
And what scenery we saw! At first the mountain-tops were sheathed in a thick layer of fog but that soon lifted to reveal newly-snow-dusted peaks. As we wound through the mountains, we saw one spectacular view after another. We didn’t hesitate to stop at the pull-offs and rest areas and stare. The one thing I’d do different with better weather would have been to go into the Yoho Valley (but then again that’s an excuse to come back for another visit).
After crossing the continental divide, the Yoho ended, we crossed into Alberta, and Banff National Park began. We had been in this area before and our route today ran through a construction zone so it wasn’t all that special. But after our turnoff back toward BC, we climbed to the Continental Divide again, this time in the Kootenay and in new territory.
A surprising amount of the Kootenay has been devastated by fire and by the mountain pine beetle. Initally, it’s a shock to see the ‘naked’ mountain as you drive through a devastated area. On the other hand, you see more of the underlying landforms and then your eye is drawn to the new growth and you marvel at all the bigger the trees are after so many years. Along the highways run crystal-clear streams and then the pretty, braided, Simpson River as we went deeper into the Kootenay.
At the Kootenay Lodge Visitor’s Center we saw a relief map of the park and realized how many trails there are to explore. Each mountain valley has a stream and along many of them are trails, sometimes trending upward to the glacier above. Again, an excuse for a future visit.
As we neared the end of the Kootenay, we reached Radium Hot Springs and dramatic changes. The scenery here was particularly attractive right up to the hot springs, then chaos reigned. The Springs and the town below were very crowded with tourists. The other change was the weather. Where we had been in and out of rain for the last hour, we had suddenly come out to the west side of the Rockies and it looked like a desert.
We continued south through attractive but very different scenery. Now we were Out West. Cowboy hats and horse trailers reigned supreme.
The drive was actually very pretty. With the high, snow-dusted mountains to the left and the wide see-across-forever valleys, we had it made.
We drove for another several hours, stopping in Cranbrook’s Safeway to take advantage of their wi-fi connection. We checked mail, checked the answering machine, and posted a long-overdue blog update.
We then drove on to the little town of Yahk to seek out a forest-service campsite on the forest road nearby and there we settled in for the night. Tomorrow, we cross back into the US!
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