Clark Fork River Below Cabinet Gorge Dam: Light and an Ice Age Story

 Clark Fork River Below Cabinet Gorge Dam: Light and an Ice Age Story

By Bryan D. Spellman, Ph.D.

Light breaking through clouds can change the whole character of a landscape. In today’s photograph, it spills across distant mountains while the Clark Fork River winds through the darker canyon below. Evergreen forests cover the slopes, exposed rock borders the water, and the river draws the eye into the scene.

This is the Clark Fork River below Cabinet Gorge Dam, near the Montana–Idaho state line. The photograph shows a landscape whose beauty comes with an extraordinary geological history.

Cabinet Gorge is considered a likely location of the glacier’s edge that blocked the Clark Fork River during the last Ice Age. Behind that barrier, water accumulated to form Glacial Lake Missoula, flooding valleys across western Montana. The glacier advanced and retreated, so its contact with the lake was not fixed in one place.

The ice dam failed repeatedly. Each failure released enormous quantities of water downstream into Idaho and Washington. Those floods stripped soil, scoured rock, and helped shape eastern Washington’s Channeled Scablands. They continued through the Columbia River Gorge toward the Pacific, profoundly altering the landscape along their route.

Looking at this river today, it takes some imagination to picture water moving through the region on that scale. The photograph offers a quieter view: forest, stone, flowing water, and sunlight finding its way through the clouds.

I’ve recently revisited this image and refreshed its LightIntoArt listing with new print previews, room mockups, and information about the landscape’s Ice Age connection.

The photograph is available as a physical fine art print on photo paper, stretched canvas, metal, or acrylic, with three-panel canvas options for larger walls. Visit the listing to explore the available sizes and materials:

https://lightintoart.etsy.com/listing/4371335516

For more about the region’s flood history:
https://iafi.org/must-see-floods-features-in-northern-idaho/

Word Search Puzzle for Boundary County

What you have here is a word search puzzle based on my blog post about Boundary County, Idaho.   These are twenty-four names that appear in that post.  Well most of them.  The rest came from the DeLorme Idaho Atlas.  Note that there are no spaces, so Bonners Ferry appears as BONNERSFERRY.

In order for this to work well, you will need to print out the page.  Pens and pencils don't work well on computer screens.  Although, if you have a tablet that allows you to draw on the screen, that might work.  No promises though.  I'd print it out, myself.

 

There is no 420 in Idaho

Mile Marker on U.S. Highway 95

Kootenai County, Idaho

Taken 3/18/16

Friday, March 18^th, the sun rose in a clear blue sky and I said it was a good day for photography.  Since I finished my words and pictures for the Montana coffee table book (all that remains is putting it all together in a single volume), I’ve been wondering what to do for an encore.  I thoroughly enjoyed traveling Montana and getting to know my home state so much better, up close and personal, as it were, so I decided to continue the same, but with the neighboring state of Idaho, it being closest to home.  I’ve been working on this new project for a few months now, but earlier this week I decided to get it put together in hard form, i.e. photographic prints and printed text, because frankly I don’t trust my computer.  I do keep backing stuff up, but I don’t want to find myself in a position where all my hard work is just gone—lost in cyberspace somewhere.  Having started that project, I figured it would be a good idea to keep some sort of record as to what was done and what wasn’t, and since I’m doing a county-by-county project, what better way to graphically illustrate what’s done and what remains to do than by taking a map of Idaho with all the counties shown and color coding it.  Red would mean that I have written the text and taken the pictures for county x.  Blue would mean that I have the pictures, but have yet to write the text, and gray would mean that I have the text finished, but have yet to visit the county in person and take the pictures.  When I finished coloring the map, I noticed that northern Idaho, from the Canadian border to the southern end of the Panhandle (more or less, depending on where you figure the Panhandle meets the pan, as it were) was solid blue with two exceptions.  Boundary County, the northern most county in the state, was red.  I have taken the photos and written the text.  Idaho County, which I consider the southern end was blue with a –CH notation.   I have lots of photos I’ve taken all around Idaho County, but for some inexplicable reason, I don’t have a photo of the County Court House.  And Lemhi County (not technically in the Panhandle) was colored blue with a -1P note:  I have lots of photos of Lemhi County, but there’s one in particular I want and don’t have—at least among the photos I can find.  South of Idaho County, the map has five counties colored gray, and the rest is a mass of white.  Yes, I learned a lesson traveling to the far eastern regions of Montana before doing my homework.  For Idaho, I decided I would write the essays and then take the photos, at least for those counties I can’t easily reach in a day trip.  If I hadn’t already researched Ada County, for instance, I wouldn’t know that I want to visit in May because that’s when North America’s largest nesting group of raptors visits the wildlife sanctuary south of Boise.  See what kinds of skills you can get from getting a graduate degree from the university! 

Work done to date on my Idaho Counties Photobook

As of 3/17/16

Anyway, there is just one problem with all the above.  There was one white county in the Panhandle: Nez Perce County with its County Seat of Lewiston.  Technically speaking, anywhere in that region could be considered a day trip from here at home in Wild Horse Plains, Montana, so I loaded all my camera gear into the new Explorer and headed out.  This was the first time I had driven more than a few miles—i.e. to town and back—since my accident where I totaled the Saab, and I was both eager and a bit nervous to see if I could handle what used to be normal for me.  By the time I had the car loaded and stopped in town to fill the gas tank, it was much later in the day than I would have liked, but Idaho is in a different time zone—at least the Panhandle is—so I could always claim I was gaining an hour.  (We’ll leave crossing that same time change on the way back for later, ok?) 

From home, I drove east on MT 200 to MT 135, which the Nav system in the Explorer informed me, is called Quinn’s Canyon Road.  I’ve lived here over three years, and have lived in western Montana for over 40 and have never heard of Quinn’s Canyon Road before, but what the hey.  Southwest on 135 to St Regis, then onto I-90 to head west into Idaho and Pacific Standard Time.  I crossed Lookout Pass and the state line at 11:07 and by 10:10 my clock had registered the fact that I was no longer in the Mountain Time Zone.  I stopped in Coeur d’Alene long enough to pick up a new charger for my phone, then headed south on US 95.   US 95 is the longest highway in the state of Idaho.  It crosses into the state’s southwestern most county, Owyhee, and heads north, clinging to the state line for the most part, until it leaves Idaho and the U.S. at the Eastport border crossing, over 538 miles to the north.  Where I joined the road, there was still another 100+ miles of 95 north of me, but I was heading south and the mile markers were decreasing in size.  425, 424, 423, 422, 421, 419.9, 419.  Wait a minute?  What was that?  I had read that Idaho had a terrible time with theft of one particular highway sign, and this was the way they dealt with the problem.  I had to make a U-turn and go back to photograph that mile marker. 

My new travel companion

2012 Ford Explorer Limited

Parked at home

Now I live in Montana, as my readers all know, and Montana has, since 2004, allowed personal use of marijuana for medical reasons.  We won’t go into all the shenanigans our state legislature has played with what has been a very popular law, but suffice it say that under certain circumstances you can get the state’s permission to grow and use cannabis for your health.  Washington State and now Oregon have both legalized all use of marijuana.  Sandwiched in between is Idaho which has steadfastly refused to give up the federal war on drugs, no matter how ineffective that may be.  So while you can legally purchase pot in a store in Spokane, 20 miles west of the Idaho state line, or grow your own in Montana, in Idaho you face prison time for having a joint in your possession.  Even so, I thought it a bit much to remove the 420 sign from the highway, and US 95 is the only highway in Idaho long enough to have a 420 sign.  (For my extremely sheltered readers, 420 is a slang term for marijuana, and if you google 420, you’ll find out all sorts of things you never needed to know—including the fact that Idaho is not alone in changing mile markers with this designation.)

I’ve reached the end of my allotted space for today’s blog, so next time I’ll talk about the rest of the trip—including how I changed my map of Nez Perce County from white to red.

Donkey Riding

Willamette Steam Donkey Engine

John Mullan Park

St. Maries, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Were you ever off the Horn
Where it's always nice and warm
Seeing the lion and the unicorn
Riding on a donkey

This version of the song comes close to the way I learned the song a million years ago.

The line separating the states of Idaho and Montana starts at the Canadian Border just west of 116 degrees west longitude, proceeds approximately 72 miles due south, to just south of the Clark Fork River, then follows the Bitterroot Mountains ridge line for the next 355 miles and the Continental Divide for the remaining 312 miles (totaling 739 miles).  Seven main highways cross this arbitrary line, from U.S. Highway 2 in the north to U.S. Highway 20 in the south.  All but two of these roads cross high mountain passes.  In addition there are seemingly countless minor roads crossing the line, including both of the passes I drove across yesterday (11/3/15).  Most of these minor roads are back country dirt roads, most likely put in by logging companies over the years.   Both of the roads I took yesterday were paved, at least in part.  Thompson Pass, southwest of Thompson Falls, was, for years, paved on the Montana side, but not on the Idaho side.  The second pass, which I'll call the Little Joe Pass (I'm sure it has a name, but it's not marked at the site, nor on any maps that I have readily available), is paved beautifully on the Idaho side, but most of the 17 miles on the Montana side is dirt/gravel, although exceptionally well packed down.

Leaving home around 9:30, a bit later than I would have liked, I set the car's navigation system to find the Benewah County (Idaho) Garage, one of three choices the car gave me for Benewah County.  Apparently, there are more than one such garages, because while I was trying to get to St. Maries, when I drove into that town, the navigation system told me I had many more miles to go before I reached the garage.  This was not the only time the nav system failed me.  Undoubtedly because most people prefer driving on the Interstate Highway System, the car tried to guide me east to Paradise, then south to St. Regis and Interstate 90.  This was not the way I had planned, so instead I headed west to Thompson Falls, then south and west across Thompson Pass and into Idaho.  I drove a good five miles west on Highway 200 before the car relented and routed me through Thompson Falls.  But even then, half-way up Prospect Creek, the car tried to get me to turn left and take a very rough dirt road up and over the mountains into Wallace, Idaho, instead of staying on the paved road I had chosen.  Twice more along the way, the car tried to get me into Wallace, when I was headed instead for Kingston, Idaho where I would finally meet up with the Interstate.  Now I know that Wallace is "The Center of the Universe" and at least until the 1980s the home of a well-known bordello, but I had no need to visit either on this trip, so I continually ignored the car's suggestions and followed the Coeur d'Alene River to Kingston, whence I hit I-90 and headed west into Kootenai County and the exit for Idaho Highway 3.

The impetus for this trip was to visit Benewah County, the county in North Idaho I knew the least.  In point of fact, while I had driven across the county twice (once north to south and once south to north on different highways), I had never actually stopped and gotten out of the car in that jurisdiction.  I also hoped to drive home along the St. Joe River, and I had no idea how long any of this would take, so I set my sights on the Benewah County line and didn't stop anywhere along the Coeur d'Alene, beautiful in its fall coloring, to take pictures.  Once off I-90, however, I stopped to study (and photograph) the information sign for the White Pine Scenic Byway, AKA Idaho Highways 3 and 6, which I would be driving for the next several hours.

I seem to have caught their attention

Rose Lake Elk Ranch

Rose Lake, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Almost immediately after getting back on Highway 3, I passed a field filled with elk.  I did not realize, at the time, that this was a commercial elk ranch.  Indeed, the elk filled the fields the way cattle normally do, and apparently that is intentional.  While I do not approve of the commercial raising of these majestic animals, you can read more about the ranch on their web site.

A few miles further south, I pulled into a marked Scenic Turnout and admired (and photographed) the scene to the west, including what looked to be several miles of horse fencing (are we suddenly in Kentucky?), much grassland, water and mountains on the western horizon.

Kootenai County Ranch Land

Eastern Kootenai County, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Back on Highway 3, I first entered the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, then Benewah County.  As is the case for so many native reservations, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's land is now only a fraction of their aboriginal claims, and is located in southern Kootenai and western Benewah Counties.  Roughly half of Benewah County is within the reservation, but only 9% of the County's population claims to be Native.  The town of Plummer is the home of the tribal headquarters.  The tribe also operates a casino at Worley, north of Plummer in Kootenai County.  In 1991, the tribe sued the State of Idaho over ownership of Lake Coeur d'Alene, a trial that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court which dismissed the suit citing the Eleventh Amendment.  A subsequent suit against the state was initiated by the U.S. government, acting as trustee of Indian lands.  This time, the Supreme Court ruled against the state of Idaho.  While at the time, there was much controversy and, yes, fear, as to what the ruling would mean, in practice what has happened is that the Tribe has been instrumental in cleaning up the lake and the area rivers of mining waste from the Silver Valley.

After stopping for lunch in St. Maries, where I duly photographed the County Court House, I headed west on Idaho Highway 5 to Plummer, passing through Heyburn State Park, ostensibly the oldest state park in the Pacific Northwest.  Land taken, need I say, from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.  There were a good many turnouts on the seventeen mile drive where I could stop and admire the scenery, but my photographs are all hampered by the trees that line the highway.  Or, I suppose you could say, the pictures are enhanced by the trees.

The Saint Joe River connecting Chatcolet Lake and Round Lake

Heyburn State Park, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Once in Plummer, I headed south on U.S. Highway 95, which runs parallel to the Idaho/Washington State Line, passing by the town of Sanders (2 miles off the highway to the east), and through the town of Tensed.  I didn't have a chance (or didn't take the time) to ask a native if the town's name is one syllable or two.  South of Tensed, I passed De Smet, site of the Jesuit mission built after the Tribe left the area around Cataldo, where the same Jesuits who built St. Mary's and St. Ignatius Missions in Montana built the first mission in what is now Idaho.  (According to Wikipedia, Tensed started out as De Smet, but because of the nearby mission, which had its own post office, the town changed its name to Temsed--De Smet backwards--which the Post Office then mispelled.)  To the west, along the Washington State line, is Mary Minerva McCroskey State Park, Idaho's second largest.  This large section of Palouse was acquired and set aside by one man, Virgil T. McCroskey, who gave the land to the State of Idaho in 1955.  The State, however, chose to look this gift horse in the mouth, figuring that no one in his right mind would want to travel to remote northern Idaho (it was another twenty years before the state improved U.S. 95 to the point where it wasn't such a challenge to reach the area from the more populous southern part of the state).  Accordingly, the State accepted the gift only with the provision that Mr. McCroskey would single-handedly maintain the property, at his own expense, for the next fifteen years.  McCroskey, then 78 years old, agreed, and fulfilled his commitment, dying just weeks after the fifteen year period had passed.

Shortly after passing the road leading to McCroskey State Park, I passed three signs mounted on a single post.  The first announced that I was now leaving the Coeur d'Alene Reservation.  Below that was the sign saying that I was now entering Latah County, and below that, a sign warning that "Zoned County Bldg. Permits" were required, presumably in Latah County.  Not planning on doing any construction, I ignored this last notice, and continued south to the town of Potlatch, a company town built by Weyerhauser's Potlatch Lumber Company in 1905.  At its heyday, the mill at Potlatch was the largest white pine lumber mill in the world.  I photographed a couple of large buildings, one of which I have not been able to identify, the second of which has a sign out front stating that the building is the Town Hall for the city.  I also photographed the station for the Washington, Idaho and Montana Railway, a rail line that despite its name, apparently never reached Montana.

Everything an Ivy-League Man Needs

Princeton, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Today, Potlatch is mostly a bedroom community for nearby Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington, homes respectively of The University of Idaho and Washington State University.  When the town, and more importantly the railroad, was first built, the nearby stations were given the names of Ivy League Colleges, and shortly after turning north on Idaho Highway 6, I passed through Princeton, and five miles later, Harvard.  I'm not sure where Yale, Cornell and Purdue are (or more likely, were).  North of Harvard, I re-entered Benewah County, passing through the town of Emida, past another sign pointing, this time westward, to Sanders, and took a side trip to Santa and Fernwood.  Not seeing Mary Hartman, and not wanting to wait around for the talk show, I turned around short of the Shoshone County line, and headed back to St. Maries.  From there, I turned east onto Idaho 50, and followed the St. Joe River through a spectacular mountain valley, until the road turned north and climbed the Bitterroot Mountains, crossing into Montana 88 miles east of St. Maries.  At the pass, as noted above, the pavement ended, and most of the next seventeen miles were on hard packed dirt.  The best photo I didn't get was of the animal leading me down the mountain for quite a way.  He was easily taller than my car, and sported a very respectable rack of antlers.  I had no intention of scaring him (or more likely angering him), so I slowed down and followed at a respectful distance until he found a place to leave the roadbed.  It was too dark by this time to get a good look, let alone a photograph, and I can't say for sure, but there's only one animal that large in this part of the world.  Had to be a bull moose.  Need I say that my nav system did not like this route at all, and refused to give me an accurate reading of how much further I had to go--since I wasn't following the prescribed route.

But I was able to get some spectacular photos along the St. Joe, including the scene below which I captured shortly after crossing from Benewah into Shoshone County,   Coming round a bend, I saw ahead a blaze of color coming down out of a very cloudy sky.  I stopped to grab that partial rainbow, and a few miles later, stopped again to get this image of a double rainbow, almost complete.  I guess there's double the luck there.

Double the Luck

Southwestern Shoshone County, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

I arrived home at 7 p.m., almost ten hours after leaving.  I drove approximately 400 miles, and shot 78 photographs.  I saw a lot of beautiful country, most of it new to me, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The one thing I didn't do, was stop to hunt for geocaches.  I can eat up a lot of time doing that, and it was important to me that this be a day-trip only, not a several day trip.  This is something, as my readers know, I dearly love.  I need to find a way to afford more of these trips.

To the Peak of Sex and Beyond

The Coeur d'Alene Range of the Bitterroot Mountains

View to the West and South from the Sex Peak Lookout

Five foot by two foot Panorama

Sunday morning, Kevin offered me the chance of a lifetime.  He wanted to go to Sex Peak and take me with him.  How could I say no?  Little did I know that there is an actual mountain top in the Coeur d'Alene range named "Sex Peak."  Nor did I know that there was a US Forest Service lookout tower on said peak.  Normally, when Kevin wants to go to a mountain top, it's because he wants to play Ham Radio operator, so I took my Kindle, my camera, and my coffee mug in the truck, and was ready to go.  Kevin brought our diabetic MinPin Harley along for the ride.  We suspect that Harley's healthy siblings treat him poorly when we leave all the dogs alone. Harley is going blind from his diabetic induced cataracts, and tends to bump into furniture, walls, other dogs, etc, which the others do not appreciate.

On the way, we stopped by the home of the owner of the Llano Theatre, the wonderful movie house here in Plains, which Kevin and I visit almost every week.  I was doing some printing for the theater, but was having trouble getting my various software programs to work.  This had caused me no end of frustration both Saturday and Sunday morning, and my blood pressure was rising accordingly.  Long story short, I really needed a day away from the computer.

After dropping off my work, and stopping at the dump to drop off the week's garbage, we continued west on Highway 200 to Thompson Falls.  It was at this point I learned that Kevin really didn't know exactly where Sex Peak is.  Well, that's what modern technology is all about, right?  Just try to ask your vehicle's navigation system to get you to Sex Peak.  I dare you.  That's right, it didn't work for us, either.  Well, our smart phones have internet capability.  Just look it up on line.  What???  I'm not getting a 4G signal?  I was beginning to think that modern technology and I just were not getting along.  Kevin, using his own phone, was able to find a link to show driving directions, but that link refused to open.  When in doubt, ask someone human, preferably face to face.

Having learned that we needed to continue west from Thompson Falls, our new objective was the road that follows Big Beaver Creek.  I'm not making this up.  If you want to get to Sex Peak, you have to go up Big Beaver Creek.  Quite a way up Big Beaver Creek, as it turns out.  Eventually you will reach a junction where Forest Service Road 2222 takes off to the right, and you'll see a sign telling you that the lookout is 12 miles ahead.  Of course, if you don't turn at this junction, you'll see a sign saying that the lookout is 14 miles ahead.  Apparently, once you're way up Big Beaver Creek, all roads lead to Sex Peak.

You didn't think the sign would actually say Sex Peak, did you?

How long do you think that sign would last?

The Lookout is no longer being used by the Forest Service as a fire watch tower, but is available for rental at a rate of $35 a night.  Supposedly it can sleep four people, but they'd have to be awfully friendly, it seems to me.  In any event, if people can rent the tower, it makes sense to me that you should be able to drive your soccer mom van all the way up to the summit.  Road 2222 was not, however, the smoothest road I've ever been on.  Not the worst, either, not even the worst we followed on this trip, but I'll get to that in a minute or two.  We'd been driving quite some time when we came upon the sign shown above.  Oh goody, that meant we had covered eight miles of bad road and had only four more to go.  It's hard for me to imagine most families driving their car up this road.  I'm not sure why, as growing up we drove our cars up mountain roads much worse than this.  But folks today are pretty soft, seems to me.

Eventually, we passed a gate and made the final climb to the lookout.  I've been to several lookouts over the years, and this was by far the easiest to reach by motor vehicle.  There is an outhouse next to the parking area, something I'm not used to seeing at other lookouts, but there is no water any where nearby (remember, we left Big Beaver Creek twelve miles back), so you have to bring all the water you feel you're going to need if you plan on staying overnight.  But the view!  Just look at that panorama at the head of the page.  I stood on the lookout's balcony and took nine individual shots that were merged into that panorama.  Of course, that is the point of a lookout--you're there to watch for any fire that might get started in the forest below.  And if you're into building cairns, there's a lot of rock here to use.  Other ways to spend your time, according to the rental website, include star gazing, wildlife viewing, and even mountain biking.  

Just down the road a ways, we found quite a huckleberry patch, and stopped long enough to pick berries both for immediate eating, and for some baking I'll do later today (or maybe tomorrow).   I have to say that I really don't recommend trying to pick huckleberries when you're wearing a walking cast boot designed to keep your foot and ankle immobile.  I speak from experience.

On the way back down the mountain, we decided to go out the back way (remember the 14 mile sign back on Big Beaver Road?).  This road was much smoother than the way we ascended the mountain, and much more suitable for regular cars.  So much smoother, that it's probably shorter in time even though longer in distance.  At the bottom of the grade we faced a decision:  10 miles to Highway 200 and home, or 6 miles to the State Line.  Well, that was easy.  Head west into Idaho.

One thing we learned on this trip is that the Forest Service isn't marking their roads as well as they used to.  Certainly not as well as they should when intrepid explorers set out to see the sights but have no maps along.  We passed a sign indicating Mile 11 (one mile from where we turned west), and then we passed a fork in the road, taking what appeared to be the better maintained choice, since neither road was marked with any kind of sign.  Well, the right fork did say the road was not maintained for cars or trailers, but we took the left fork, which soon led us to a bridge across, what else, Beaver Creek.

I hope you weren't looking for water in Beaver Creek

Shortly after crossing the bridge, we saw another milepost, 1.  What do you mean, 1?  Shouldn't that be 12?  Then came another milepost, 2.  Then 3, then 4, then a locked gate.  We're not getting to Idaho following this road.  Even if we were able to open the locked gate (and Kevin does have keys to do that in his work with the Ambulance and Fire crews), the road ahead was blocked by a good stand of trees, and we didn't have a chain saw with us.

Turn the truck around, head back toward the bridge, then the fork, and try the "not maintained" road instead.  Boy were they right. This road was barely maintained for a 4x4 pickup.  It climbed pretty steadily through thick brush until after five miles we leveled off and saw a sign stating "State Line."  No "Welcome to Idaho," or "Idaho is Just Too Great to Litter," or even "Pacific Time Zone."  Just "State Line."  Looking behind us, there was a sign saying that it was now 16 miles to Highway 200, but nothing telling us where the road ahead would lead us, or how many miles it would take to find out.

The road downhill was wide and relatively smooth, nothing like the Montana side, and we were doing quite well until we came to a place where the road had washed out.  I wondered if our four-wheel drive would get us over the impasse, but before he tried it, Kevin wisely got out of the cab to reconnoitre.  Having looked the situation over carefully, he decided we could risk the attempt, and while I held my breath (and the truck started sliding toward the abyss), he gunned it up and over and in no time at all we were back on good road. I know objectively it took no time, but as I was on the downhill side/slide, I was holding my breath and it felt as if it took forever.  Later Kevin asked if I had taken any pictures of the slide, but no, as I said, I was holding my breath, not my camera.

Further down the road we stopped at a small stream to get water for Harley.  I'm not happy with any of the photos I took of the stream, but I'm sharing this one anyway.  And a bit further on we came upon a truck with five Forest Service personnel sitting and talking.  We asked if they knew about the slide, and they assured us that someone was coming up the mountain to remedy the situation.  They were a bit amazed that 1) we had driven over it, and 2) that we had no idea where we were or where we were going.  They assured us that we were on the road down the mountain, and we would end up at Elk Creek.  (Should I mention that in a lifetime of driving around western Montana and northern Idaho, I had never heard of Elk Creek?)  A couple of miles further along, we came to another junction, and took the right fork as it seemed better traveled and frankly, in better shape.  Five miles down that road, we reached the bottom of the canyon and, I presume, Elk Creek.  Passing a couple of four-wheelers and a camp site where someone had brought in a large camping trailer, we headed down stream, only to find that it was good we were in a Ford.  We had to ford the creek, twice.  The road became increasingly narrow, and finally dropped into the creek bed itself.  Nope, not going to go there.  Turning around, we found we were now blocking the way of the four-wheelers, who were anxious to get down into that creek bed.  Better them than us.  We stopped at the campsite and spoke with Willie Nelson (well, that's who he looked like) who told us that we needed to go back up the mountain and take the other fork.  Exactly 14.9 miles from his campsite, we would find the Murray-Pritchard Road, better known to us as the Thompson Pass Road.

Back up the mountain, this time taking the left fork, and along the way we passed another Forest Service truck, this time with Fire Suppression markings, a BLM Fire Suppression Truck, three more Forest Service trucks, and a bulldozer slowly making its way up the mountain to repair the slide we'd driven over.  We also drove through a large swath of burned out forest land before we started dropping precipitously off the mountain.  

Almost exactly 15 miles from Willie Nelson, we hit pavement and turned to the left toward Murray.  I've written about Murray before, and her most famous resident Maggie Hall, AKA Molly B Damn.  Murry is an old mining town roughly ten miles into Idaho when you cross Thompson Pass south of Thompson Falls.  A friend had told me that the Sprag Pole Inn served a good meal, so Kevin pulled off the road and we had a great dinner of broasted chicken, french fries, and tossed salad.  After dinner, we continued up and over Thompson Pass and headed home.  With Kevin's scanner, we were able to hear a report of a truck heading toward us and driving erratically, speeding, crossing the double yellow line, passing on blind curves.  Kevin got on the radio and asked what we should be looking for.  The officer replied with a description of the vehicle, and it shouldn't have been hard to find.  He described our truck with one exception.  The miscreant was driving a 2014 red Ford F350 diesel.  We were driving a 2012 red Ford F350 diesel.  I'm pleased to say that we drove all the way home without ever running into our near twin.

The Thompson Pass Road on the Montana Side

What most people think a road through the mountains should look like

It was a long day, at times frustrating, but never boring.  We were doing one of the things I love best--getting out, seeing the sights, exploring roads we've not traveled before.  I kept telling Kevin how much fun I was having, and I know my blood pressure dropped considerably being away from the computer.  We'll do it again, and I'll write it up again.  Only next time we'll have maps, a cooler and lunch along for the ride.

By The Time I Get to Phoenix, Day 1

Mount Powell at Sunrise

10/25/2014

Deer Lodge, Montana

The end of October found Kevin and me making a quick trip to Phoenix, Arizona.  Just a down and back, but an interesting four day drive, none-the-less.  We arose early on Saturday morning, October 25, and were on the road by 6 a.m.  It was still dark and quite foggy here at Wild Horse Plains, Montana, and I guessed we'd be in fog all the way to Butte, some three hours away.  Well, the fog lifted around Drummond, and by the time we passed Deer Lodge, there was color in the sky.  

Turning south on I-15 just west of Butte, I was reminded once again that most of Silver Bow County, like most of Montana, is rural.  Yes, Silver Bow is the smallest county in area in the state, and yes, one hundred years ago, fully one fourth of the people of Montana lived there, but still, once you get outside of Butte and the surrounding communities, there's a lot of open land.  By  the time we crossed into Madison County, the fog was returning, and when we crossed the next line into Beaverhead County, it was back full force.

Beaverhead County Line, I-15 Southbound

10/25/2014

We stopped for gas in Dillon, but held off on breakfast till we could get to Dell.  I use any excuse I can to eat at the Dell Calf-A (say it out loud if you don't get the name), and I recommend it to all traveling through southern Beaverhead County.  With our bellies more than full, we returned to I-15 and soon were crossing Monida Pass and heading south into Idaho.  We had heard that Idaho had raised the speed limit to 80 mph, but this was our first chance to experience it.  Clark County, Jefferson County, Bonneville County and Bingham County all flew by, although we did stop for gas near Blackfoot.  No more stops in Idaho, not even at the Near Eastern restaurant I so enjoyed last time I was in Pocatello, and in no time at all we crossed into Utah.

Utah, too, has raised the speed limit to 80 on I-15, and it seems we traversed the northern part of the state rather quickly.  I love photographing public buildings, but as Kevin was in no mood to get off the interstate in Salt Lake City, I had to take this picture of the Utah state capitol through the windshield of a speeding pickup truck.  Sorry 'bout that.

The Utah State Capitol

10/25/2014

I-15 Southbound, Salt Lake City, Utah

South of the metropolis, we needed fuel and stopped in Fillmore.  Much to my surprise, I was able to get shots of two government buildings in this seat of Millard County.  As we passed the sign noting that we had entered Millard County, my first thought was of our thirteenth President, and sure enough, both the county and its seat are named for the man who was President when Utah became a territory.  Although it seems to me they got the names backward.  Shouldn't the town be Millard and the county Fillmore?  

Turns out that Brigham Young selected this spot in the Pahvent Valley to serve as the capital of his proposed state.  Originally, the proposed state of Deseret included most of the land the US claimed through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and spread from the Pacific Ocean in southern California to the west slope of the Rockies in Colorado.  When California entered the union in 1850, Utah Territory was created with its boundaries significantly reduced.  It covered only present day Nevada, Utah, and the southwestern corner of Wyoming.  Fillmore was in the geographic center of that area, and Young felt it was the perfect location for his new capital.  Young laid the cornerstone and over a period of two years the first wing of a proposed four-wing building was built.  The Utah Territorial Legislature met there for three terms before the capital was moved back to Salt Lake City.  I also photographed the Millard County Court House which stands on the main street of Fillmore, just in front of the original capitol building.  

The Utah Territorial Capitol

10/25/2014

Fillmore, Utah

With the gas tank full and no further photographic side trips envisioned, we got back on I-15 and drove on to Beaver.  Kevin remembered a good Mexican restaurant in Beaver, as well as a decent priced motel.  We didn't try the restaurant, and found that the motel he remembered was now quite expensive.  We found another place to stay and I checked on Yelp for a place to eat.  While not the one that Kevin remembered, we ended up eating (at my insistence) at Maria's Cocina where I had the best restaurant-cooked chile relleno I've ever had.  Their flan, however, left a lot to be desired, in my opinion.  Definitely not worth the extra blood sugar.

After dinner we retired to our motel, and rested happily after a day on the road.  One last note about Beaver, Utah.  Beaver (the city) is the county seat of Beaver County.  The High School is, predictably, Beaver High School, and what do you suppose their mascot is?  You got it, they're the Beaver High School Bandicoots.  Nope, just kidding.  They're the Beaver High School Beavers. Really now, doesn't anyone in the area have any imagination?

Evening skies over Beaver, Utah

10/25/2014

The Third Sunday Drive, Day One: Idaho

Yellow Composite growing alongside US 93, Lemhi County, Idaho

I'd see thousands more of these on the trip

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow, and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember and if you remember, then follow.
--Lyrics by Tom Jones

To hear Jerry Orbach sing this beautiful ballad from my favorite musical, The Fantasticks, click here.

I ask you now to remember why this blog is titled "If there were witchcraft."  I explained it all in the first post some 176 posts ago and who knows how many years, so I'll forgive you if you don't remember.  In a nutshell, the song we used to sing around the campfire names the two wishes I'd wish for, "if there were witchcraft."  Of those two, the first is a "winding road that beckons me to roam."  I've long had the feeling that in an ideal life, I'd have both the time and the money to travel the world, seeing wonderful sights, recording them with my camera(s), and sharing the experience through words and pictures with my friends (and anyone else who wants to come along).   What follows, therefore, is the story of a week-long drive circling through the Rocky Mountains and the western Great Plains.  On this trip we'll drive across Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and back where we began in Montana.  Day One is all about Idaho.

The fastest way to get from western Montana to Salt Lake City, my day one destination, is to stay on the interstate.  First I-90 heading toward Butte, then south on I-15 which is a direct line to Utah's capital city.  The fastest way, not the most scenic.  Instead I chose to drive south on US 93 through Montana's Bitterroot Valley, crossing into Idaho at Lost Trail Pass, then dropping down through Lemhi County to drive along the Salmon River with a stop at Salmon, Idaho for lunch.  From Salmon, I would continue on Idaho 28 through the Lemhi Valley until Idaho 33 would take me east to I-15 or even further east, should I so desire.  At some point I would merge onto I-15 and head South, but I may just choose to stay on what is left of US-91, the federal highwy that I-15 has largely supplanted.  Time would tell.

One-lane bridge spanning the Salmon River

Near North Fork, Idaho

I neither stopped nor took any pictures while driving through Montana's Bitterroot Valley.  This is my old home and while there's always something new, I felt no need to stop along the way, not till I reached Lost Trail Pass and stopped to take pictures of both the "Welcome to Idaho" sign and the "Entering Lemhi County" sign.  At some point I might make an Idaho portrait book, similar to my Glory of the West book of Montana counties, and if so, I want those county line signs.  I'll also want the county court house and some landscape shots, so driving south into Idaho I kept my eyes posed for scenic vistas.  While stopped at the pass, I couldn't help but notice the smokey smell to the air.  Both Idaho and Montana have been plagued with forest fires this year, and the smoke was particularly thick at the state-line.

U.S. Highway 93 drops rapidly from the pass (elevation 7,014 feet) to the town of Salmon (elevation 3,944 feet), some 46 miles to the south.  Along the way, the highway follows first the North Fork of the Salmon River then the Salmon itself.  The Salmon River is also known as The River of No Return as it crosses Idaho from east to west through the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.  There are also many natural hot springs in the area, but this was not the trip for me to sample their healing waters.

In the town of Salmon, I first sought out the Lemhi County Courthouse which, conveniently, was located right across the street from the Salmon United Methodist Church.  Followers of my photography know that two of my favorite subjects are court houses and Methodist Churches.  One stop allowed me to get both.  A visit to the Yelp application on my iPhone next led me to the Junkyard Bistro where I happily ordered the day's lunch special, The Grubber, which turned out to be a hot sandwich piled high with thinly shaved meat and lots of other goodies.  Of particular interest, although I myself did not order any, was the number of Vietnamese and other Asian dishes on the menu.  Not what I would expect in Salmon, Idaho.

The Lemhi Valley and their eastern boundary, the Bitterroot Mountains

I picked up a quick Geocache on the south side of Salmon, and drove through the Lemhi Valley at the speed limit.  On the entire trip I would see only three wild animals, and two of those were in Yellowstone Park.  Driving down Idaho 28, I passed a moose happily grazing in a swampy area.  Unfortunately, I passed him too quickly to stop and take his portrait.  It would be six days before I saw any other wildlife.

Idaho 28 took me out of Lemhi County into the eastern section of Clark County then across a very small corner of Butte County.  I had originally considered driving west through Butte County to its county seat, Arco, the world's first locale to be lit by nuclear power generated electricity.  Arco is also the town closest to the Craters of the Moon National Monument.  Much as I love the photographic possibilities in the Craters of the Moon, this trip was about heading south and east, so I forewent visiting Arco and continued on into first Jefferson then Madison counties, crossing I-25 en route. 

Idaho Highway 28 crossing Butte County

Madison County does not extend westward as far as I-25, and I had never been in the county before.  The county seat and largest city is Rexburg, home of BYU-Idaho (formerly known as Ricks College).  It is also home to a relatively new Mormon temple, dedicated on February 10, 2008.  As I am not Mormon, I felt this temple looked pretty much like every other Mormon temple I've seen, but according to Wikipedia, the Rexburg temple was designed not by church architects but by a private firm because "the church wished it to have a fresh new look."  As is usually the case, in my experience, the temple sits on a hill and is the most prominent feature on the eastern landscape as you drive into Rexburg.

Having shot the temple, as it were, I continued south, re-entering Jefferson County where I was unable to find the county court house in Rigby.  That is I found a building that certainly looked like a court house, and even had the words "Court House" inscribed in the marble above the front doors, but the grounds surrounding the building looked abandonned, and a sign in the window above the main doors read "Liberty Montessori Academy."  It was at this point that I learned the GPS Navigation system in my Saab does not necessarily consider county court houses a "Point of Interest."

The Rexburg (Idaho) Mormon Temple

Abandoning my search for a more modern (and ipso facto probably uglier) court house building, I caught I-25 and drove through Idaho Falls heading toward Pocatello and Salt Lake City.  I was running out of light, so further photographic efforts seemed foolish at best, and besides I was getting hungry and tired.  Yelp once again came to my rescue, and after filling the Saab's tummy in Pocatello, I stopped at Marhaba where I was greeted by Sanjay.  Sanjay asked my name, and thereafter always called me Bryan as he'd ask how the lamb curry was.  Delicious, by the way. 

Along the way I'd been listening to Sirius XM OutQ gay radio, and had heard an ad for a phone app called "Hotel Tonight."  I downloaded the app and sought a room in the greater Salt Lake area.  Hotel Tonight found me one on the south side of the city, and that's where I headed ending day one.  Total miles driven:  654