100930 Salmon, Idaho

ATVs – Thursday we got in Marcia’s ATV, including Marcia's dog Suzie [Suzie waiting for us to go, left], and drove over to her neighbor Val’s. From there Val led us on her ATV up a trail into the mountains east of their neighborhood. We drove by an active gold mine, which I'd never seen before. We went up into the mountains (not far) and stopped at a pretty place by a creek and had a picnic lunch. Stopped by an abandoned cabin and took some pictures. Marcia suggested this cabin could be my new Idaho base camp! Val kept looking out for, and talking about, bears seen in the area. We didn't see any. But she had brought her gun, for protection, in case we needed it.
Hot Springs – After we got back, Marcia, Val, and I went up to the hot springs only about 30 miles from Marcia's. It was great being there at night, with the Milky Way and gazillions of stars overhead. They mix the hot water from the springs with cold water, so you can stand to be in it. But it's still hot, and I was popping in and out, getting warm, getting cool.

Yurt - Friday We picked up Val and went into town for a couple errands. Stopped at the fudge store and I got a few necessary things. :-) We stopped by Marge's on the way. It was great seeing Marge. Then Val, Marcia, and I drove over to their friend Sharon’s place about 30 miles north of Salmon. Before we saw anything else, we saw where the hole in her son's yurt had been repaired, from when the bear's claws ripped it! Impressive. I’m so glad I got to meet Sharon. I love her yurt, her life “off the grid”. It’s so great to know it can be done so elegantly. She has more room in her charming yurt than I do in my RV, actually. And it stays warm in the wintertime, heated by her wood stove. She says she actually has more trouble with it getting too warm than too cold in the wintertime. Her son lives nearby, and chops wood for her. She has a garden, a composting toilet, and only goes into town a couple times a month in the wintertime. Her vehicle is a RV (Class B, van chassis) that she traveled around with, and lived in, for years. So we had a lot to talk about. :-)

Bill's Tour - As always I am having a delightful visit with Marcia. Saturday we went on Bill's Tour. Her friend Bill played tour guide for Marcia, their friend Molly, and me on a day-long drive, through a couple of valleys and over a couple of mountain ranges. Well, Marcia actually did the driving. We’ve had five days in a row of 80-degree weather – very unusual for this time of year, but we're all loving it! I loved the drive. We stopped at a local fish hatchery, which was interesting. I learned a lot about Chinook salmon spawning. We saw the runway in the middle of nowhere for some rancher's 727. Loved driving over the passes. We got as high as 8300 feet at Double Springs Pass. We saw Mount Borah, the highest mountain in Idaho (12,600 feet); it still had some snow on it from the snow they had in the mountains on Sep. 9th. We stopped and had a picnic lunch at the top of the first pass we went over. We stopped at the earthquake scarp from a 1983 earthquake here that killed two children in Challis. Loved driving through the Salmon River Valley. With all the cottonwoods turned golden, it was an especially beautiful drive. We stopped and had another picnic lunch at a park on the Salmon River, near the river, with yellow cottonwoods all around us. Both picnics were special. I love the mountains around here - so many different colors, shapes, and patterns. Bill is an amateur geologist, so he explained to us about the calderas in the area, and we stopped and saw ripples in a rock cliff where the rock used to be under water (all of the Salmon River Valley used to be under a huge lake). I especially appreciated that he showed us a spot where you could plainly see the 6-10-inch layer of ash in the dirt, from the explosion of Mount Mazama (Crater Lake’s volcano) 10,000 years ago. When Mount Mazama exploded and Crater Lake was created, ash covered everything for hundreds of miles around. The layer of pumice and ash was ten feet thick around Mount Mazama, and as much as 3 inches thick way up in British Columbia. Here it was 6-10 inches thick, and you could plainly see it where the road cut through the hillside.

Smoke - Marcia and I drove up the Salmon River Valley on Sunday, but ran into smoke from a prescribed burn that the Forest Service had set, reportedly to clean out dead trees. By dinner time, the smoke was at Marcia's place, and I was glad I was leaving the next morning. My last evening in Salmon, there were scattered showers on all sides of us, and a smoke-enhanced sunset. I sat outside and just listened to the birds and watched the sky and the play of sun and shadows against the mountains for a long time.

I would like to stay longer, but feel I need to be moving on, as it’s already getting down below freezing some nights in North Dakota. And Monday the weather isn’t going to be as good, some rain in the forecast, so it’s a good day to move on.

I'm going to be doing some sight-seeing, but mostly I'm going to be visiting with family in North Dakota and Minnesota for the next month, so I don't expect to be posting regularly here for awhile.