Friday, Sept. 12

Started the journey from Montana, through Idaho and Nevada on the way to Moab. Went through Hamilton, in the Bitterroot valley. The Bitterroots might not be a half bad place to live! There is a large, long, lush green valley with spectacular mountains on either side. I guess it did storm a little last night as there's a LOT of snow on Trapper Peak this morning. Am now sitting at Lost Trail Pass, 7000 feet, between MT and ID in a little snow storm writing this. Awesome!

Arg! This is what happens when I don't read the travel books ahead of time - I miss "opportunities." When I went through Hamilton, I missed the Ravalli County Museum where they have an entire room devoted to the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever tick and 2 foot model of the tick. No free samples. I screwed up again and missed it!

I'm now entering Idaho. The 1938 WPA Guide To Idaho describes the section of US 93 I'm taking as follows: "miles of beautiful mountains, ranging from soft flanks voluptuously mounded to the lean and glittering majesty of the toothed backbones." Huh?

Well at any rate it's damn pretty! North Fork, Challis, Clayton (Pop. 26) were all towns along the way. Idaho's own "Royal Gorge" was pretty spectacular. My plan worked - leave Montana a day early in the hopes of driving out of the clouds. Today is cold (48) but brilliant sunshine. Pulled into a commercial campground about 12 miles from where I want to wheel tomorrow - the Yankee Fork Historic area - hundreds of old mines and - YES! - old mining roads! Tried to get supper at the restaurant associated with the campground but the waitress seemed VERY confused. In fact, asking for a steak sandwich with NO mushrooms yielded a steak sandwich WITH mushrooms 45 minutes later! Yeech!

Saturday, Sept. 13

Well, there was frost on the pumpkin last night, 22 degrees! I elected to move to a closer camp, Basin Creek, an NFS campground. MUCH nicer - and cheaper $5 vs $24. Screwing around deciding where to move, moving and getting situated killed a few hours but is was worth it! Am overlooking Basin Creek and a few hundred yards away is the Salmon River. Excellent!

8 AM, decided to explore. Colder than a witch's whatever but I'll be damned if I'm gonna wheel out here with the top up!

First run - up the creek. What! 6,000 feet and miles away from anything - a gold dredge! Yup. This thing is bigger than a couple houses. I love the west - always surprises.

The hot springs were pretty neat, especially at 22° air temperature.

Now (12 noon,) I took off on a 120 mile loop, the Loon Creek Loop. Loon Creek is nowhere to be found but hey, who cares? It warmed up and I even shed the first two layers of clothing.

Drove past the Sawtooths (or is it Sawteeth??) At any rate, they are just as pretty as the Tetons and don't have the crowds or yuppies. Today is great!

The trail I'm on is a 300' wide corridor within the River of No Return wilderness. It's great they did this, but I guess they had to for fire access and for the lookout. I think the River of No Return wilderness is the largest wilderness area in the lower 48.

Long, long drive but scenic as can be. Here's just one of the many surprises along the way, 10,000 foot Pinyon Peak.

When I saw the outhouse held down with cables also, I assumed it must get pretty windy up here.

And a few hours later, here is where I was.

So I got back after a 6 hour drive and there was this road across from the creek and the camper that was calling my name. Tired? Yes! Low on fuel? Yes! Hungry? Yes! What the hell, I'm on vacation! Spent the next hour or so driving on roads that were not on any map. Had a great time and need to return here and complete the trip but I was starving!

Got back to camp, cooked a pork shop and baked potato. Washed it down with a goodly helping of burgundy and watched the sun set on the hills ahead of me. Low and behold, a car full of teenagers show up and proceeded to go the the 45° creek, take off their clothes, wash and "frolic" in the creek! Ah, to be young again. Welllllll..........

In for the night now, finishing this tirade about 8 PM and running on 12 volt batteries as this campground has no power. (Not bad. With the computer, TV and furnace running, only drawing 35 amps!) Set up the satellite and will watch a little TV and look out at the poor bastards in their tents as they freeze their collective arses off tonight. Gawd, I love roughing it!

Sunday, Sept. 14

Cold last night, 15°. Incredible sunrise over the mountains. Got going at 8 AM after persuading the engine to start. My buddy (the owner of the campground the night before) apparently didn't like me moving to a better spot. As he passed me on the highway he waved vigorously to me. I also waved at him in return. Seemed like the polite thing to do.

Drove through the Sawtooth Valley. The valley is wide with mountains on both sides and the Salmon River meandering through it. One could spot houses in the foothills by the smoke from the wood fires used to heat their homes. Got up on the hill and tried to capture the beauty of the valley but failed miserably. Trust me, this was MUCH better in person! This view is of the headwaters of the "River of No Return," the Salmon.

I screwed up and lost track of the days - or at least planning on what day to do what. I thought I had enough time to take a scenic drive through the hills of Northeastern Nevada, around Jackpot, and drive through the mountains around Ely, but just realized I have to meet Joe tomorrow in Moab and have over 800 miles to go. Oh my!

And within a few miles, just on the south end of Ketchup, the trees, mountains, and clear running streams are gone. It has quickly turned into a seemingly lifeless desert made up of hundreds of square miles of coal black lava. What an abrupt change.

Went though the Ketchum/Sun Valley area on the way (not my choice.) Whoa. Houses that defy description. At the airport there must have been 20 private jets. I guess this is the home of the rich and famous. Time to move on!

Sprint apparently caters to the rich and famous as I've only had cell service a few days out of the entire trip. But for 15 minutes, in this expensive area, Sprint was there is all it's glory. Quickly made a few phone calls and then the service, as usual, disappeared.

Twin Falls. The Snake River. Nice place! Evel Kneval (sp?) did his motorcycle jump over the Snake not far from here. South of Twin Falls it almost looks like Iowa. Corn fields, beans, hay, farms, even trees - but it's all due to irrigation. Now on to Jackpot, Nevada.

At Jackpot, was going to take a 100 mile loop drive here but no time, will hold off for another trip. Stopped along the side of the road in a scenic area between a couple of mountain ranges and had lunch. Didn't realize it but I'm now in the Pacific Time Zone. This is great - I get another hour of sunshine :)

Headed south on 93 from Wells to Ely. 130 miles of NOTHING. No towns, no passes, no nothing. They say Hwy 50 is the "Loneliest Road in America." BS! There are towns about every 70 miles and mountain passes. It's a nice road, really! But this stretch of 93 really sucks. It's between two mountain ranges and in a valley. No spectacular scenery, just sagebrush. You drive for two solid hours without seeing anything worthwhile or exciting. My vote for the loneliest road goes to 93!

Shot through Ely and headed to the Great Basin National Park for the night. The park is somewhere up there.

Got in late - about 7 PM (PST didn't help at all!) and drove 5 miles on a gravel road. Got to the campground and had a helluva time finding a site large enough. Finally fit in with my ass hanging way into the street. Too bad. I'm dusty and tired. 470 miles today. Somehow, an incredible amount of dust filtered into the coach. I couldn't see to the back, on the inside, it was so thick. Arg! Later found the trap door to the engine had a small rock wedged in it and let the dust in. I put foam insulation around to seal the lid and bolted the damn thing down. Will see if it works tomorrow on the way down. Spent an hour cleaning up the dust. Now making a pizza, drinking beer and am finishing this for the night. Good night!

Drove up to the 10,000' level by 8:30 AM. Wheeler Peak (appropriately named) was awesome. I know I've used that term a lot, but it's true - there are just so many spectacular things on this trip.

The morning fog had not yet lifted but this will give you some idea of the view on the way down (at about 7,000'). This whole area is a basin - water checks in, it doesn't check out. There is no drainage to any ocean. The water collects in low areas and then evaporates or soaks into the ground. The lay of the land is mountain range, then a basin, then a mountain range, then a basin - get the idea?

So headed west on US 50. Crowded today, 2 cars in 30 minutes. Several F-14s or whatever flew overhead at about 1000'. Sure got my attention. More jets in the sky than vehicles on the road - yes!

Amazing how much prettier nothing is when you are awake and alert rather than tired and anxious to find a place to camp, like yesterday.

Great day, 82° but feels a LOT warmer. US 50 and US 6 are the same road here. The route paralleling US 6 is where the first transcontinental telephone line was run. Even today, every 60 -100 miles or so one can see the repeater buildings for the cable. And yes, this is the same Route 6 that runs just south of the Chicago area, near Starved Rock and that area.

So for the last 1/2 hour have seen this silver "thing" in the distance, the Sevier Lake. Got closer and had to see what a desert lake is. Found a rocky 2 track to the "lake" and proceeded down it with the motor home, 6-wheeling - now THAT was interesting! Got to a point of no return and decided to turn the motor home around and take the Jeep the rest of the way. Unhooked the Jeep and off I went (at high speed) - right into the"lake" which is a mixture of sand and mud. Judging by the tracks, others had been there also. Moving along, I was about 1 mile from the motor home when I stopped to get this photo. (The motor home is the little white spot way in the distance!) As I walked, I sunk about 6" into the sand/mud mix. Maybe time to go. Oops - 2 wheel high, just spinning the rear wheel. Lock the hubs. 4 wheel high - now I have one front and one rear spinning. Turn on the air lockers. Now the engine doesn't have enough power to turn all four wheels. 4 wheel low. Finally moving, but very slowly. Perhaps time to head back to "shore." Then it dawned on me that I'd need about 1 mile of winch cable to attach to the nearest solid object (the motor home) to winch out. Of course burying the spare and using that as a winch point would be too much manual labor. At any rate, got out and had a great time wheeling in Sevier Lake

Shot through the rest of Utah. This is the I70 route as it descends from the San Rafael Swell. Doc and I had a swell time here a few years ago (click here for the gory details.)

Got in about 4 PM, the BLM site was filled so wound up at a commercial campground. Moab is surprisingly busy, most campgrounds are full, as there are a lot of tours and family reunions going on. Drove around and found Joe, found Gray Fox, went to supper and had a lot of 3.2 beer. Life is good.

What a difference in weather. From 17° a few days ago to 88°, the high yesterday. Time to turn on the air instead of the furnace.

Will try for a primitive camp site tomorrow at Goose Island but for now must conclude this chapter and head to bed. The next chapter will detail the follies of the subsequent days.

Click here for the next Chapter.