as in moscow, idaho. my friend wendy said moscow was one of her favorite places she'd ever lived so i had to make sure to see it at some point on this trip. if wendy liked it, it must be wonderful.
from billings i ended up heading west on the interstate. i didn't stop at any of the places i thought i might due to rain or water up to (and in two cases) over the road so i pushed on until i thought the rain was behind me and headed a bit south off of I-90 on Highway 1. It seemed quite benign and wasn't on any of the "you'd best turn around" reports. this first town i came to was anaconda. it was lovely enough with some spectacular mountains bordering it to the east but i didn't want to sleep in a town named for a snake so i kept on. there were two more towns on Highway 1 and numerous national forest campsites so i thought i was in good shape. i was seriously surprised, however, when Highway 1 turned into the most frightening road i'd been on yet. the creeks and lakes were up to the road and every single one of the national forest campsites was closed. i was going about 15 mph and i rounded a turn and came face to face with a wall of rock (on the right side of the highway, not ON the highway). i don't remember the right name for it despite having studied geology but it was the layer upon layer rock which you often see along the side of a road that's been cut through only in this case the striations weren't horizontal to the ground nor vertical - they were at a 45 degree angle to the earth - so much so that i was temporarily confused and tilted my head to the left thinking the whole earth was going to move and that i needed to keep up. with the road being as winding as it was, water water everywhere, this phenomenon caught me totally unaware. i slowed down even more due to the twists in the road even though i wanted to "punch it" and get out of there as quickly as possible. around the next bend i saw all kinds of rocks and mud and trees on the left hand side and brought the car virtually to a halt to look over and there had definitely been a major landslide in the past day or two which i later confirmed by reading the philipsburg mail (newspaper) in, you guessed it, philipsburg, montana. it was down Highway 1 about 30 miles even though it took me over an hour to get to it as i was travelling at 5 mph most of the way. even georgetown lake was up to the road. there was a really neat little "inn" just off the highway similar to the one in grey bull so i stopped and asked if there were any vacancies. imagine my surprise when two women who could have passed for a number of the wonderful people i had met owning and managing the inn. they had a vacancy and i crashed. the town seemed so nice and the paper said there were several good hiking areas and they had a forest service office so first thing yesterday i headed over to the forest service to get the maps to the hikes. well, wouldn't you know that the trailheads were all inaccessible other than one short nature hike that was less than a mile. then she said, "but you could go up to granite. it's a ghost town now but you could get a good hike in up there if you're in good shape. you'll need to watch for bears but that's about it." i asked her what kind of bear and she said mostly black bears but there'd been a report of a grizzly or two in the area. that was all i needed to hear - bear spray and all. so i drove up to the ghost town (which was very cool by the way - there was one brick and stone building that reminded me of pompei but also of an old schoolhouse ali and i had fallen in love with in missouri. in fact, i'm pretty sure it could be fixed up although the road up to the ghost town left a lot to be desired. from there i decided to just make the best use of my time and did laundry for an hour and a half or so. then i went back to the inn ($50/night - can't beat that) and sat outside my room, facing the west and the sunset, and read. (if you haven't read "the lemon tree" by sandy tolan i highly recommend it. in fact, i think it should be required reading in high school.) around 8:30 i turned in for the evening, reading some more and then sorting the car. it had gotten a bit hodge podge in the past 17 days. i can't believe i've been gone 17 days.
i left philipsburg (which really was a great town - one i could live in) and took Highway 1 over to 90 and was grateful to have avoided any "fallen rock" according to one slide and evidence supporting "watch for slides." i checked in at glacier and they said the road remain closed once you got a few miles in on either side and cj said that as great as glacier is, it wasn't worth the time to drive all that way to only get to see 15 miles of it. that i could go another time and crater lake was pretty great too and that one should be plenty accessible. so, i drove over toward wallace, idaho as quite a few people told me it was really a cool town (including the owner of the Inn in which i stayed) and that it had a terrific "rails to trails" network for cycling or hiking. well, when i got there, the "trails" were asphalt pavement and i just didn't want to do that. i wanted something more back country and not so tame. i stopped at the visitor center and they pointed me in the direction of several other trails. i asked about bear sighting and they said there hadn't been any in a few years so i thought i'd leave the bear spray in the car. when i got to the forest service sign, there were a few folks sitting there smoking. i asked them if they knew where the trailheads were and one may answered "just up the road a piece." fyi: whenever someone you don't know in an area you aren't familiar with says "just up the road a piece," try to pin them down a little more. i drove and drove and drove and, other than an ATV cut off i didn't see any trail heads. anyway, i told the guy thanks and he said "you've got your pistol, right?" i asked him why. . . had bear been sighted and he said 3 in a week and that he'd seen one himself. i asked if they were black or grizzly or what and he said cinnamon. i still don't know what that is but will look it up. i told him i didn't have a pistol but i had an industrial can of bear spray, guaranteed to work unless, of course, you sprayed it in the wrong direction. he ended by saying, "it's all montana's fault. they're still covered in so much snow, the bear are having to come here to find food." i wanted to say something about the snow in idaho but i just kept my mouth closed and kept going.
what i'm going to share next is a PSA although most of you who read this blog are far more intelligent and, more importantly have far more common sense than me. i knew that i only had to give one quick push to test it. i knew not to be downwind or where the spray - direct or dispersed - could reach any other people or animals, etc. i got behind the big forest service sign and gave a real quick and short push on the trigger. what i didn't expect was a force similar to turning on the bathroom sink and getting the volume of a fire hydrant pouring out. i immediately said "whoa - and then, that should take care of any kind of predator. that said, i apparently breathed in some of the bear spray when i said that as i crossed from behind the sign to the front, my right eye wouldn't open and it hurt like hell, it was hard to breathe and the right side of my face felt funny. i could not believe it. i thought i'd done everything right and i thought for a few minutes i wouldn't be able to do the hike. so i sat there and just waited and, after about 30 minutes, i was good to go even though my face still burned. it was a very nice four mile hike. much of it uphill. but, before that, i went "up the road apiece" and ended up turning around when i reached the guy on the snow plow. the snow melt was already falling like crazy into the stream and i never did find another trailhead other than one which was right by the snow plow. so i headed back down to where the "watch out for bears" guy had been and took that hike. i thought it was going to be too easy but it was almost all uphill and went past some beautiful, beautiful scenery and i learned about the great fire of 1910 which burned over 3,000,000 acres and a guy named pulanski who now has a firefighting tool named after him. i remembered what the forest ranger in buffalo had told me - if there's a small creek or trickle you have to pass on your way in, just remember that it will be much larger when you come out due to the warm temperatures (it was in the high 70s while i was on my hike). thankfully i was able to get through them just fine on the way back.
i had my bear spray at the ready - safety lock off, product tested, and had it hooked onto my backpack and where i could reach it immediately - in fact i kept my thumb on the trigger most of the time. the manual also said to be alert to my surroundings - not to keep looking at the ground. after a while i had to ask myself, "would you rather risk looking up and around for bear" or would you rather fall off the side and break your neck for not looking up and being alert? i tried to do a combination but, in all honesty, i was looking at the path and the drop down more than i was being alert to critters in the forest. i saw no bear. i saw 7 other people in two different groups. none of them even had backpacks but i chalked it up to their being so young. i also noted in the register at the trailhead that there was someone there yesterday from austin. small small world.
on the way to wallace from montana i told myself that i was somehow going to do a hike in montana. the nearer i closed in on the idaho border, the more i considered all my options. finally i saw a pull out for the cyr river. even though some of the hike was on flat ground, there were also 50 steps to the boat launch area so i climbed them 5 times to start the circulation. then i hiked up and down the unpaved road for about an hour. i saw what i thought to be a loon but i also thought "this can't be a loon, i didn't think they came this far south and i never saw its mate and i'm told they mate for life so maybe it was just an imposter. hanes was a little upset with me, too. in the photo of him above, he thought it said lunch area - he was quite disappointed to see the "a" before the "u" on second glance.
anyway, with wallace being so touristy, i decided to leave and head to the national forest on lake couer d'alene. i found it while it was still daylight and drove the 3 miles (at 15 mph due to road conditions) to the camping area. from the looks of things, i didn't expect anyone to be there but there WERE other people and they were all in RVs - i'd have been the only one in a tent and i was cool with that but i was not cool with the sign upon entry that had a sign that read "be aware of bears!" and also one that was handwritten - i suppose by the camp host - that read: "Warning - coyotes have recently been spotted in the camping area. there was only one spot left at this amazing remote and beautiful area but i decided to leave. i have become irrationally afraid of bears and, knowing why doesn't make the fear any better. so, from there i headed toward moscow but hoped for another campsite on the way. there weren't any others so i ended up driving all the way to moscow, arriving around 11 or so. got a room at a $48/ night motel (the "inn" in philipsburg had been all of $50) and plan on crashing soon. but i got in two hikes today and it feels really good.
another note: when i was hiking in wallace today, in between being alert to bears, not breaking my ankle on the path and watching the path, i totally forgot about the possibility of running into other critters. but i did, i saw two snakes (don't know the type yet) and a chipmunk. the guy in the parking lot who told me about the bears also told me there weren't any other possible threats out there. i wanted to catch the snake (i could tell they weren't poisonous) and take them to him upon my return. hanes would have nothing of it and threatened to leave me if i even came close to picking up the snake so i carried on. once i got back to the car, i could really feel my leg muscles having been used and i wondered how those who climb denali and everest and the alpsin the himalayas and other countries do it. i have immense respect for them.
so, i found myself singing "cinnamon girl" most of the way, with my finger on the trigger of the bear spray (almost got fido with it once but didn't as his owner was right around the corner and called him back.) very clearly had some pit bull in him and he was having none of my "attitude" of being friendly but not making the first move toward him. as the trail progressed up and up and up i got a little tired and, at one point, almost shot the bear spray instead of pushing the button on the camera. like my brain gets mixed up a lot and i'll write "2" instead of the letter "R". i'll also roll down the window instead of turning on a signal . . . not sure why that is.
there were some little towns between here and wallace that were absolutely stunning. i would like to do that route in the opposite direction but seeing as how it took me almost 3 hours to go under 50 miles i knew that wasn't an option for a day. i had no idea the panhandle of idaho is as spectacular as it is. i could live here except for the 15 foot poles every few feet along the road which, i learned, are to serve as markers so the snow plow drivers know where the road is so they don't go over it. you couldn't pay me enough money to do that job nor to be a member of the road crew in wyoming. i hope those guys and gals are well paid.
tomorrow it's over to ellensburg to see my friend lisa - unless i find some great hike or adventure on the way. she's very flexible as to arrival day and time but i'm pretty sure it will be tomorrow. as i sat and watched the sunset somewhere between wallace and moscow i was amazed at the color changes and the snow on top of the mountains turning pink then purple and also by the colors and shadows on the various lakes. the national geographic map does not do this scenic route justice.
signing off half asleep. i am so grateful for the opportunity to do this trip.
over and out and peace from idaho.
i'll leave you with this quote from "the lemon tree" . . . "if national interest comes before our common humanity, then there is no hope for redemption, there is no hope for healing, there is no hope for transformation, there is no hope for healing."
let's all strive to find that common humanity and truly act upon it. no matter what the differences are. we're all just people, after all. with so much damage done in the name of "religion" and in such total conflict with what the great messengers came to say - jesus, mohammed, buddha, and untold others. the nonsense just has to stop - these are peoples' children, mothers, brothers, fathers, sisters who are dying and who continue to fight for they know not what for in many cases.
we can change things, one by one.
p.s. all these photos (about 1/100th of the ones i took) were taken with my phone. there are some much better ones on my camera which is still in the car and i'm not going to go get it tonight.
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