Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

The next leg of the trip began in Caldwell, Idaho.  I was joined on this length of the trip by Marsha and my Dad in his truck as compatriot/support vehicle.  When I described the relative desolation of Eastern Oregon it has nothing on the bulk of Idaho.  Idaho has the most remote areas in the lower 48 and some of the most forbidding terrain.  To be able to maintain my goal of riding state highways and experiencing the country to its fullest I needed back up.  My old man was willing to take the plunge and join in.



White Bird Hill Lookout

We originally planned to portage the bike in the back of his truck and I would ride the interesting stretches of highway and would cruise in the truck for the hot, flat, straight and boring segments.  Well, I knew that he had a new truck, but it didn’t really occur to either of us that the new truck was six inches higher than his old truck.  And the old truck was difficult to get a bike in the back.  Add to that limited familiarity with ramps and we were not in the best of situations.  We tried to load the bike up and ended up dropping the bike and smashing my leg.  I immediately injured everyone’s feelings in a thirty foot radius and put the kibosh on the idea.

If we had difficulty putting a fully functioning motorcycle in the back of the truck on flat ground in ideal conditions, putting the bike in the back of the truck in less than ideal conditions probably wouldn’t happen.  My dad suggested hooking up the toy trailer but I am averse to trailers.  I made the call that I was going to ride the whole way.  My dad, being the former Boy Scout who raised me, the gear junkie, still brought the ramp along.

White Bird Hill

One of the primary compromises that came about with having a four-wheeled vehicle in the caravan was the route.  We took a lot more of the straight, hot, flat, boring highways in consideration of the Chevy 2500 trailing in my wake. 

Our first stop was Orofino in North Central Idaho.  There are two routes north to New Meadows, where they converge.  My favorite route is to head east and then north through Cascade, Donnelly and McCall.  I love McCall and it is a gorgeous route.  It is also much busier and slower.  The other route is west back to Oregon and north through Weiser, Cambridge and Council.  I don’t like Weiser.  I never have.  It is a pathological dislike and I can’t explain it.  It is also a faster, easier route, especially for a truck.  We went through Weiser.  Have I mentioned I dislike Weiser?

I did get to see that Council is continuing the grand tradition of Fourth of July Porcupine Races.  For whatever reason (like I was constantly working and never took days off) I have always missed out on the Porcupine Races.  Molly has always wanted to go but it just hasn’t happened.  I also cruised by our old Morel Mushroom hunting grounds.  No, I won’t tell you where.  Here’s a hint – it is somewhere between Caldwell and New Meadows on Highway 95.  Good luck! 

This day was not very fun

There is a fun stretch of mountain highway between Council and New Meadows before you hit the high plains.  When you arrive in New Meadows, Highway 95 and 55 merge and 95 runs due north from New Meadows through Riggins to White Bird. 

Riggins bottoms out at 1800 feet elevation and is the gateway to the Salmon River.  Remember when I was talking about forbidding wilderness and desolation?  The Salmon River is also known as The River of No Return and The Frank Church Wilderness Area is the largest unspoiled wilderness region in the contiguous United States.  Not a place you want to break down in.  My favorite way to describe it is you can drop a pin in the center of the wilderness area, map a radius of nearly 50 miles in any direction, and there is nothing.  No towns, road, or access of pretty much any kind. 

Heading north from Riggins, you have a steep climb up White Bird Hill.  It is a ten-fifteen mile stretch with a relatively consistent grade of 4-5%.  It doesn’t feel like much but when you stop at the lookout, you have gained some serious altitude above the valley.  There is a nifty memorial about the Nez Perce Tribe massacring a US Calvary Regiment and the brief but bloody conflict that ensued.  In this part of the country, a Native American Population wasn’t considered legit if they hadn’t offed an Army unit of some kind.  There is a lot of gruesome history to be learned when you leave the freeways behind.

Nez Perce made their Bones

We descended through the pass into Grangeville.  This particular section of Idaho really goes against expectation.  You have travelled through high desert, dove down into the Salmon River Canyon, climbed back out up Whitebird Hill, and what do you find?  Wheat, grain and feed fields.  You are now in a high mountain valley that is stuffed to the gills with agriculture and more importantly, it is still going strong.  The fields run right up to the edge of the mountains and in some cases, abuts the forest itself. 

We reached Kamiah, which is my Dad’s happy place.  It is a place of family, sanctuary and adventure.  For him it holds cherished memories his whole life.  While it doesn’t hold nearly the emotional significance to me as it does my father, it was good to see how things have changed.  To be honest, one of my earliest memories is getting my head stuck in the steering wheel of the old International tractor.

My old enemy, I see the years have taken a toll

I parked the bike for a bit and hopped in the truck.  We headed up to the Lamm Family farm in Woodland.  From there we toured the area and confirmed that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  My old man pointed out Carrot Road, a nasty piece of work that was a shortcut to Orofino.  I didn’t need to ride a glorified gravel two track down the back of a mountain and was happy to head back to Kamiah and go the long way round.  FYI – I am not adverse to leaving the pavement, but going down a 6-7% winding gravel grade for fifteen miles is no one’s idea of a good time.  I would be interested in going up it, but that wasn’t an option.

Looking over the valley

I hopped back on the bike and we took the last leg of the day north on Highway 12 to Orofino.  It was very hot out and the entire populations of Kamiah, Greer and Orofino were playing in the Clearwater River.  Did I mention it was hot out?  Kamiah was 106 degrees and when we arrived in Orofino, it was 110 degrees.  I have black riding gear.  It was hot.  If I wasn’t in a caravan, there is a good chance that I would have stopped at one of the beaches, stripped down, and gone swimming in my boxers.  This was by far the hottest leg of the entire trip.

We arrived in Orofino and stopped at Dennis and Lane’s place.  I hadn’t seen D&L in ages and it was great to catch up.  They have a technological palace built semi off-the-grid (I ruined that now!) and it is gorgeous.  They were kind enough to feed me glass upon glass of water as we went back and forth on the pool table.  Dennis felt I was abusing his cues with my break.  He was probably right.

We all headed into town for dinner and afterwards drove up to Dworshak (pronounced just like the Czech Composer) Reservoir.  There was a small forest fire and we watched the pontoon plane scooping up water and dumping in the fire.  The dam was also running into the Clearwater River.  I got some great video of the pontoon plane dumping water back into the reservoir.  I had been regaled by Tim and Liz’s little boy about the adventures of Dusty the Forest Fire Fighter Prop Plane and was ecstatic to get the video.  I paid for my art – I had to use heavy zoom on my little point and shoot camera which required draping myself over a basalt boulder and using it to steady the camera.  Did I mention it was hot out?