I thought I might want to post a few of the pictures we took along the way on our trip up through Montana and back through Idaho. Much of the scenery we got to see on that trip was quite beautiful and what people think of when they think of Idaho and Montana. The drive up from Idaho Falls to Helena Montana was more like the sagebrush country of north eastern California, rolling hills and few trees. Needless to say I didn't get any pictures of that.
These first two pictures were taken in Glacier National Park up by St. Mary's Lake and along the road over Logan Pass. The next one is of Two Medicines Lake also in Glacier. There was a storm blowing in that day and having some clouds in the pictures probably was a good thing but little did we know that we were about to get rained on. We camped that night but after that the next 2 nights we had to get motel rooms. One night we stayed in Sand Point Idaho at Days Inn where the staff could not get their wireless internet working which was a problem for me.
The next night we stayed in McCall Idaho and that was a much nicer stay even though that little town is a major tourist trap.
In driving down through Idaho we passed by Lewiston Idaho and that picture of the town is of Lewiston taken from the scenic overlook coming in from the north.
After we left McCall we went to an area where I had been before over 20 years ago when it was on fire. We first went by the old fire which hadn't grown back very well in 20 years, I might add. We also went to another hot spring where we had gone to do our laundry when we were on that fire, called Boiling Springs. There is an old Guard Station there that wasn't used back then and now seems to be rented out in the summer. We walked in to see it and luckily the folks who had rented it weren't there. We took a round about way of getting there to begin with and this next picture I took
looking back up the valley we had driven down coming from McCall.
The main object of this leg of the journey was to visit Silver Creek Plunge, which is where we had the best fire camp I ever stayed in. This place is run on a Forest Service Permit and back in the 80's when I was on that fire, they must have taken the whole place over to use it as a fire camp. I don't remember there being any tourists then, so it must have been closed to public use during the fire.
It costs a whopping $8 each to soak in the pool so we stayed in there for almost 2 hours. It was quite relaxing and the water was nice and warm but not hot. They say the temperature of the pool is 100° but the hot water coming in is a little warmer so we hung out where it came in most of the time. After soaking there we found a little place to camp along Silver Creek. It was a cold night with temps in the high 30's in the morning which made breaking camp a little uncomfortable.
Once we left there we drove back through Lowman, Stanley, and went into Challis to see that town. There were some more hot springs along the way, one right along the highway next to the Salmon River so we stopped to check it out. The cold water mixing with the hot water at the river's edge made it an interesting place to dip your feet. It was hard to find just the right mix to be hot but not too hot and not too cold. As you can see, there are some small pools that people have built there but all we did was soak our feet. A couple was sitting in another pool but I tried to keep them out of the picture for the most part.
Over by Challis Idaho we found a place where the Indians used to drive bison over the cliff to kill them and I was a little surprised that it was so mountainous. I had always thought of buffalo as being creatures of the plains so the thought that they were here in the mountains was something I was a little surprised about. But then I guess they are also indigenous to Yellowstone, which is also in the mountains...
So I took almost 200 pictures on that trip but these are only the few I want to post. Next week we head for Washington DC and during that trip we are going to Ireland to see Edie. Many more pictures to come.
Today we took a short drive out toward Arco to a trail that goes out through the lava beds. It's a BLM site and they marked the trail with sticks stuck where ever they could stick them and painted blue ends on them. Quite an interesting way to mark a trail. I say "trail" but there was really no trail at all since the lava is not forgiving enough to make any kind of trail in. As long as you followed the blue sticks, you could navigate but there was no other indication of where to walk.
temperature today was in the high 80's to low 90's and it is dry out there so seeing ferns growing so well was a stark contrast to the cactus and bare rock.
contrasted with the rock. I didn't take any wildflower pictures But I did take one of the cactus which looks like prickly pear or beavertail. Junipers were the only trees we found there along with some brush species I recognized and some I didn't.
