Heise Hot Springs

We took a drive yesterday out to Heise Hot Springs. That's pronounced Hi-C. The hot springs out there are very commercialized and they have a swimming pool, RV parks, picnic areas, campgrounds, you name it. It costs $8 to use the pool, another $1 to use the hot pool, another $1 to use the slide which looked like fun, or you can pay $15 per person to get everything. There were lots of people and it was a very popular place and not like the hot springs I usually like to go to. Needless to say it was a nice day to visit since it was nice and warm and sunny most of the day. It was a good thing we went yesterday because it's been raining on and off all day today and it's pouring down right now so not a good day to be out driving around.

After we left the hot springs we drove out along the Snake River and followed the road all the way to the end. That was a nice ride and again there were lots of people camping along the river and ATV's running all over the place but still it was nice to be out of town. The picture we took up the river about half way to the end. There were lots of fishermen in boats and on the shore but I never got to see anyone land one. And I didn't take any pictures of the hot springs but then I didn't see too many things to take pictures of there anyway.

Lava beds

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.

One of the cool things we found out there which neither of us expected was that there were little fern gardens in some of the cracks in the lava flows. There must be enough moisture down there for them to grow because they were doing very well as you can see in the pictures. The 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.

We had taken our bikes out there but that country is not made for bike riding so we left them at my truck while we took this walk through the rocks. Some of the cracks in the lava flows are really deep and we had to be careful with the dogs since they could have gotten hurt if they had fallen into any of them.

All in all it was a nice day and there were some nice wildflowers still blooming out on the lava which really 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.

Bike riding in town

We decided to take a little bike ride around the green belt today and it was certainly a nice day to do it. Karen is getting better with her bike but she's still a little over cautious. I guess she should be since she is still healing from her broken ankle. Nevertheless she did great and even climbed a few of the little hills on this ride today with no problems.

The green belt trail is paved all the way up to the College campus at Freeman park so we went all the way up there this time.

There is one spot where the trail has to take a float trip under a bridge on the Snake river. It is kind of a cool place if you ask me, none of the trails I have ever ridden go across water. This part of the trail is only open in the summer and due to the increased water flow during the winter and spring, it is closed during those times.

On the way back we went through old town and stopped at the Great Harvest bakery and had a sandwich. They have good sandwiches there as we found out today in addition to the great bread they make at that place. It was nice that we didn't have any trouble finding a place to park since we were on our bikes. Ya gotta love bike riding... Yeah! Oh, the ride today turned out to be 9.3 miles which neither one of us thought was correct but that's what my gps said. We'll check it next time we do that one.

Our trip up north...

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.

Mann Gulch pictures

I put up my pictures that I took at Mann Gulch and here is the link to them. Mann Gulch We have things to do to get ready to travel to Washington DC so I better get going to do them...

Mann Gulch

Karen and I just got back from a trip up to Montana to Mann Gulch and then we went to Glacier National Park and then came back down the panhandle of Idaho and visited a hot spring I went to years ago when I was on a fire up there.

My visit to Mann Gulch was a dream come true for me since I had read so much about the fatalities there that happened in 1949. There were 13 smoke jumpers who died there and each one has a cross where they found his body on the hillside. I tried to take pictures of each of them but only found 12 of the 13. I must have missed it but the slope was steep and it was a long hike in there and I didn't have much time to look since we had taken the tour boat and we had a tight time frame to catch the last one of the day out of there. Karen made it to the ridge but I left her there and went by myself down into the gulch.

The second picture is one I took from near the bottom looking up slope to where the fatalities occurred. There had been a recent fire up there and you can see the burned spot at the top of the ridge and most of the crosses were in that general area but below it. The whole gulch is nothing like it used to be back in 1949, most of the trees were burned and it is almost all grass land now. I looked at some areal photo's of the place taken in 1949 and it was not completely forested, but the lower section had plenty of smaller reproduction that must have given the fire a good head of steam as it burned up canyon. The one thing I really paid attention to was the slope. It was really steep up where the guys died and I could see why they couldn't outrun the fire. I'll be posting all of my pictures on my web album maybe tomorrow.

After we left Mann Gulch we headed up to Glacier National Park and went across to the upper panhandle of Idaho and came down through Sand Point and Coeur d'Alene and through McCall. We had a couple of rainy days so we got motel rooms for 2 nights and finally spent the last night camping in the Boise National Forest after soaking in the Silver Creek Plunge, a hot spring I had stayed at around 20 years ago where they had fire camp there. It was really nice and we had a great trip, rain not withstanding.

Wow! Time flies!

Yep, time flies. The month of July went by way too fast for me but Karen and I had a wonderful time in the Greenville area exploring in her jeep. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance in the next few days but we are leaving to go to Mann Gulch on Sunday so I need to do it before then.

We got back on Sunday the 2nd of August and since then we have been busy getting the RV cleaned up and ready for the next trip and pulling weeds in the garden which were quite tall, I have to say. I had to dig up the Horseradish and those roots were very deep so that was a chore. We still have more to do but it's looking much better already. Oh, yard work... I thought I'd never have to do that again after I moved into a rental... shows you what I know.

Sunday we are going to Montana to visit Mann Gulch. I have been fascinated with the stories about the firefighters who died there in 1949, one year before I was born, for many years. Considering the proximity of Idaho Falls to Montana, it seems like a good time to try and go there. As it turns out the way to get there is by boat up the Missouri river so we might be renting a boat to be able to spend the time we need to see the place. There are guided tours available but you have to be on their timetable and we don't want to do that. We will have to see how this unfolds. Well, enough for now...