This is how we camp.

Keith and I and my parents and Amanda and Keith (aka K2) stayed in the Adams Ranger Station cabin this weekend. It was only a couple hours' drive for us, but more like 5 hours for Amanda and Keith. It borders the Gospel-Hump Wilderness, which we've always wanted to see/go to (right out our back door, practically), but had never visited. We'll definitely be going back. With some hiking boots.

oh hai

Keith and I went up on Friday around noon to scout the place and take a drive to the nearby lake(s) where Keith hoped he could fish.

Keith was watching the fish rise wayyyyy down there, lower Gospel Lake

We made it all the way to the Moore's Lake trailhead (another 3 miles into the lake) and back down to within 1 mile of the cabin when the brakes on the (1988)
beater
Ranger seized up and we ended up walking the rest of the way back, with the dogs, alongside the highway where gravel dump trucks were running. Good times. Still, not 12 miles out and not in the middle of the night, so no real room to complain. But: no fishing.

inside the cabin

Saturday after a delicious pancake brekkie, we all piled into my parents' quadcab and drove even farther up the same road, all 14 or so miles to Square Mountain Lookout. Pretty basic and, I imagine, pretty windy. But what a view!

Square Mtn. Lookout - WYSIWYG

Click on the photo for a larger size.

This is Mia's idea of camping---when you get to go inside and sleep on a bed at night. She was a pretty good girl.
She let K2 pet her for about 15 minutes one morning (she let him pet her all weekend, actually) and then nipped him on the back of the leg a little bit later. Bad dog! And we had to wrangle Lazlo whenever Amanda and K2's dog Cliff was around because Lazlo thinks he needs to ... I don't know what... dominate Cliff? He's done that already, so I don't know what his point is. Anyway, just to be safe he was on leash a lot of the time.

Cliff is a good dog, despite what Lazlo thinks.

After making it back down the very steep road from Square Mountain Keith hopped in the Ranger and the brakes had un-seized themselves and we did a happy dance.

The scenery up there is gorgeous and we're lucky to live so close to somewhere that is TRULY wilderness. I'm not kidding when I say we'll be going back with hiking boots. Gospel Lake, for sure, is a trek we'll make and I think Moore's Lake, too. It would be great to spend a couple weeks in the backcountry next summer and this is so close it'd be criminal not to.


It's definitely looking like fall up there. A lot of reds and oranges. I just had to break out my "nifty 50" to document it.

Activities

That's me crossing the finish line of my first 5k. Not a goal I would ever thought I'd set for myself. I used to be one of those people who thought running was stupid. I wouldn't say I'm a total convert now, but I see the value in being outside and pushing limits and zoning out. At least that's why I get out of it. Also, calories burned.

I started "training" using the Couch to 5k program back on March 14 and had several setbacks (shingles, blisters from the hike) that caused me to backtrack, but the farthest I had ever run without stopping was just over a mile.

I decided the BBQ Days Fun Run would be my last chance this year to get in a race, so I decided to go for it, push myself, and see how far I could go. My goal was to run the whole thing without stopping, but I didn't know if that would be possible.

almost to the halfway point

Saturday a.m. I ran to the halfway point, past the halfway point, to a shady curve where I walked for about a quarter mile and then I finished running the rest of the way (including up a hill, which is why I stopped--to have the energy to go up it). At the end I was thinking, I shouldn't have stopped. But I did. But I am still happy with myself since I hadn't run at all the week before.

Sunday I covered the Extreme Bull Bash for the newspaper. Not exactly my scene (I feel bad for the animals, especially when they're getting shocked), but I got some great shots. The newspaper has decided to start selling prints through zenfolio as well (in fact, I pitched it to them), so the photos are technically not mine. (Prints for sale/view will be here later this week.) But here's a preview.

This is Clayne Haight, a local high schooler who was one of the younger riders in Saturday's competition. They had PBR bulls and even some pro riders, but not that many successful rides. Bulls kept escaping from the chutes. It was a little hectic. But the turnout was really good and I think it's something they will do next year.

Photo Friday

Indian Time

I'm still climbing the learning curve of how to use my DSLR, but I managed to get a couple good photos at the pow-wow last weekend before the sun went down.

I'm very familiar with Indian Time, and its close cousin Mexican Time, and honestly I think we (white people) could learn a thing or two about not fixating on schedules. However, I'm setting the scene for Friday night.

The pow-wow was scheduled to start at 7p (Indian Time---even the FB page acknowledges it). So when some people down the bleachers asked what time it would start, I knew there wasn't a concrete answer.

I said, "What time is it now?"
They said, "7:20"
I looked around, saw no indication anything was happening with any speed or sense of urgency and estimated, "Maybe about 8?"
I heard later it didn't get started until about 10p.

Amber & Joe & Florence

I posted photos from Amber & Joe's engagement session in Stites and Kooskia on my site. (Once you're there, click on any image to start a slideshow.) Amber is a good friend (and classmate since 1st grade) and it was great meeting Joe. They're getting married in November in Mexico, so I suggested an engagement session for fun while they were visiting Idaho and they were up for it. I'm pretty happy with how the photos came out, too.

This coming weekend I'm going to do shoot the Chief Lookingglass Days Pow-wow and a woman I went to school with asked me to cover some special events during it for her family, so I am stoked to hopefully get some good, intimate shots there.

My parents and Keith and I drove up past Grangeville to check out a cabin we've reserved for us and Amanda and K2 in September. After we checked out the cabin we drove to Florence, which doesn't really exist anymore, but it's a former boom mining town in BFE Idaho.

It's all gone now, we only saw remnants of a couple cabins and all of the ditches that had been dug for mining. But at one time, the population here reached 9,000! That's amazing considering the very remote location and the fact it was the late 1800s. Gold fever, baby.

The cemetery was the most interesting part. It's been restored somewhat, as in new markers have been made for some of the graves. Though one sign we read said one person per day died on average, so there has to be more bodies buried that they just don't know about and/or have lost track of...

There were also indentations left with a sign that explained "Exhumed Graves of Chinese Miners." Hopefully that means the bodies were returned to their country of origin. There was a semi-circle of holes like this apart from the rest of the grave markers.

Related: Kooskia's internment camp during WWII has been in the news a lot lately as archaeologists from the University of Idaho are working there.

A lot of the "new" grave markers said "Unknown" but the ones with names and dates showed people who died there who came from Canada, Georgia, Kentucky. All to find a fortune mining. I don't think it worked out like they thought it might. But you have to admire the sense of adventure that brought them there.

There are also a lot of dredge ponds left over (see above) where moose are likely to be, but we didn't see any this time.

porch makeover

I had to step into the soon-to-be-shower to get this last shot.

Keith and I were pretty productive this morning - we got all the slats up on the porch. We had originally planned going all the way to the top with them, but decided we wanted the option of more air/sun on top in the winter.

We might frame an awning that would be just screened (like a horizontal screen door) that would have legs so we could prop it open if we want.

But, for now, this will work just fine.

The butcher block you can see in the top photo is from my great-grandparents' cattle ranch. We're going to set up a little outdoor cooking area so we can have dinner at our own house once in a while.

I thought we might get started on installing the kitchen counter, but we ran out of time. Another day.

Friends from Oregon are visiting and we're floating the river this afternoon, then doing an engagement session for them, then dinner. We went to some other friends' (classmates of mine) and had dinner and talked and it was nice to be acting like adults with friends, something we're not all that practiced at doing.

Also: meteor shower tonight! We saw a few stunners last night, but tonight is supposed to be the peak.

Around the tiny house lately we’ve been starting more projects than we’re finishing, which is, really, just the way we operate. (Are you new here?)

Projects in mid-stream:

1. Covered porch – still working (thinking? planning?) on getting the slats across the front and maybe the side. Until then, it still works as a hammock haven.

2. Insulation – we have maybe 1/3 of the roof insulated and some of the ceiling boards in place (to hold the insulation in the rafter bays) and it has dropped the temp in the house considerably in the late afternoon. (The roof on the porch helps, too.) We made it most of a day doing this (I’m an excellent brad nailer.) and then Keith got started prepping my parents’ house to paint…and that was the end of that.

Also we put up shelves over the doors for my camera gear. Barn wood will back the shelves. Some day.

3. Kitchen – we have shelves under the kitchen window holding our dry goods even though we can’t cook in the tiny house. Mostly for decoration/illustration, I guess. We found some yellow pipe (instead of galvanized) to support the yellow counter with our sink, so hopefully that will see some action sometime soon.

We sat in our theater seats on the front porch yesterday and talked about how we needed to make a list along the lines of Must Accomplish Before The Cold. Presumably a toilet falls somewhere on the list...

Sapphire down the river

"I wonder what the poor people are doing today?"
They're floating down the river!


We took Keith's boat for the 2010 inaugural float down the river yesterday. (It's nice being a couple hundred yards from a put-in.)

The water level and temp is perfect for floating and as soon as I find my MIA swimsuit, I'll be swimming in it. Float-after-work season is on!

I don't remember how, but we decided to name the boat Sapphire. It's blue, in places, and that's kind of a funny stripper/drag queen name. You can't take your boat name too seriously. The only other name under serious consideration was Floaty McBoaterson.

We planned on getting out at the Kamiah bridge, but it (time) went by too fast and we decided to keep going. I called my mom just before we got out of cell range and she came run shuttle for us. Thanks for patient moms!

Mid-July is a little late to be getting a Chaco tan, but you gotta start some time.

The Meadow Creek Cabin Hike Saga of Never-ending and Sometimes Even Mythic Proportions

Here's a link to the place, supposedly, on Google Maps.
You can reserve the cabin here.
And read more about it here.
If you need more info, click on all these links I'm including.

But I'm going to tell you all you need to know: IT'S FIFTEEN MILES. On foot.
(That's one way. We had to do that coming out, too.)

And well-groomed it is not. The recent rain and wind storms we've had caused many many trees to fall and slides completely took out the trail in at least 2 spots.

This is the last pile we have to circumnavigate to get to the cabin:

The trail is underneath those trees.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We camped Wednesday night at Selway Falls Campground (across the bridge past the falls). We wanted to stay at Slim's Camp, but it was full. Got up early Thursday a.m. and we were on the trail by 7 a.m.

A few days before we had made a bet on how long it would take. Keith took "under six hours" and I took "over six."

The first 3 miles were pretty nice. Followed the creek, cool morning, not too steep. But we'd been told there was a slide that took out the trail around Mile 6. Unable to read the trail sign (a log with flags on it marking the go-around trail, "Huh, what's that?") we went over the top of the slide. Sketchy, yes. But it was pretty big, so we weren't too worried about it continuing to slide. Also it had dried up considerably.

The trail had long patches of clear and pretty good, but there were many times we had to climb over down trees/logs/slides and one time we had to take off our packs to go under a tree...

The terrain is like this, almost exactly. I mean, that's where we were.

We had eaten breakfast, brought 4 PB&Js, and Power Bars to eat on the trail. The pic above is at a PB&J break. There was a nice breeze on the hill.

This was the view from there looking back toward where we started.

Quick time-out for an unofficial product placement. Our water filter saved our lives. My sister had given us this water filter before we went to Mexico and we never needed it, but we broke it in on this trip and it served us very well. Luckily there were numerous streams and waterfalls where we could filter more water along the way. We recommend this product wholeheartedly.

So, obstacles, more obstacles, unreliable and sometimes unreadable mile markers, at around 4 p.m. we're still not there yet?! Nine hours on the trail and we're not there...oy.

Hey, look! A bridge.
Let's take a nap.

45-minutes later we were able to continue on the trail.

We both had episodes of (probably low blood sugar) despair where we entertained thoughts of animal attacks, accidental death, spending the night on the trail...

Until at just before 7:30 p.m. (over TWELVE HOURS since we started), we saw the Holy Grail.

THE CABIN!

We were punchy and giddy and we de-packed and boiled some water for our freeze-dried meals (which were the best things we'd EVER eaten) and then went to sleep.

Our time at the cabin was great. It's a neat place, five buildings with a corral right off the creek. Tons of roses, huckleberries, and wildflowers everywhere. Plenty of shade, propane stove and fridge (and lights), sediment-filtered water, and enough food to keep us happy thanks to the people who had left stuff before us.

We brought what we thought was enough food for us for the weekend, but we appreciated having extra oatmeal and instant mashed potatoes and Keith even found a beer in the back of the fridge. Friday and Saturday we did as little as possible: ate, read, slept, played cribbage, and Keith went fishing at the creek.

The fish were jumping clear out of the water and biting at every fly he tied on, but they were tiny little things.

But Keith had fun and we didn't have to fight any bears for fish or anything, so: good times.

Basically, we were doing anything we could to keep our minds off the hike out!

Saturday night we got packed and Sunday morning we finished cleaning up and we started out early. It only took us just over NINE hours to walk out Sunday. Admittedly the first few miles flew by and miles 12-7 went pretty quickly, too.

But something happened at Mile 3.

My feet (in running shoes, possibly The. Worst. Ever. Decision. Ever.) were absolutely killing me. I tried meditating (as much as you can while precariously walking down a trail with a drop off on your left and 35+ lbs. on your back), ignoring the pain, embracing the pain, nothing was working.

I was recalling my A&P studies about pain receptors and brain circuits, but that wasn't working, either, stupid. I decided constant excruciating pain was better than shooting excruciating pain, so I just went into hyperoverdrive.

I went faster. And wouldn't stop. Not even for Keith. I yelled over my shoulder, "Can't stop! Are you okay?" and off I went. For about 2 miles. Downhill. In running shoes.

I felt the blisters building, but what was I supposed to do at that point? But, after 2 miles, I broke down. I got angry with Keith, told him to go in front of me, and when we was out of earshot I started crying. I was barely moving at that point, feeling like I was walking on raw nerves. Real. Bad. Pain.

Keith figured out what was up and ran back to me and hugged me and took my pack and carried it on top of his head like a sherpa. Seriously, that made me feel even worse. I cried more.

About 3/4 of a mile later, Keith (carrying both our packs) stopped at a stream for a rest and to filter water. We joked we were probably 100' feet from the trailhead. I decided I wanted to carry my pack the rest of the way (like walking off the field under your own power) and I convinced Keith I could. We went about 50 yards and stepped into the road at the trailhead.

It was definitely the most challenging thing I've ever physically done. I am happy, and proud, that my body was able to carry me in and back out without any major injuries. (Blisters?! That's nothing compared to a compound fracture.)

But mostly I am happy to have a friend with me on this adventure.

We agreed we won't be going on any more hikes over 5 miles.