Friday, March 27, 2015

Departure From Big Sky Country

We spent another week or so in Missoula, seeing friends, enjoying the relatively decent weather, working at our storage unit, and having some further work done on the Bigfoot. We left March 12th, heading back to Menlo Park, but this time via US12 and 95, through the beautiful Salmon and Snake rivers country, and then I-80, through the unrelentingly dull yet boring wastes of Nevada.
The work on the Bigfoot was fabricating and installing a back porch/step...



















It doesn't look a whole lot different, but permits better access
to the basement as well as easier storage of the (accursed)
scissors steps; and some exterior storage





















Our route took us through familiar and favorite territories; here we have stopped at
Lolo Pass, on the Montana/Idaho border, in the heart of Clearwater country, in the
heart of Lewis and Clark country... 

















Thus















In past years, we snowmobiled out of this lot perhaps half a
dozen times a year; with so little snow, not in 2015...
















Another favorite place; a favorite ride was from the Pass to Lochsa Lodge for
lunch (not pictured but I'll get it next time for scenic, historical, and personal
interest: the Bernard De Voto Cedar Grove)
















One of the more photographed road signs of the West; what it doesn't tell you is
that, in addition to winding, the road follows one of the great white-water rivers,
the Lochsa, and drops from more than 5,000 feet to about 1,200 feet, where it
meets the Selway, becoming a fork of the Clearwater and then of the Salmon


















A bit of the Lochsa, lower down, least water I've ever seen in it--and this is as high
as it will get this year...when we rafted it in '97 or so, there were 25 class IV rapids
in the 24 mile stretch; you could wade across most of it now...sic transit, Gloria

















Camped on the Salmon River















All along the Salmon and the tributaries we drove, we noticed porta-potties being
set up and small groups of fishermen [sic] massing for attacks on the salmon

















Porta-potties evidently are a big business during salmon runs....















You know you're in Basque country when...let's see...the last fronton we saw was
in St. Jean Pied de Port, on the Camino de Santiago, French/Spanish border, 2012...
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2012/09/st-jean-pied-de-port.html


















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