7:30am Tash: Wake up! River/mountains/sun=pretty! Get ready, then drive to Espresso and rafty place (ed. note: Brundage Mountain Adventures). We meet Clint, our guide. He might be 33 but seems ancient compared to the other river rats. All the guides from different companies know each other.
Rafting is FUN! just us and Clint! We did several class 2 rapids and also a few class 3. The sun refused to come out and it was a little cold, but Clint was seriously good at steering just so that we got totally drenched and he stayed dry. Very, very talented, there. Also he had a story about every single thing we passed -- the obvious favorite being the preacher who used to stand under the bridge and call all the river rats sinners while the sinners squirted him with supersoakers, and he ran off yelling about hellfire. Plus we saw 2 rattlesnakes, and an old foundation of a stone house that was "definitely not a Chinese"! Also we saw a golden eagle! and a big dinosaur lizard! and otters or maybe minks.
(photos to come when we develop our sweet disposable underwater camera!)
From Lucile, the end of the raft trip, we returned to Riggins, and Mountain Time, and had lunch at a sweet deli in a gas station. A lady making our sandwiches made fun of us for our opposite choices in sandwich dressings (ed. note: Tash doesn't like good things in her sandwiches).
11:40am (PST) Back on the road and back in Pacific Time. The time zone situation is complicated in Idaho. Nat says Sneeze and then DOESNT SNEEZE. (Ed. Note: when Nat sneezes it can be alarming so he warns Tash as a matter of course.) A barn says "Friut" on the side. We drive on! Nat's poozle plays.
12:24pm (MST) WAIT 10-15 minutes at a construction site. Nat leaves doors open and a yellowjacket joins us, but luckily it flies out the window with a little prodding.
2:56pm (PST) Dead deer at the turn out when we switched drivers! It was hollow from having its guts ate out and it was thickly tiled with flies. A large creamy poop lay nearby. We surmise bears or maybe dinosaurs. Grizzly Rex?
4:20 (MST) MONTANA! MOOSE! HUGE! it got away before I could take its picture though.
Tash: We drive past Lolo Hot Springs and awesome looking rock formations, plus Nat's new fave thing is to look at the Lochsa river and say "OOH that's a Mama rapid!" and such. Eventually we get to Missoula and drive around looking for the Pipestone shop. We get directions and photocopies of a guidebook (see below) while a sketchy guy accosts Tash and tries to get her to look at his digital camera. There's nothing in the shop we want to buy, but homeboy was so helpful that we feel compelled and so spend $50 on a stuffsack and a socks. Then we head off to REI for the very standard equipment we need for our Wind Rivers trip.
We try to go to the sushi place in Missoula, but since its the only sushi place in 1000 miles (estimate) we find it to be the only crowded place in town. Very strange. Instead, we wind up at the Dinosaur Cafe (ed. note: lots of dinosaurs this trip, huh?) for New Orleans food and BBQ.
We drive south to Hamilton and camping, watching a kickin sunset over the Bitteroot mountains.
10:00pm Blodgett Canyon Campground, Hamilton, MT --- Blodgett is very cool yet also very hard. Homeboy at Pipestone Mountaineering in Missoula gave us a wealth of beta but his driving directions were worse than the poorly translated directions for a cheap asian washing machine. In addition to directions to the canyon, we were treated to a treatise on Montana bolting ethics, grading standards, rock quality, the sweet new routes his buddy put up, Montana liquor laws, and basically everything else he could think of relating to the question "can you recommend somewhere to climb tomorrow?"
After lucky Google Earthing by Tash's Dad, we arrived at the canyon to find a FULL CAMPSITE. However the world's nicest campground host let us set up our "tee-int" in the picnic area, despite the large "NO CAMPING" signs nearby. The campground had, besides views of 2000 ft granite walls, an old timey hand pump with fresh water next to a nice boulder with a fun V0 that went in flip flops.
Tash: We put up the tent in a surprisingly happy manner.
3 comments:
In the traditions of Tocqueville and Kerouac, Tasha and Nat distill the American experience and present it to their reader with wit, wisdom and a touch of divine omniscience. Will they make it to Ann Arbor and then east? What will they make of the cast of characters they encounter on their way? A summertime must-read.
Luck? Google Maps? Nah. Just another day at the office.
you should have caulked the wagon and floated across. then you wouldn't have lost those 3 tins of bacon and your extra wagon axel.
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