Today is a day off. We have completed three of the first of five scheduled two week hitches. We have been taking a lot of pictures, but there is just nowhere to upload them. My Forest Service radio doesn’t seem to have any USB ports and I can’t seem to MacGyver my headlamp and water filter into a hotspot. I think I may be close, but I think I used the red wire when it clearly should have been the blue.
Misguided nonsense aside, I am still sound of mind and minus a few scratches, dents, and a missing toenail, and what I think is a fabulous beard (we’ll have to see what the gf thinks), I am sound of body.
We are a day short of 40 into our central Idaho adventure. It was a clear day on the 7th of June when we were escorted (a day early) on to our ride to the Frank Church. A 12 seat smoke jumper pleasantly and epically covered in red and prominently displaying the word fire. I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty cool. We flew in early on the heels of weather concerns. The planes can only land on the backcountry airstrip in V.F.R. conditions, that is, the pilot needs to be able to see runway because there is no equipment to guide in a plane, with the exception of a wind sock. Maybe runway is too strong a word. It is an alarmingly hilly, horse plow maintained dirt path in the middle of nowhere.
So our adventure started at Indian Creek Guard Station with a hurried offloading of our plane, and us staring at our mound of gear in amazement. Did I really need to bring a down coat, fleece jacket, and two pairs of long underwear?
Our pack animals had been delayed indefinitely; high water and impassable trail somewhere scores of miles from where we stood. Buying over 100 pounds of cheese was hilarious to me in the Bozeman Costco - the prospect of carrying it decidedly less funny. I am exaggerating a little. We had our food broken up into five resupplies so with us we had only 14 pounds of cheese. But we also had hordes of cans, dozens of apples, hundreds of tortillas, and a spice kit that weighed over 20 pounds. All of this was ok, with the promise of mules. Not great when the mules are myself, my co leader Laura, Savannah, Jeremy, Ehrin, and Tyler. Not to mention we had well over 100 pounds of tools, and tons of group gear.
To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.
We spent our first four days based out of Indian Creek, eating all of our can-intensive meals. We covered the first five miles of the trail in this time. Not everything went smoothly. I was teaching Jeremy and Savannah how to use a crosscut saw to cut a tree out of the trail. I had a momentary lapse of attention. In this brief time the wedge holding the cut open popped out and our saw became hopelessly bound. Think of a tree lying across a stream supported by both banks and only air under it in the middle. If you make a cut in the middle from the top of the log, the tree will close the cut and trap the saw as gravity tries to bring it to the center of the earth. Both sides of that tree would push against each other with all of their weight, making sure that saw stays exactly where it is. We were cutting a tree lying on the crown of the trail, but the same principle applies.
Now I of course let this happen as a teaching tool, being the infallible mountain man that I am. I not only wanted to teach them crosscutting, but also axemanship, and how to chop a tree in half. Anyone who has split wood with a maul knows the relative ease with which it gives way to your mighty stroke. Well, that is, cutting wood with the grain, cutting against it is much, much harder.
My brilliantly planned and aptly timed lesson took about one hour of chopping at the end of a work day. The good news: we got the saw out unharmed, removed the tree from the trail, and my crew members still talk to me.
After clearing five miles it was time to move down the trail. We were on a national wild and scenic river corridor, protected because it is gorgeous and because it is a spawning ground for ocean going salmon. With that designation come a handful of restrictive rules to protect the river, the pertinent one being no pooping within a quarter mile of the river. To get 1320 feet from the river would involve walking over a very impressively steep and high ridgeline. Generally out of the question if you have to do it every day. We would spend as much time pooping as working.
Being a solutions oriented person, our Forest Service sponsor provided us with a steel constructed 10 gallon toilet designed for rafters that was even heavier than it sounds. Not only do we get to carry all of our crap that my body deemed excessive, we also get to carry our means to poop too, literally. Thank you so, so, so much Andy Bonn, that really made my day. Remind me to write him a thank you letter.
We got through it, more than that, we embraced and even enjoyed the challenge. We moved camp on our own again, without park support retrieving our food from Indian Creek, taking it to our campsite, and then another four miles to the rapid river trailhead. We were without mules for almost a month. It was wonderful, honestly. The bonding created by challenge is awesome. It almost seemed like cheating when the mules showed up.
To this date, we have made the entire length of the Middle Fork and Rapid River trail passable, over 20 miles. We are going to spend the remainder of our time making the trail stick to a hillside that very badly wants to visit the river far below.
There are two sections of trail near our campsite that pass over sections that have slid recently. They are currently about 70 degrees and cover vegetation-free slopes plunging into the pristine river. They are impossible to go around, so we will be building inside and outside rock retainers to keep the trail precisely where it is.
Wish us luck on our dry stone masonry. All is well in the River of no Return. Oh, Ehrin and Tyler would be upset if I didn’t mention this: They both caught over 20 rainbows and cut throats in a three hour period on fly rods on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. Jealous? You should be.
Take care, all my MCC friends. Hope your seasons are amazing and your toils fruitful.
All for now from the Frank Church.
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