I went to Idaho to ride with Mill.

[KevinB]

Awesome stuff, as always.

[Brian A]

Saturday morning. Not sure of the exact time but it was just about sunrise.
That's when I woke up. I was balled up under the covers and all was right in the world.

But all would be more righter whenever we got on the road. That said, no reason to get in a hurry and rush to be pulling out of the parking lot. FWIW......

I.
HATE.
BEING.
RUSHED.

I understand there are times when rushing is necessary. Say for example you were camping in a deep gorge along a river and got word of torrential rains miles upriver and a major flash flood was heading your way. Well, that would be a good time to rush.
By all means.
Rush.
Hurry.
Get your crap together and get out of there.

But for me, being on a trip like Idaho or Colorado or Ecuador or Arkansas or Tellico Plains or Daytona Beach, or pretty much every trip I go on, those are NOT the times for rushing.

When I rush for no good reason (no flash flood, or something of similar peril) two things happen:

a) I rush. I get aggravated because I'm rushing. And I break my routine and stuff gets crammed in oddball places. And when I reach for something where it should be sometime later on that day, only to find it's not there, I get aggravated (again) because I had to rush.

b) I miss stuff. Rushing is the death knell of noticing and appreciating the little things. (Things like the old heater in the bathroom at the hotel we stayed in the first night.) I try to make a conscious effort - when I find myself fortunate enough to be in a place like Idaho, riding a dualsport motorcycle with a great friend or friends - to take notice of it all. To slow down. To look for and notice and remember the little things. And the big things too.

Yeah. I definitely hate rushing.

So on that Saturday morning, as snug as I was in the bed and under the covers, I decided to get up.

And not rush.

I made a cup of coffee in the little min-size coffee maker. Then, with coffee in hand, I went outside in my shorts and t-shirt.
It was pretty cold. There were two guys already out and about and they had on coats and long pants, and one had a boggin on his head. I stood there in my shorts and T-shirt. And enjoyed my cup of coffee for a few minutes.

Loving every minute of it.

It sprinkled a few drops of rain but the clouds were scattered and it was obvious the few raindrops were just in passing. No need to worry. It was going to be a fine day.

Soon enough (but without rushing) Mill and I had showered and packed our gear up, enjoyed some more hotel-room coffee, and were ready to go. We decided to eat breakfast in the hotel restaurant, where we had dinner the night before. Breakfast turned out to be better than dinner. It wasn't that dinner had not been good. It had been good. But breakfast was better.

We straddle the bikes, thumbed the starter buttons and hit the road for Day 3.

We pulled out of the parking lot, turned left on Highway 21 and pretty much immediately rolled to a stop at the T-intersection with Highway 75.

We turned left.

The speedometers found home at about 55 mph. The air was cold.

My face got cold. My lips got cold and I could tell if I had tried to talk my mouth would have moved in funny ways, not exactly following the motor commands by brain fired off in the direction of my lips.

I snickered at myself.

And sped up a little.

[Brian A]

Highway 75 followed every twist and turn of The Salmon River. The river was on our right.

We would ride along the river for about 10 miles before turning.

It was a beautiful morning. The clouds had pretty much lost the battle with the sun. The sky was essentially clear and the temperature was inching its way up.

We turned left onto Yankee Fork Road, which roughly followed the Yankee Fork River. It was a fine dirt road. Well groomed and maintained.

We had ridden just a few miles when we passed a big information board thing on the side of the road. About 100 yards past it I hit the brakes.

Don't rush.

Don't miss the little things.

We turned around and went back.

At the info stand we read about the Yankee Fork area. Good information that would provide some answers to questions that would come withing the next 1/4 mile. But, they were answers that didn't really make sense to Mill and I until later on in the day.

Duly educated, we continued on our way.

River rocks. Holy cow at the piles of river rocks. Not just piles, but huge piles.
Tons and tons sized piles of rocks.
One after another after another after another after another, and on and on it went. All along the side of the road. Mill and I had read the info at the info stand, and we had the "answer", but it made no sense. It would in the due course of time.

A few miles further down Yankee Fork Road we took a left into Bonanza, Idaho. Bonanza was a ghost town.

On August 17, 1876 gold was discovered in the area. It was to be the mother lode of the Yankee Fork area and gave birth to Bonanza and a sister town 2 miles away - Custer City, Idaho. The mine was named the General Custer Mine.

Bonanza suffered two fires. The second fire, in 1897, was the beginning of the end for Bonanza. Soon after the second fire most merchants and many residents relocated to Custer.

By 1910 the gold had played out. It had all been a bit of a flash-in-the-pan.

Live by the gold, die by the gold.

Mill and I looked at a few of the original structures. Odd to see the old wooded buildings. Houses and such. Built 135 years ago, just sitting there, slowly, ever so slowly, losing the battle to time and the elements. I remember thinking "They are old and somewhat decrepit, but I'll bet they will still be here long after I am pushing up daises."

Bonanza cemetery stuff.













There was a display panel, set on some sort of stand or pedestal thing, that listed what Mill and I understood to be all the known buried in the cemetery. It was very interesting. All manner of deaths recorded. Mine cave ins. Mining equipment injuries leading to death. Death during childbirth. Overdose on morphine. Suicides. One suicide by a guy who was suffering excruciating pain from "cancer of the stomach". I took a photo of one section. It is just a random sample of all those listed.



We left the cemetery and headed back to the main road.

As we rode we saw more piles of river rock. Big rocks. Little rocks. Medium sized rocks. Some smooth and round. Some broken and chipped.

Big piles of rocks all along both sides of the road.

The question as to "What" had been answered at the information stand. Not too much further along the road the answer (which we could not make fit what we saw) would be made sense of.

[Brian A]

Dredge: (noun) any of various powerful machines for dredging up or removing earth, as by means of a scoop or a series of buckets. 2. a barge on which such a machine is mounted. 3. a dragnet or other contrivance for gathering material or objects from the bottom of a river, bay, etc.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what we got to see.

Specifically, The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge.

It sat right there alongside the road. Apparently forever stranded in its own little pool of water.

It weighs 988 tons. It is 112' long, 54' wide and 64' tall. It drives 71 eight cubic foot buckets, each weighing just over a ton. it is powered by two Ingersoll-Rand diesel engines, each producing 350 hp.

During its life on the Yankee Fork River, it dredged right at 6 miles of river bottom.

I'll shut up now and let the pictures do the talking.



















It was really a monster of a machine.

It pretty much cleared its own way as it went. The front of the boat was anchored to each bank and powerful motors pulled cables through a series of pulleys so as to sweep the front of the boat - and along with it the giant bucket boom - back-and-forth while the buckets carried river bottom rock up to feed the beast. Its maw had a device to reject rocks above a certain size. Those rejected were diverted to a chute that spat them back out into the river off the side of the barge. Those that entered the gullet made their way to a series of rotating and vibrating screens. Through all this, the monster's appetite for gold was satisfied by the occasional few ounces that would find their way into the belly of the beast. Those rocks which had been scooped up along with the precious ore were undesirables and were disposed of by passing along a large belt to be dumped out of the back of the machine. A large boom deposited them in piles along the river bank.

And there they sat.

Pile after pile after pile.

Nothing but chaff.

The dredge is open during the summer months and you can walk inside to see all that made the monster move and work. It gets locked up after Labor Day weekend, so we didn't get to go inside.

We walked around the front deck and peered though the windows and imagined just how loud and unrelenting it would have been to have lived and worked on the dredge.

We threw rocks against the hull to see what sound was made.

Yep. It would have been one loud operation.

I am really glad we got the chance to see The Dredge and learn more about it. Stuff like that fascinates me. Men have gone, continue to and always will, go to great lengths in search of wealth.

So, if you are ever in the area, stop by and see The Yankee Gold Dredge. It's worth the time.

We put our jackets, gloves and helmets on and were back on the road.

[Brian A]

I have long thought Aspen trees to be beautiful.

With summer ending the days get shorter, meaning less sunlight available for photosynthesis. The air turns colder.

The Aspens respond.

[Ryanbroome]

Awesome history lesson! I love seeing the large earth movers sitting on the side of the road like that.

[kdtrull]

Great ride.  I am so glad that we never hear about Idaho in our pre-packaged media for agenda-driven consumption.  It's possible, the folks of Idaho have a division of guard troops to keep the "sensationalized BS reporting garbage" peddlers out of there.  I'd rather think that it is barely possible that kind of crap just doesn't happen there.
You have presented Idaho in a package that seems real and has a nice wrapper.  WTG.

[Brian A]

Thanks again - to all - for the kind words. I appreciate it.

One more pic (artsy pic) of the Aspens before we move on.




It was on up about mid-day and the weather was beautiful. Very comfortable for riding.
We had turned left off Yankee Fork Road and were on Eight Mile Creek Road. That would turn into Loon Creek Road which would take us to NF-172 which would run into Beaver Creek Road which would run into Seafoam Road (no idea why the road was named "Seafom" when their isn't a "sea" anywhere nearby). Seafoam would dump us out onto Highway 21 for the ride back to Boise.

But.... still lots to see before we get back to Boise!

Somewhere along the way we turned off the dirt road onto a side trail that went a short distance to some more mining ruins. You'd be surprised, well, I have been while riding in both Colorado and Idaho, just how much mining has taken place over the years.

Even though I am aware of some of the history of the gold rush and knew, from a simple intellectual standpoint, that lots of folks had spent a lot of time digging and drilling and blasting a lot of rock in search of gold and silver (and other minerals) when you see so much of it in real life, it takes on a new meaning.  It had to have been back breaking work. Nothing easy about it. Remote living in rugged terrain. Brutal winters and hot summers. The risk of mine collapse and forest fires and who knows what else. Hearty souls they were. The weak or timid or unmotivated need not apply.



We rolled away from the mining ruins and headed on our way.

We came across a trail. Not a road but a real trail. Estes Mountain Trail 4351. A rugged trail open to horseback and OHV no more than 50" wide. We stopped for a short break and Mill took this pic of me.




We pointed our front wheels up 4351 and twisted the throttles. The KLR was capable. Not over qualified by any stretch, but capable. At times I felt it only marginally capable. But, the fact is, it did OK. Bashed the skid plate a number of times but we soldiered on. Mill fared far better on the DR650. The DR650 is just a better bike for stuff like Estes Mountain Trail 4351.

It was mostly uphill riding. Some of it pretty steep and rough. I dared not stop for photos.

Near the top the worst was behind so I did stop and take a pic. This was NOT the "rough stuff".



A mile or two more of easier riding and we were back on more civilized roads. 

The civilized road took us up and up until we rolled into, you guessed it, another abandoned mining camp. This one appeared to have been in use more recently than the others. Now, by "more recent" I don't mean just a month or two earlier. More like several decades ago. We snooped around one of the old cabins and I took a pic of Mill, relaxing and enjoying life.



This picture, looking out the front door, gives an idea of how remote this old mining camp was.



Nearby was what we assumed to be a hunting cabin. It appeared to still be in use.




We left the old mining camp behind and headed on up the road. Higher and higher until we crested the peak.

Good stuff lay ahead.

[LRobinson]

Great Report Brian - and if it was your goal to inspire just one person to get out and DO SOMETHING - you have succeeded.  Pretty sure I won't be leaving the country any time soon, but I will be planning a dual sport trip out of "MY" comfort zone for next summer.     

[Brian A]

Off on a tangent for a minute or two (Me. Now. Not the ride)

As I sort through the hundred or so photos I took I stop to think how lucky we are to have such amazing technology at our disposal. A little gizmo, not much bigger than a deck of cards, captures pictures. Pictures that do not exist other than millions and millions of 1's and 0's hidden in a certain order inside a little wafer no bigger than a pinkie fingernail But, when those 1's and 0's are massaged by magic computer stuff, we get "pictures".

Images on a computer monitor.
Still nothing tangible, unless you decide to burn a few cents of ink and paper and print one. Then you would have a proper picture. Something you could see AND touch.

And all this thinking reminded me of one of my all time favorite paintings......

Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany in 1830. He immigrated with his family to the US (New Bedford, Mass.) when he was 2 years old. As a child he became interested in art. Though largely self-taught, he returned to Germany in 1853. After 3 years of training there, he returned to New Bedford.

In 1859 - in search of new subject material for his paintings - Bierstadt joined an expedition through the Rocky Mountains. He would go again in 1863. This time all the way to The Pacific via the Oregon trail.

This journey carried him through Yosemite. He made many sketches, and most assuredly preserved many mental memories, both of which he would use upon his return home to create paintings of what he had seen.

The painting - just over 8' wide and 5' high - was completed about the time the Civil War came to an end. It was a majestic panorama which presented the untouched beauty of The West to a nation "back east" that had seen years of suffering during The Civil War.

In a time before color photography and even the wide-spread availability of black-and-white photography, his paintings served to deliver to a damaged nation images of new opportunities, new beginnings and new beauty in The American West.

Albert Bierstadt's  Looking Down Yosemite Valley




And that is what thinking about digital pictures reminded me of.

The painting is one of the prized pieces at the Birmingham Museum of Art. It's worth a trip.

[Brian A]

Great Report Brian - and if it was your goal to inspire just one person to get out and DO SOMETHING - you have succeeded.  Pretty sure I won't be leaving the country any time soon, but I will be planning a dual sport trip out of "MY" comfort zone for next summer.     

THIS makes every minute I spend worth while.

It doesn't have to be brutal and a challenge of a lifetime to make it an incredible experience.

There is some incredible stuff out there. And a boatload of it in reach of a decent rider on a decent Dualsport bike.

[springer]

 Friggen awesome report Brian. Beautiful country out there for sure.


You do a great job on this stuff!

[Brian A]

Thanks Springer. I appreciate it.
And you are right. Beautiful country out there.

Speaking of "out there".....

I am a bit behind in getting another update to the Idaho RR. Work has been hectic. I got home tonight after having flown out of Bham at 6:05 Tuesday morning for an unexpected (read: urgent/important) work trip to.......

Great Falls, Montana.

It was a busy few days but I did manage a couple of hours to head out of Great Falls to at least see some of Montana. That is one HUGE state.

I drove past Malmstrom Air Force Base and I stopped at (you guessed it) a roadside info stand to learn a little about it.

Malmstrom is one of three US Air Force Bases that maintains the Minuteman ICBMs. I stood there a minute and pondered it all.
All the way back to Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, through Regan and the Gorbachev/Soviet Union stuff, and on through today. Armageddon sat somewhere out there. Concrete silos of flying annihilation.

On the gently rolling grass plains of Montana.

I drove on. To Monarch, Montana and the edge of The Lewis and Clark Wilderness Area.

Even though it was pretty cloudy, I could see why it is called "Big Sky Country". Montana is a pretty state. At least what I saw of it is pretty. But, it would have to get more prettier to top Idaho.

Speaking of Idaho......

The stop at the old mining community - where Mill sat in the chair in the dilapidated cabin - had been pretty neat. Made me wonder how it would have been to have lived and worked there.

After we left the hunting cabin and rode on a few miles the road crested the mountain and then we were in for quite a treat.

The road we were on might well have been some of the roughest "road" riding we did. It was pretty much a truck/Jeep road and would lead us to what would be the highest elevation we would ride in our 3 days:  9,355 feet.

This was the stop and our highest elevation we would see over the 3 days. There was a lookout on top of the adjacent peak. I think it sat at about 10,000 feet.




Without any doubt, this stop was the most "Colorado-like" of anything I saw while in Idaho.







What a view!




And a panorama shot




Yep. That one stop was - for sure - the most like what I saw in Colorado. It was, without a doubt, beautiful. That one stop was incredible. Awe inspiring. Same amazing views one could see in Colorado (or any other of several Rockie Mountain States.)

But that was part of the problem for me, if one could call it a problem.

That view was like any of countless other views at countless other stops at countless other Rockie Mountain vistas. And while it was Idaho, it wasn't what was turning out to be my Idaho.

It is only with the benefit of hindsight that I am able to being to understand much of what made this such an amazing 3 days for me.

There really wasn't anything "spectacular" outside of what any other decent rider on a dualsport could go see. We didn't discover anything new. We saw nothing that had not seen before. Except that which had not been seen by ME. And "that" was every mile and everything I saw.

Several things made it an amazing 3 days. I am only now understanding that one of them was the unexpected reward of checking that one item off my Bucket List.

That one item that I did not even know was on my Bucket List.

The Sawtooth Mountains.

Thanks Willard Scott. They are more beautiful than I had imagined.

[Brian A]

So Idaho was turning out to be an Easter Egg and I guess The Sawtooths were one of the treats inside.

While I was stopped to take the pic above, Mill rolled past me then stopped to enjoy the view. I got a picture of him with The Sawtooths in the distance. I like this picture.



The road we were on continued for miles. It was really good dualsport riding. Not nearly as smooth and maintained as was much of what we had ridden. But, not nearly as rough (except for a very few, short sections) as the roughest stuff we had ridden. It was just "rough enough" to make sure I knew I was riding a dualsport motorcycle.

Not a truck.

Not a Jeep.

Not a 4-wheeler, or a Razer or a silly side-by-side.

I was on a motorcycle. The way things like this were meant to be enjoyed. Or at least that's the way I see it.

At some point we came to a really pretty area. Another area that had burned in the not too distant past, and in that area we saw an old truck.

Long ago abandoned there.

Left to sit for as long as it took for the rain and snow and hot and cold to reduce it to nothing more than a pile of rust.

I wondered if, years ago, somebody had stolen the truck and with nothing at stake, bounced it along the rough road on its last joy ride to its final resting spot.

Or maybe some old man had driven it there to go hunting or maybe to cut some firewood. And maybe the truck decided it didn't want to run any more. And maybe the old man decided he didn't want to mess with trying to get it fixed or hauled off the mountain, so he managed to get himself home some other way.

I'll never know. But what I do know is that truck, like the old abandoned cabins and the old mining ruins, we still be there long after I am dead and gone, waiting for somebody to come along and stop to look and ponder and take some pictures.









On we rode. Our miles in the mountains were winding down. We were "down to the short rows" but The Easter Egg continued to provide treats.




Mill was in the lead now. I slowed down some just to enjoy the views and soak up as much as I could of our final miles in the mountains.

I saw a small mountain lake and slowed to a stop to take a picture. I sat there for a minute and thought about what that lake would be like in the dead of winter. A thick cover of ice and everything covered in snow, as far as the eye could see. I imagined it would be a pretty spectacular sight. It was a fine view in late September.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this was to be the last picture I would take before we were down out of the mountains.

[Argh Oh]

Wonderful report. Along with inhaling the majesty of that area, a recuring and all important concept, two simple words. Don't Rush. Thank you!