Crossing Idaho

Our original plan was to drive through Jackson and head south to Cora to let Roxanne swim in nearby lakes.  However, while we were at Jackson Lake Lodge, we received a call from our niece who is thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (more on her later).  We want to meet Kate before she completes her hike.  Since Thursday appears to be our best rendezvous time, we headed to Idaho instead.

David looked on the map and found Palisades Reservoir in Idaho as a possible camping spot.  So we set out for cheaper gasoline (by over 20 cents per gallon from Wyoming!) and a much-needed swim for the big dog.  To our dismay, however, we discovered the reservoir almost empty.  Docks were strewn 30-50 feet below where they had originally floated.  Lake front property was high and dry.  Grass and saplings grew where fish had once swum.  Local hot rods had left their donut tracks in the reservoir bed.

We were hardly in the campground before the camp host arrived at our site.  She was a delightful lady, eager to make our stay enjoyable.  She told us that she had become a camp host when her job was outsourced to India.  Now, with the reservoir at less than five percent capacity and campground occupants so few, she feared she would also lose this job.  She had a right to be so concerned.  It was Friday, and we had worried that we would be unable to find an empty site.  With the reservoir being so low, however, we discovered that we were the only campers there. 

The next morning, we left Palisades and drove west.  We passed several more reservoirs, all nearly empty.  We wondered the reason.  Idaho is a fascinating state… it is mostly arid, full of sagebrush and tumbleweeds.  Yet farmers have taken this land and turned it into part of the nation’s breadbasket.  They have done this by using amazing irrigation techniques.  With last year’s low snow pack and this year’s drought, along with so many reservoirs drastically low, we wondered how much longer the crops can survive without significant rain or snow this coming year.

We stopped for breakfast at a quaint little diner in Idaho Falls.  The North Hi-Way Cafe was begun in 1934.  The morning we arrived, water had just be shut off to the diner because of road construction.  Unabashed, they continued serving and determined to do so until they ran out of plates.  

North Hi-Way Cafe, Idaho Falls, Idaho

Our waitress was a hoot.  At a table with several locals, they asked how she was doing.  "Living the dream, Honey, and feeding the kid."  When she dropped off their check, she told them, "Don't forget the college fund!"

The diner had jokes posted all around.  In fact, deliver the best joke for the day and you received a free meal.  The one I liked best was this one:

Three elderly and hearing-challenged men were walking down the street together.  

The first man said, "It's windy."

The second man said, "No, it's Thursday."

The third man said, "Me, too.  Let's go get a beer."

Near Challis, Idaho, David discovered the Yankee Fork Historic Mining District Driving Tour, a.k.a. Custer Motorway Adventure Road.  It is a 36-mile, narrow, dirt and gravel road "suitable for pickups and other high-clearance vehicles."  Of course, we had to take it!

We drove the first half of the road, stopping to read markers that explained the Yankee Fork mining road.  Begun in 1836, the road had several stagecoach stations with motels and service sites along route.  The stagecoach took nine hours in travel time between Challis and the mining towns of Custer and Bonanza.  We were the lone campers at Custer Campground that night.

This morning, we drove through the recently restored Custer mining town.  This town had 600 inhabitants in 1886.  By 1911, it was a ghost town.  The town of Bonanza was nearby and had not been restored at all.

Town of Bonanza on Yankee Fork

It was sobering to wander through the town cemetery, seeing how young people use to die.  It was particularly difficult for the women and children.  The Monroe family lost their triplets soon after birth.  One family lost two babies barely a year apart.

Further down the road, we came upon a mining dredge with tailings as far as the eye could see.  It had been brought in during 1940 and dug its way up five miles between Yankee Fork toward Jordan Creek, leaving 6,330,000 cubic yards of stream gravel behind as tailings.  

Yankee Fork Gold Dredge

We ended the "adventure road" just south of Stanley, Idaho, and continued onward.  Oregon is in our sights, and tonight we will camp there.