Day 10 - Council, ID. [under construction]

We were going to try to make a run to the hot springs at Burgdorf, above Upper Payette Lake, but we didn't have the daylight to do it. That failure spawned the kernal of a day's route, so in all fiascos, some good can prevail. Up early, we walked to the breakfast joint we rode past on the way in last night, while my laundry finished drying in the early morning sun. As I mentioned before, we generally made an effort to get breakfast, as lunch & dinner were usually sketch due to where we were. This place was extra good. The cook was a younger fella, who asked if I wanted fresh pepper in my eggs. When the plate arrived, home made sausage, peppered eggs, obligatory 'taters, and sourdough toast was a meal bigger than a mortal could consume. I tried, but failed - but is was worth the effort. We walked back, saddled up, and rode to the edge of town to fuel up. We rode south just a couple miles, and turned east into Lake Cascade State Park. Wrecked railroad cars are the common medium for making country road bridges. Strong, durable and cheap. Deer were plentiful in the forest as we crossed the mountains to McCall. The shores of Payette Lake, a way south of McCall. We rode into McCall, and topped off on fuel one more time. Where we were headed looked sort of scarce in the gasoline department. We again headed east into the Payette National Forest, towards the Frank Church River Of No Return Wilderness. How could you *not* want to get near a place with that name? We plotted a route to Yellow Pine, a tiny town of the edge of the Wilderness Area, and the route was magnificent.

Up high on this pass, the evidence of a recent, major burn was fairly obvious, even to a flatlander The ride out to Yellow Pine was about 70 miles or so, and we saw no one other than a guy on a mountain bike, heading eastward to Yellow Pine. You don't come across curved bridges too often.... We rode into Yellow Pine, right after the county finished some dust mitigation. Which consisted of what appeared to be the application of No.2 diesel. Greater downtown Yellow Pine, population, ~34.

For those that didn't already know, Yellow Pine was the last city in Idaho to have working telephones - and that happened in 1996! The town really started off in the early 1900's as a camp for those enroute to our from several mining operations that produced gold, silver and mercury. Those things kept the place a float through the depression era, until in 1939, antimony and tungsten were discovered. Those two metals were in great demand due to World War 2, and the area really prospered. We hung around for an hour or so chatting with the locals and just enjoying ourselves. We'd found out that we could actually get to Burgdorf from here via some pretty rugged roads, but they were still snowed in anyway. I guess we'll head south then? Seems like the town's economy is under attack now by the gubbamint's desire to close access to the surrounding national forest and wilderness area land. The locals have a petition going to fight it, but that same fight is happening to towns everywhere. Not many fight it and win. We decided to head south towards Lowman - that looked to be another 90+ miles of lonely dirt roads with not much out there. Perfect.

We left the nice folks of Yellow Pine behind, with about 130 +/- miles of fuel left in our tanks. It was about 90 miles to Lowman, so we'd have a gallon left each just in case. We ripped along Johnson Creek to get ahead of the nasty magnesium chloride that the National Forest crew was applying to mitigate dust. We whizzed past them, and could then take our time to enjoy the scenery. At Landmark, we got onto the Landmark Stanley Road, and continued south. We stopped at the north edge of this fanatastically green valley, and had lunch - beef jerky and water. Authentic cuisine for the area, I think. The area was perfectly quiet. No jet roar, cars, sirens, bursts of automatic gunfire , jackhammers, horns.....nothing. Perfectly quiet and relaxing. A few miles later, I stopped at the Deadwood Mine to investigate. This was originally a gold mine in the 1860's, but was mined for lead and zinc up to the 1940's. Looking back at Deadwood Summit, about 6,850 feet, and an area dangerous in the winter, with numerous avalanches. Snowmobilers beware. We jogged east a little bit to the northern edges of the enormous Bear Valley. The flowers were just beginning to bloom, and you could smell the pollen. This area was heavily mined by dredge in the 1940's and 50's in search of uranium and other rare earth metals. It was also an area where people dragged heavy trailers across the mud, creating some really rather spectacular ruts

We descended down Bear Valley Road into Lowman - figuring on getting some fuel and maybe even a motel room since it was getting late in the day, and we were hungry. We road across town - Lowman isn't a big place - and found the motel we thought might be there was abandoned. We rolled back up the hill to the gas station/general store - which was a trailer, and BigDog got $2.37 of regular out of the pump before the tanks went dry. No more gas today, lads. At this point, we really didn't have anough fuel left to really get anywhere, but the gas station owner told us there was a motel/restaurant/gas station about 9 miles northeast on Rt 21. We bit, and headed that way. We gassed up, got a cabin, and shlepped ourselves into the cafe for some dinner. After a burger, some home made fries and a beer or two, I was ready to relax back at the cabin.... I did the obligatory laundry - you have to when you travel this light - and snagged a few more Henry's for later on, since the store closed up at 2000. LittleDog, being a rather talented television surfer, found a good western for us to watch - Santa Fe Passage, released somewhere around 1955 or so. I'd never even heard of it before, but if Slim Pickens is in it, it's probably not bad. Thanks LittleDog for finding that one for us. It was a decent flick.

The beer gone and the movie over, the day ends, another couple hundred miles and change under our belts.

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