Ready to roll
I planned to leave work early at 4pm so we'd get an early start on the road. I loaded up the truck and John's trailer with everything for a week in Wallace before heading to work. I rode my motorcycle to work so I'd get home quickly. Once I got to work, I decided I'd leave at 3pm. A few minutes later it was down to, "Ok, I'll leave after lunch." When it came time to leave, I put on my motorcycle gear, went down to the parking garage underneath the Google buildings and tried to start my motorcycle. It wouldn't start, not even a cough. Eventually I gave up and called Carolyn and she came and picked me up in the car. We're already an hour behind. We left for Idaho and hit an hour-long delay heading over Snoqualmie Pass. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's winter or summer, day or night, a vacation day or a regular day, snow or sunshine, there's always a delay over I-90 between North Bend and Ellensburg. I guess everyone else was trying to clear out of Seattle, too. We stopped in Coeur d'Alene at Cafe Rio and made it to Wallace while it was still light.
An old mine
Weeks prior to this trip I planned a hike for Saturday morning. I looked at topo maps and Google Earth to figure out a way to get up to a ridge on the shoulder of Granite Peak. We woke up Saturday morning to a thunderstorm and pouring rain. Instead of a hike, I installed bark busters on the Honda and a chainsaw mount on my old Kawasaki. I also installed an outdoor outlet to power heat tape on the roof that's supposed to melt the ice. Later in the morning the rain stopped and Carolyn came and got me and said, "It's cleared up. Let's head out." We rode up Canyon Creek past Burke and then started following a GPS track up Humboldt Gulch. We passed an old collapsed mine tunnel.
Parked on the ridge
We climbed up to a ridge and were pelted with rain drops. We kept going because it looked like the storm was blowing past us. We certainly didn't want to be up here in any kind of storm, especially if there was lightning. We parked and then bushwhacked our way through the woods along a steep ridge until we intersected a trail heading up to Granite Peak.
On the trail
We're not too far from Thompson Pass at this point. The view is looking down into Murray, ID.
Following the ridge
Carolyn getting a first glimpse down to Revett Lake
Revett Lake
Revett Lake is in Idaho, but the ridge right behind the lake is the border with Montana.
Time captured photo
I tried taking a photo of the two of us by setting my camera on a rock. It wasn't totally successful.
Carolyn amid giant cairns
There are two giant cairns on top of Granite Peak. I don't know anything about them. There is also a memorial to some person concreted onto the mountain. In the coming days on various hikes, we found several different memorials on peaks. We didn't stay up here long. It was very windy and another storm was blowing in.
Survey marker on Granite Peak
A storm is brewing
Looking at Stevens Peak from Granite Peak
That's Stevens Peak in the background. I didn't know it at the time, but a few days later we would hike to the top of that mountain and look back at this mountain. Stevens Peak is less than 20 feet taller than Granite Peak.
Hiking back down
Route to a view of Blossom Lakes
We hiked back down to our machines and ate lunch. Then we walked up this road a ways before cutting up through the woods to another ridge.
Looking down on the Blossom Lakes
From the ridge we could see the two Blossom Lakes. These lakes are in Montana.
Granite Peak
From this viewpoint we could still see those giant cairns on top of Granite Peak.
Another view of Revett Lake
GPS track of hike to Granite Peak
We parked our machines in the middle of the track and hiked a mile up to Granite Peak, back to the machines, and then another mile to the ridge overlooking the Blossom Lakes.
On top of Peak 6235
On the way home we rode around looking for a way to Tamarack Saddle so we could drop down through Nine Mile Canyon. We ended up on another peak.
GPS track of ride and hike
We were unsuccessful finding a route to the logging roads on the left side of the picture, though we were close. We ended up dropping down and following Canyon Creek back to Wallace. On Saturday afternoon I changed the oil and filters in both ATVs.
Carolyn's decorations
Carolyn decorated the house, inside and out for 4th of July. Meanwhile, John and his family were driving from Utah to Wallace. They arrived around midnight and spent a couple of hours figuring out an issue with their water heater.
Snowmobile signs at Mullan Pass
On Sunday morning all of us went to church. When we got home, Carolyn set up a sandwich bar and everyone made sandwiches. I made chocolate chip cookies. John and Natalie invited us over for dinner. Late in the afternoon we decided to take a drive up Mullan Pass.
View into Idaho from Mullan Pass
From Mullan Pass we dropped down into Montana following Rudolph Creek until it drained into the St. Regis River near Taft, MT.
View from Bullion Pass
From the St. Regis River we drove up Hanaker Creek to Bullion Pass. This view is looking down into the St. Joe North Fork River drainage.
Bullion Creek
North Fork St. Joe River
From here we drove back over Moon Pass and down into Wallace. We ate dinner at John's house that night. John and I made plans to go on a motorcycle ride early the next morning. When we got home that evening, Carolyn and I sat out on the cool porch with our computers on our laps. I was planning a route for the next day and Carolyn was chatting with the kids. That was one of Carolyn's favorite little moments of the whole week.
Singletrack along the Slate Creek Divide
John showed up at my house at 7am on Monday morning ready to ride. The temperature today was supposed to reach the high 90's so we wanted to get out while it was still cool. I planned a route to Arid Peak Lookout. Last year at the same time, John and I tried to ride to the lookout from two different directions. We were blocked by snow in one direction and by logs across the trail in the other. This year much more snow has melted compared to the same time last year so we tried the higher route again. I carried a small chain saw on the front of my 1981 Kawasaki.
Trail gets steep
At this point the trail turned very steep and rocky. John waited there while I rode ahead to scout out the trail.
Riding John's bike
I parked my bike and walked back down and rode John's bike up the hairy section.
Scouting ahead
The next section of trail was exposed on the side of a steep hill with no room to turn around.
Is that snow up there?
The topo map shows the trail following the ridge and crossing over one peak after another. From where we were parked, it looked like snow on the peak ahead. We decided to walk the trail to see if we'd be blocked by snow.
The trail is buried under here
We hiked all the way to that snow patch seen in the previous photo. There was a difficult route around this blockage, but all we could see was snow through the trees on the route ahead. We decided to walk back and turn the bikes around.
Trail back to the bikes
Trail blocked
We rode back back along the Slate Creek Divide until we reached Moon Pass. From there we took a little used section of Trail 16. We didn't go far before we had to stop and cut out a section of bushes that had grown over the trail. A little farther we had to cut out a tree across the trail. Then we came across this tree.
Cutting out the tree
I filled the chainsaw at home with apparently old two-stroke mix. The chainsaw was difficult to start and wouldn't keep running. John suggested using fresh two-stroke gas from my motorcycle. I poured out the bad gas, pulled the fuel hose off my motorcycle's carburetor, and filled the chainsaw with fuel. That did the trick and I cut out a section of the tree.
Cut out section
With the log cut out and dragged out of the way, we hopped on our bikes and continued on Trail 16.
John with Stevens Peak in the background
We rode along a two-track until the trail turned into a technical singletrack. We stopped for a rest and took pictures of Stevens Peak. From here we rode back along the ridge toward Wallace. It was some of the easiest riding of the day. I was riding along on a straight section when all of a sudden my front wheel slid out and the bike and I went down. What looked like dry trail was a micro-thin layer of dry soil over a layer of very slick mud. My bike had completely spun around. I picked up the bike on the side of the trail and just then John caught up. He hit that slick spot, tapped the brakes and wiped out in the exact same way in the exact same spot.
1971 Kawasaki MT-75
John and I have a history of sympathetic wipeouts. It all started with a minibike we bought in 1971. Ever since we were kids we wanted a minibike. Next to the MacDonald's in Kenwood, OH was a Honda dealer. We'd go in there and drool over the Honda 50's, the 70's, and the Trail 90's. In the summer of 1971, several events conspired in our behalf to make it happen. First of all, dad said he'd pay half the cost of a new minibike, about $300 (or $1725 in 2013 dollars). John and I mowed our lawn and a couple of neighbor's lawns. An older kid up the street, David Brainard, was more of an entrepreneur and mowed three or four neighbors lawns. He broke his arm at the beginning of the summer and we took over his business while he was on the mend. When John and I would mow lawns, one of us would wheel the lawnmower over and mow either the front or back lawn. That person would come home and the other would head out and mow the other section of lawn. Whoever had the smaller of the front or back lawn would go back with clippers and do the trimming. That summer dad made a huge batch of homemade rootbeer and we'd tank down a bottle in between lawns. We'd get about $5 per lawn, or about $2 each after tithing and other expenses. By the end of the summer we had saved almost half the money for a Honda minibike. Then a third thing happened that sealed the minibike deal. One of dad's counselors in the stake presidency won the grand prize in a drawing at Shakey's Pizza, a brand new Kawasaki 75cc minibike. He wanted the money more than the minibike so he sold it to us. We were saving for a Honda but ended up with a Kawasaki and I've been a Kawasaki fan for life. We weren't allowed to ride on the lawn so we stuck to the sidewalk around the house. Occasionally my dad would take John and I down to Concord school to ride around on the fields. All three of us would fit on the minibike. Now, back to the wipeouts. One time my dad let John and I take a couple of laps on the minibike in the backyard. There was a bump at the far end that looked like a tempting jump. John went first and hit a slick patch of lawn at that bump and wiped out, burning his calf on the hot exhaust pipe. Then it was my turn. I wiped out in the exact same place and burned my calf in the same way. That was sympathetic wipe out number one. The second happened at a Fathers and Sons outing where we took the minibike. There was a long gravel road all around a lake. John took a lap and wiped out in the gravel at a particular curve. When it was my turn, I wiped out in the gravel on the same curve. Therefore, karma dictated that 40 years later when I wiped out today, John would wipe out in the exact same place.
GPS route of our ride
Top left of the route is Wallace. We rode up Slate Creek to the mountains on the Slate Creek Divide where we were blocked by snow (bottom right track). Then we tried to get down into Slate Creek by following power line access roads, but were blocked when the road ended (bottom left track). Then we rode past Gold Hill to the view of Stevens Peak (top right track). Finally, we dropped down the technical and steep Red Oak Gulch (top track). We arrived home around noon. The plan was to go riding with Daniel around 1:30pm. I was skeptical because I was pretty tired and John must have been tired, too. I was betting John would call me later and tell me the ride was off.
Starting up past Mullan
Daniel spent the morning installing a light kit on his motorcycle. In the afternoon John helped him finish. John kept me updated via sms that the ride was still on. At 5pm we trailered all three motorcycles up to Mullan. From there we rode up the old Northern Pacific route to Lookout Pass and then down into Montana.
Catching up with Daniel
Riding through a tunnel
We rode down to Taft and then up to the 1.5 mile long St. Paul Pass tunnel, the start of the Hiawatha trail.
Dominion Creek trestle
The Hiawatha Trail heads west and is very popular with bicyclists. Many of them stop in Wallace with their cars loaded with bikes after the ride to spend money at one of the restaurants. The Hiawatha Trail is only a 20 miles section of the Milwaukee Road that extends thousands of miles. The railbed continues east through Montana and west through Washington. The state of Montana, probably looking at the tourism success of the Hiawatha decided to extend the bike route east down to St. Regis and hopefully bring some tourist dollars to the various small towns along the route. The Hiawatha trail name came from the Milwaukee Road's premier passenger train. Their second best train was called The Olympian and that's what the new section of the trail is called, "The Trail of the Olympian." One of the first projects in restoring the route was to put a roadbed on the dilapidated Dominion Creek trestle. We rode our motorcycles through another tunnel to the restored trestle.
Tom and Daniel walking across the trestle
Right now the trestle is only open to bikers and hikers so we walked to the other side. Those wood arches used to support a catenary wire that powered the electric locomotives.
GPS route of the 50 mile ride
We started in Mullan, top right, and rode to the Dominion Creek trestle, bottom left, before turning around and riding back. By the time we got home and got cleaned up, it was after 9pm. Our two families went in search for something to eat in Wallace. Everything was closed except for the BBQ place. They were shutting down but when they saw our large group, they were happy to seat and serve us inside.
Slate Creek
On Tuesday morning I met John at his house at 7:30am. Again it was going to be a hot day so we wanted to get an early start. We rode up to the Slate Creek Saddle and then down into Slate Creek. We rode 18 miles with views like this. When we neared the St. Joe River we turned up a singletrack for the Dunn Peak Lookout. I was riding my KLR250 dual sport bike and soon the trail pointed straight up the mountain. No way was that bike capable of making it up that hill. John offered to let me ride his bike, but it was 3 or 4 miles to the lookout so that was too far to safely go by myself. We turned back and headed down to the St. Joe River.
John at the St. Joe River
We stopped at the ranger station for some maps. John's fuel injected KTM 350 is an amazing trail machine.
Tunnel along Fish Hook Creek
We rode along the Milwaukee railbed beside the river before turning up the spectacular Fish Hook Creek road. We rode 5 or 6 miles up the creek until we passed through a tunnel, then turned back for Avery.
John feeding the trout
It was toasty by the time we reached Avery. We bought a couple of cans of A&W at a deserted bar. The town of Avery used to be a busy railroad town and was the location where electric engines were swapped with steam or diesel for the trip west to Washington. Passengers would climb out of the cars here and walk around or get something to eat. They'd feed the fish in this trout pond, which still remains to this day. John and I went in the museum/library/post office and looked around. We mailed post cards from the tiny post office. On the wall of the museum was a wood-burned map of various fire lookouts in the area. One of the wood-burned tracks showed a looping route that I wasn't aware of from Avery to Dunn Peak Lookout. We hopped on our motorcycles and took the steep route into the mountains in search of that route.
Blocked
We rode many miles, climbing higher and higher, and cutting across a high ridge. We passed various trail markers that I noticed were the tops of the trails we had seen riding down the Slate Creek road hours earlier. Eventually we hit this closed gate. The sign claimed the road was closed due to environmental reasons, but I knew the real reason was to prevent guys in pickups from shooting up all the communications equipment and propane tanks at the lookout. John was a good sport for volunteering to walk with me to the lookout. We got off our bikes and started walking in our motorcycle boots.
First view of Dunn Peak Lookout
We walked a little over a mile before we got our first view of the lookout. Then we passed the singletrack that we had tried to come up earlier in the day.
Built in 1958
The original lookout was built here in 1938. It was replaced with this flattop in 1958 and manned until the 1970's. Now it's just used to support various communications equipment. The propane tanks power backup generators if the electrical power goes out. The lookout itself is pretty beat-up and weathered.
View of the ridge road
We came across that ridge in the distance. We'd have to ride back that way.
Tom and John at the lookout
We walked back to our bikes and rode back to Avery and bought another drink and pepperoni sticks at Scheffy's General Store. The guy behind the counter was the guy who grooms the snowmobile trails in this area in the winter. I had a whole bunch of questions and he was more than happy to tell me story after story of grooming the trails.
GPS route of the ride
From Avery we rode the old Milwaukee route up the North Fork of the St. Joe river over trestles and through tunnels. We continued up over Moon Pass down into Wallace. The ride was over 100 miles long and it was mid afternoon and really hot by now. I can't remember what we did the rest of the day.
Lost my phone
On Wednesday, John and his family planned to rent bikes and ride the Hiawatha Trail. Carolyn and I planned to ride to Stevens Peak and hike to the top. We took off on our ATVs shortly after 6am because we had to be back around noon to take Gypsy to her appointment with the groomer in Kellogg. We rode up to the Slate Creek Saddle. I went to check the topo map on my phone. My phone, where's my phone?? It wasn't in the pocket of the ATV where I normally keep it. I checked all my pockets and backpack. Nothing. I remember stuffing my phone in my pants pocket. I assume it must have fallen out somewhere in the 10 miles between here and home. We slowly made our way back down the trail. I stood on the pegs the whole time scanning the trail for my phone. Carolyn kept a careful lookout as well. We went back to the gas station and asked if anyone had turned in a phone. Nope. Back at the house I got online and VPN'd into Google to report my missing phone. Coincidentally, when I woke up this morning, I said to myself, "I should add a lock pattern to my phone", and I did! (The rest of the phone story... a couple days later I was showing Benji the phone charging systems I had added to the ATVs. Right there in the pocket of the ATV was my phone. This wasn't one of the ATVs we had taken on the ride. I must have placed my phone in the wrong ATV. I logged into Google to stop the phone canceling process. I stopped 9 of the 10 items, but eventually my sim was canceled. The next day they sent me a new sim so my dev phone is back on the air).
Carolyn popping a wheelie
By now it was nearly 8am and we didn't have time to take the route over Moon Pass to get to the base of Stevens Peak for the hike to the top. Instead, I thought about the ride John and I did on Monday where we had a good view of the mountain. Let's see if we could climb the Stevens Peak from there. Carolyn and I rode up the steep and technical Red Oak Gulch. I looked back on a steep section where you have to climb a rock in the middle of the trail. My GoPro caught Carolyn doing a wheelie over the rock. Scary.
Trail to Stevens Peak
Carolyn and I rode ATVs to the same place where John and I had ridden our motorcycles a couple days ago. This trail is open to motorcycles but it takes an expert rider to negotiate the steep and rocky sections. We had to be back home by noon. We had an hour to hike, an hour to hike back, and an hour to ride back to Wallace. I estimated the peak to be about a mile away. I was wrong.
Carolyn on the trail
Carolyn hiking up through the bear grass
View of our destination
View from the summit
We booked it on the hike. It turned out to be closer to 2.5 miles one-way and we made it in slightly under an hour. From the top we could see Lone Lake on the left and Upper Stevens Lake on the right. Just below Upper Stevens, but blocked from view by the fin in the middle, is Lower Stevens Lake.
Cornice on the summit
Geo survey marker
Lowe and Upper Stevens Lakes
We walked along the summit to get a view of both Stevens lakes. There are more lakes on the other side of the rocky ridge on the right.
View of Granite Peak
From Stevens Peak we could see Granite Peak in the distance. We stood on its top last Saturday.
Carolyn and Tom on Stevens Peak
I tied my camera strap to a stubby pine tree, hence the tilt.
Arid Peak Lookout
From Stevens Peak I could see Arid Peak Lookout far in the distance. This lookout has been restored and is available for nightly rental. I checked the calendar and it is booked almost every single night this summer. It's a three mile hike from the closest trailhead, but the trail is open to motorcycles.
On the way home
It was a beautiful morning to be out on a hike and up this high, the temp was nice and cool.
GPS route up to Stevens Peak
We hiked back to our machines, rode along the ridge, dropped down Red Oak Gulch and made it home. We got ready and drove the truck to Kellogg with Gypsy.
Shoshone County Mining and Smelting Museum
While Gypsy was getting a haircut we went to the Staff House Museum near the Bunker Hill Mine. The house was built in 1906 for the mine manager and his bride. Later it was turned into individual rooms for Bunker Hill staff members. Since it was so hot outside, most of the lights and exhibits were turned off. The ladies running the museum told us to turn on the lights as we went. The museum was really interesting. Carolyn looked at the memorial wall for those killed in the Sunshine Mine disaster. She found three LDS members where services were held in Silverton by a bishop, back when the building housed a ward (instead of a branch like it does today).
July 3 Statehood Parade
David, Benji, and Leah left Salt Lake City early this morning and drove all the way to Wallace, arriving late in the afternoon. When they got to our house, we helped them unpack upstairs (we were staying in the basement - it sounds like we were being nice to let them have the upstairs, but we had the nice cool basement). Then we all walked up to John's house and then downtown to watch the parade. Benji and Leah cashed in with all the candy thrown to them from the parade participants. John's next door neighbors were in the parade driving their restored Studebaker.
David and John at the gas station
Everyone had their particular motivation for coming to Wallace. Benji's was to ride ATVs and motorcycles. That evening we loaded up some motorcycles and John trailered them up Nine Mile Canyon. While I had the trailer at my house in Redmond, I doctored it up with a plywood deck, three wheel chocks, a spare tire, and new fenders. I think we gassed machines up every day we were here this week.
Daniel, David, and Benji
John, Daniel, and David rode their own machines. I carried Benji on the back of mine. These evening rides were a lot of fun because we were out of the heat of the day and the rides were on trails that were easy for a beginner to ride and generally included a number of historic sites.
GPS route of Wednesday evening's ride
We rode up Ninemile Creek and across the ridge to Dobson Pass, crossed the road, and wound our way up past the Monitor Mine, around the shoulder of Goose Peak, down through the East Fork of Ninemile Creek to Dobson Pass and back down to the car the way we came. That night we all ate pizza at our house. Meanwhile, Allison and Tate left Rexburg at 7pm (when Tate got off of work) and drove to Wallace, arriving in the middle of the night.
Allison's table
Allison had a number of motivations to come to Wallace, but one of them was to pick up two tables I had made for her. A month or so ago she sent me a picture of a table she wanted me to build. She actually wanted two tables, one a low one to use in front of their couch. I built both tables out of cherry with a heavy frame around the perimeter. The frame was held together with giant dovetails. Because of their work schedules, they could only come to Wallace for the 4th of July, and had to leave early Friday morning to get back for work in the afternoon. It was totally worth it.
Carolyn's 4th of July decorations
Benji, Allison, Tate, Carolyn
Tate brought his cross bike in case we wanted to go on a ride. On 4th of July morning, I gave Tate a list of things we could do that morning: go on a bike ride, ride motorcycles, or ride ATVs to a lake. He wanted to ride ATVs, the hands down winner. Benji wanted to go too. Benji rode with me and all of us headed up Canyon Creek.
Old mine tunnel
On the way up to Burke we turned off the road and rode up and over old mine tailings. This tunnel was used to pull mine cars from the mines in Nine Mile Canyon over to the grinding mills around Burke, Gem, and Frisco. We continued up past Burke toward Cooper Pass at the Montana Border.
Allison and Tate near the lake
Lower Glidden Lake
We rode to the beautiful Lower Glidden Lake.
Bears? Moose?
At the other end of the lake we could see a family of bears or moose.
Benji
Allison and Tate
Walking to the other end of the lake
We quietly walked to the other end of the lake hoping not to disturb the bears or moose.
Tate and Allison at the far end of the lake
The bears turned out to be tree stumps! We all had a good laugh. On the way home, Allison drove with Tate sitting on the back of her machine. It was a great way to start off the 4th of July morning.
Carolyn's corrugated steel flag
Last 4th of July, Carolyn collected some old corrugated metal from a remediated mine site. She cut the metal into three rectangles and painted flags on all of them. She gave one to John and Natalie, one to our next door neighbors (in Wallace), and hung one on the back of the house. Carolyn made the red, white, and blue tassels to decorate the back yard. She was preparing for a 4th of July dinner that evening.
Allison's 4th of July shirt
Allison in Wallace
Tate decorating the back yard
Raspberry Garcia ice cream
Late in the afternoon I started making Raspberry Garcia ice cream. Originally I was going to make Cherry Garcia, but Tate and Allie voted to replace the cherries with raspberries. I quadrupled the Ben and Jerry's recipe.
Carolyn's decorated lemonade glasses
Dinner
At 7pm John's family came over and we grilled out. John cooked the burgers. Allison and Tate made the salad. Natalie brought the corn on the cob. Carolyn made baked beans, too. I was so full I couldn't eat ice cream until later that night.
Sparklers
We all planned to go to Kellogg for the fireworks, but only John's family went. David brought a fireworks pack from Smith's and we went to the school parking lot and lit everything off. It was pretty fun.
Carolyn's decorations that night
David fixing his guitar amp
One of David's motivations to come to Wallace was to work on guitar amplifiers. I brought soldering irons and multimeters to Wallace to help him with his project. He had two amps to work on. The first one was the new one I helped him build. He could hear a rattle in the amp and he stuffed some insulation under the circuit board to stop the racket. A ground wire broke and he fixed it, but the amp now had a bad hum. He wanted me to see if I could figure out what was wrong. I used a magnifying glass to look at all the wires and solder joints, but couldn't see anything wrong. The hum was definitely there. Without a shielded cover on the bottom of the amp, there was a bad hum if you waved your hand near the circuit board. The amp has two different circuits for input. I had him play his guitar through both inputs. I noticed that when he was playing through one of the circuits, the hum was completely gone. I looked at the schematic, took a few resistance checks, and immediately diagnosed the problem. When a plug is removed from an input jack, the jack is supposed to short its input to ground. The main jack David was using to play his guitar wasn't shorting to ground. Instead, it was acting as a very sensitive antenna and amplifying the 60 cycle signal we're surrounded with, from the current in the house wires. It was simple to slightly bend the shorting arm so the grounding feature would work. I love low-tech solutions to difficult problems. The second amp David brought with him was a vintage Fender that needed fresh capacitors in the power supply. It also needed new electrolytics in various other places in the circuit. In addition, David wanted to replace some of the more critical resistors with new parts. Finally, he wanted to bias the power tubes in the amp for optimum sound. I helped David get started and then each morning before his kids woke up, he'd be down at the work bench in the basement carefully removing and then soldering in new parts. He'd test the amp after each set of changes. Finally, it came time to bias the amp and we worked on it together. It was easy to do. David has a super distinguishing ear and he wouldn't put things back together until the sound was perfect. When he was finally satisfied, he buttoned up both amps and took them upstairs. I really enjoyed hearing him play his guitar each day as he was testing the amps for the perfect tone.
Benji and David on Peak 5419
On Friday morning, Carolyn and I got up early with Tate and Allison and said goodbye as they headed back to Rexburg. Later, David helped me and Carolyn weed the flower beds. The yard is so small we finished in a half hour. After that Benji rode on the back of my motorcycle and David rode the Honda 150 and we rode up to Slate Creek Saddle, then to Moon Pass, and finally to this peak. Benji wasn't very happy because of the bumpy ride, his helmet kept knocking into mine. There's a singletrack up there and I rode it quite a ways on the Honda 150. Looking at Google Earth, it looks like it pops out on the road down to Slate Creek. I hoped John and I could ride it later that day, but we never went back. When we got home, David took us to the Casa d'Oro Mexican restaurant in Kellogg. It was really good. After that David took Benji and Leah to the Wallace pool.
Old trestle at Saltese, MT
While David and the kids were at the pool, John, Daniel, and I went on our last motorcycle ride of the vacation. It was minibike day but John didn't get the memo. I rode the Honda 150, Daniel rode his Kawasaki 140, but John rode his KTM 350. We trailered the motorcycles up to Lookout Pass and rode down the Northern Pacific route to Taft. Daniel and I had a blast on our little bikes. From there we stayed on the old NP railbed all the way to Saltese, MT where the route sort of disappeared. The Milwaukee route was higher on the mountain and we cut under this trestle and up an old steep rocky road to the railbed. This same rough rocky road was used a hundred years ago by freight wagons and passengers getting on or off the train at Saltese.
Old circa 1910 photo
In this old photo, the Northern Pacific route is the one on the right. The wood trestle on the left is the Milwaukee route. The wood trestle was used only briefly before it was replaced with a metal trestle, the exact one in the picture before this. There are many more trees today than in this old picture.
Trestle at Saltese
We rode up to the trestle and crossed it. This one hasn't been restored (yet) like the one at Dominion Creek. There are holes in the gravel where you can peer down 75' to the ground below.
St. Regis River
We kept riding on the Milwaukee railbed past Saltese, nearly to Haugan, MT. The route follows the St. Regis River. At this point, the Northern Pacific route is on the other side of the river. Interstate I-90 is visible on the other side of the river, too. Eventually, we had to turn around and head back. John and I switched bikes and he rode the little 150 and I rode his powerful KTM. We had tickets to the theater tonight and needed to be back home by 6pm.
Dominion Creek Trestle
On the way back we stayed on the higher Milwaukee rail route instead of the lower Northern Pacific route we came out on. The Northern Pacific came up the St. Regis River canyon first and got the more choice (and easier) route along the river. When the Milwaukee came through, they had to build higher up on the mountainside. The route had to follow the ins and outs of the folds of the mountain, including this deep canyon at Dominion Creek. When we reached this trestle, it's currently closed to motor vehicles so we had to drop down a "jump-up" road and continue up to Lookout Pass on the Northern Pacific route. This is the same trestle we visited on Monday, but from the other end.
GPS track. Almost to Haugan, MT
At Lookout Pass we loaded the bikes back on John's trailer and headed down the Idaho side of the pass to Wallace. We made it home just in time to take showers and head to the play.
Intermission at the theater. Natalie, Carolyn, Cat, Daniel, Benji, Leah, David
All three families went to the play "Lookout Mullan!" at the Sixth Street Melodrama. It was fun. I get a kick out of living in a small town where I can walk a couple of blocks to something like this.
Benji and David
On Saturday morning Benji was itching for another ATV ride. We rode up the North Fork of Ninemile Creek through a lot of old mining areas. We kept on climbing up some old abandoned logging roads until they petered out.
Benji at the controls
On the way back home we stopped at the site of the Granite Mine mill and Benji got to ride the ATV all around. When we got home, David took the kids to the pool and I spent the next few hours washing three motorcycles, changing their oil and filters, and cleaning the air filters.
Cat cruising through the neighborhood
John and Natalie were planning on heading back to Provo around noon, but they didn't come by to say goodbye until after 4pm. They were battling a toilet leak at their house. Cat took a couple of laps around the block and Daniel made one last wifi connection on the steps of the Wallace library.
Ready to roll
The John Taylor family took off and drove through night, not arriving in Provo until 3 or 4 in the morning. John and I are on opposite schedules.
Cutting out the Lake Creek trail
Benji was still itching for one last ride and so was I. It was 4pm. Carolyn said to be back by 6pm. We headed off for the Lake Creek trail, up past the working Galena Mine. The Lake Creek trail is the closest technical trail to the house. The problem is that it hasn't seen any maintenance in years. Eric and I tried riding it last 4th of July but we didn't get far because it was so overgrown and many logs had fallen across the trail. This time I had a chainsaw with me on my ATV. The trail was even more overgrown than last year. This ride was the most difficult ride of the whole week of various rides. Benji was on the back of my ATV and David was riding Carolyn's powerful ATV. Even though David only has a few rides under his belt, he rode it perfectly. We had to stop to cut out some logs. Folks need to go back and cut out all the small stuff that nearly sweeps you from the saddle.
It just got real
Just before the trail reached the Forest Service road to Pulaski Peak, there were three relatively fresh tank traps dug into the old logging road. I tried to ride through the first, but I felt like I nearly rolled the machine going up the hill. We used the winch on each machine to pull the machine up that first hill and keep the front wheel down. I then rode through the second and third traps, with David holding down the front on one of the hills. From there we rode by Striped Peak, Lost Lake, and dropped down McFarren Gulch to Osburn, then back to Wallace, arriving minutes after 6pm.
On Sunday morning, we all got up at 6am and were out the door at 6:30. David and Leah were headed home to Salt Lake City. Benji went with us home to Redmond. His grandparents picked Benji up so he could spend a couple of weeks in Seattle with his cousins. At home we got to spend the last few hours with Paige, Chris, Fox, and Jane. The next morning they would board the plane (along with their dog and cat) and fly to Germany for Chris's first assignment as a dentist in the army.
It was totally fun week in Wallace.
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