This two week trip came about because Allison was graduating from BYU-I on Friday, December 20. Since we were already going to be in Idaho for graduation, we decided we'd stay in Idaho for Christmas. We drove to Rexburg in three legs. Tuesday after work Carolyn and I packed up and headed to the cabin at Lake Wenatchee. We spent the night and the next morning attached the snowmobile trailer to the Suburban and drove to Coeur d'Alene.
New fridge and Daniel's bike strapped on the snowmobile trailer
We stopped at Lowe's in Coeur d'Alene to get a new refrigerator for the Wallace house. We strapped the fridge on the front of the trailer and then drove to Dan's Motorcycle Repair in Cataldo to pick up Daniel's fixed motorcycle. Last Labor Day, John, Daniel, and I went on a lot of rides, but all of a sudden Daniel's front brake mysteriously stopped working. We spent a lot of time trying to bleed the brakes, but that didn't fix the problem. It stumped Dan the motorcycle man as well. Even after he installed a new master cylinder, the problem persisted. Finally, he replaced the front rotor and that fixed it. We had enough room to squeeze Daniel's motorcycle on the trailer and drove the rest of the way to Wallace, arriving mid-afternoon on Wednesday. I rode Daniel's motorcycle up to John's house and plugged it into the charger in the basement.
Time to make some mods
The new refrigerator has to fit underneath an overhead kitchen cabinet. Only a few models fit. The fridge specs at Lowe's showed the height would fit under the cabinet with at least an inch to spare. However, after our neighbor helped me carry in the fridge and Carolyn and I pushed it into position, the top clunked against the cabinet doors, a half-inch too tall. What to do? We laid the fridge on its side and used a punch to remove the axles on the wheels. We taped a piece of cardboard to the bottom so it wouldn't scratch the floor and tried sliding it into position. It was still a quarter inch too tall.
Cutting off the wheel brackets
I used a grinder with a cutting disc to remove some brackets on the bottom of the fridge.
Installed!
The fridge slid into place with no room to spare. A couple of passes with a hand plane on the bottom of the doors made them so they'd open smoothly without binding.
Tate loading their apartment
Early Thursday morning we left for the last leg of the journey to Rexburg. We left Gypsy in Wallace. Our next door neighbors would come over several times a day to let her play outside. A few miles outside of Wallace on the climb up to Lookout Pass and the Montana border, the highway was blocked with stopped semis. In the dark of the morning I couldn't tell what they were doing, perhaps putting on chains. We got off at a Mullan exit and got right back on again, skipping the log jam. The remaining 7 hour drive to Rexburg was on snow and ice-coated highways. It wasn't a relaxing drive, but nothing compared to the drive home. We arrived in Rexburg at Allison and Tate's apartment and immediately started loading everything from their apartment into a truck they had rented. After graduation on Friday, they were going to drive to Las Vegas on Saturday, unload the truck into storage, and return the truck by 6pm Saturday evening. Then next morning they needed to head to the airport at 4:30am for a trip to Canada for Christmas. It was the beginning of a very busy couple of days. That Thursday evening we drove to Idaho Falls for a delicious dinner at one of Tate and Allison's favorite spots. When we returned to their nearly empty apartment, we sat on the floor and opened the stockings and Christmas presents we brought for them. That night Carolyn and I stayed in a crummy hotel (the one we wanted to stay in was already booked, months in advance).
Lunch at the Taco truck
On Friday morning we finished loading the truck and Allison and Carolyn started cleaning the apartment. We had to make a couple of trips to campus so Allison could turn in final assignments and clean out her locker.
This is it!
BYU-I in trying to be different, yet the same, starts their main graduation on Friday evening at 6pm, followed by each colleges' graduation at 8pm. I much prefer BYU Provo's schedule of the morning and afternoon. Hard to believe Allison is married and graduated from college at 20, but a fortuitous set of events occurred that worked in her favor. In high school she enrolled in a Running Start program where she spent her junior and senior years taking classes at Bellevue College. All of those credits transferred to BYU-I so she essentially started as a junior and was able to graduate today after two years. It all worked out perfectly, since Tate graduated in July. They're heading to Nanjing, China in February for six months to teach English. When they get back Tate will continue further studies in the fall.
Moments before entering the auditorium with her graduating class
After the main graduation we went out and grabbed a bite to eat before heading over to her specific college graduation. By then it had started snowing and Allison and Tate had decided they were heading out of Rexburg that night in their rental truck, hoping to make it to Orem before getting caught in the wicked snowstorm blowing in. Carolyn and I decided to head out, too, rather than spend another night in the hotel. I didn't want to get stuck in Rexburg in a snowstorm, either. After the second graduation ceremonies we drove back to Allison and Tate's apartment. There was already several inches of snow on the ground. We changed clothes, packed the remaining items in the truck, and both of us took off in opposite directions. They headed south for Las Vegas and we headed north for Wallace. First we had to drive 15 miles west from Rexburg to I-15. It was a total blizzard and white-out. All markings and lanes on the road were completely buried. We were practically driving blind following the hump of the road as it made a straight line through the volcanic wasteland. I wondered if we were crazy starting on such a desolate journey in those conditions at 10pm at night. When we reached I-15 it wasn't nearly as bad. We thought if we could make it to Dillon, MT we could get a hotel room and spend the night, but when we reached Dillon, I didn't want to stop. I was worried we'd wake up in the morning buried in snow and have to spend a day or two there. We kept on driving. The snow kept swirling down. We climbed over the Continental Divide. We thought we might stop in Butte, but we kept on going, but it was slow going. We reached Missoula around 3am and stopped for gas and beef jerky. Two more hours, a climb over Lookout Pass, and a lot of snow later, we pulled onto Pine Street in Wallace. We made it! Gypsy was excited to see us. We crawled into bed and slept several hours on Saturday morning.
Snow in Wallace
That Saturday I finished the last few details of the upstairs bathroom: cabinet handles, floor transition, showerhead, and curtain for the window. Then I got started installing the ice-maker that came with the fridge. The ice-maker installation kit came with a tap to pierce a copper supply pipe, clamp down, and feed water to the ice-maker. Our house has old galvanized pipes so I had to come up with some other method to feed the ice-maker. I walked to the hardware store to see what they had. Notice how much snow fell over night. Compare that with the first picture in this report where there was no snow. The plumbing guy at the hardware store said they had nothing that would work. I walked home.
Ice-maker feed
In the basement I found the easiest location to install a valve. I removed a straight section of pipe feeding the hot water heater. I took that pipe back to the hardware store and looked through all of their bins, drawers, and display racks until I had enough pieces to install a valve to feed the ice-maker. Back home I installed the parts, drilled a small hole in the kitchen floor behind the fridge for the supply line, and then installed the ice-maker in the freezer. The instructions say to allow up to 72 hours for the ice-maker to make ice, but less than an hour later we heard the first batch of ice clunk into the bucket. I got a lot of simple satisfaction the next week every time I heard that clunk and when I opened the freezer drawer to see the bucket full of ice. I'm easy to please.
Silver Valley missionaries
On Sunday we attended church at the Wallace branch. After lunch we walked up to John's house and plugged in all of the roof ice-melt cables. On Monday we took Gypsy to the vet in Kellogg for her latest shots and to get groomed. When we got home I walked to the library to see what was new. I saw the missionaries huddled over computers typing emails to their families. I invited them over for dinner that night. Carolyn made tacos and the missionaries consumed them voraciously. Their area includes all of the Silver Valley and the boondocks north to Sand Point. They had an appointment with an investigator at 6pm in Kellogg, but didn't seem to be in any hurry to get there on time.
Getting ready for a ride up Ninemile
On Tuesday morning we drove a few miles towards Dobson Pass and parked at the entrance to the East Fork Ninemile Canyon. I started both machines and rode them off the trailer. While they warmed up we put on all of our gear and finally took off. A quarter mile up the trail my machine all of a sudden lost power. It would idle fine but as soon as I gave it some throttle, the engine would stall. We used Carolyn's machine to tow mine back to the trailer. Where we parked was all ice and being relatively new to snowmobiling, we found that snowmobiles don't go nor turn on ice. I had to turn the car and trailer around and back it into a snow bank so we could get enough traction to get the machines back up on the trailer. I was able to ride my machine under power back onto the trailer by putting the choke on full and giving it a lot of gas. I was really disappointed that our ride was a bust and my machine was busted. Back home I emailed my neighbor in Redmond who's a snowmobile expert. He gave me several suggestions.
Hiking up the mountain
There are a lot of old pictures of Wallace taken from the mountain north of Wallace. Carolyn wanted to take a modern picture from the same location. We left from our house, walked under the elevated freeway, and started straight up the mountain. It was steep, but Gypsy easily raced up and down and all over, even chasing a white bunny from a hiding place. As soon as I called to Gypsy she stopped and came back to me.
Wallace from on high
The town is packed in a narrow valley between steep mountains. The town curves up King Street following Placer Creek.
Our house is easily visible
John's light green house on the hill behind downtown
Gypsy and I must be thinking the same thing
Zip line landing station
We hiked up to an old logging road on private property to one of the landing stations for the Silver Streak Zipline.
Zip line launching station
We continued walking along the road uphill until we reached the launching station for that same pair of ziplines.
Route of our hike
We turned around and headed back. Instead of hiking back down the mountain, which would have been nearly impossible without slipping down the slope, we followed the road all the way back to Ninemile and then back to town. It was about a 4 mile hike and the views were totally worth it. It's now Christmas Eve and I called my mom. It's her birthday. We video chatted with Paige and the grandkids in Germany and talked with Eric (at Tanya's) and Allison (in Canada). Then we had our traditional Christmas Eve program, just Carolyn and me.
Hiking up the mountains to the south
After our Christmas festivities on Wednesday and before Christmas dinner, we headed out on another hike to get a view of the town from the south mountains. We hiked up to the hidden water tower above town and then straight up a ridge to an old logging road. From there we dropped down into Weyer Gulch down to Lead Creek, across a trail back to the water tower, and then home. Four miles.
View of the town as we climbed the ridge
Gypsy living the dream
Telephoto view across the valley
I took a zoomed-in photo of the mountain across the valley we hiked up yesterday. Visible in the middle of the photo is another zipline station and on top a cell phone tower. I had no idea either of them were there.
View from the logging road
Once we reached our destination we turned back, but didn't want to slip'n'slide back down the steep ridge. Instead we followed an old logging road as it wrapped around into Weyer Gulch. We hiked down old spurs connecting one level to another. Eventually we followed a steep, completely overgrown road as it followed the creek down the gulch.
Old shack near the bottom of Weyer Gulch
At the bottom of the gulch we found several old shacks. I wrote the man who sold us our house and told him about this trip past the water tank and down into Weyer Gulch. I asked him what he knew about these old houses. He wrote back:
My Grandfather (my Mother's Father) was one of the builders of the first water tank in that location. I don't know the year. One of my uncles my Mother's brother) built the second water tank in that location. I believe it is the one that is there now. He said the lumber was still good and they really did not need to replace the water tank that was there. He took the lumber and stored it at his home in Woodland Park north of Wallace. About 4 years ago my Cousin started building his new home in Stevensville, Montana and used that lumber on his new home. The lumber would have been scrap lumber and burned if they had not used it.
When I was 14 years old in 1954, I shot my first Elk a little ways up the gulch above the water tank. I came back to town and borrowed a toboggan to bring the Elk out on. It was Thanksgiving weekend and there was 2 feet of snow on the ground.
I always thought it was spelled Wier's Gulch but I am sure you looked it up.
At the mouth of the gulch across the South Fork (North Side) of the CDA River and a little to the East there were at least 30 houses. The freeway took them out. The area was called Cottage Grove. Across the "lead creek" (South Side) where the road for vehicles started up to Wier's Gulch, there were 2 houses near the creek. There were 2 more houses about 200 yards up the road (just before you crossed the Wier's gulch creek. After you crossed the creek there were some very small one room bachelor shacks down toward the "lead Creek". There was a foot bridge that crossed the lead creek (South Fork of CDA River) at that point. The bridge for cars across the "Lead Creek" was to the East by the first two houses I mentioned. The road continued up the gulch on the west side of the creek. There were several houses (4 or 5) across the creek to the East. They were all livable homes and one or two of them looked pretty good.
My family lived in Cottage Grove until I was 9. When I got married in 1968 I hid my car at the turn around where the houses ended up the gulch so it would not get marked up. Needless to say, no one found it. We had my brother drive us to the car when we were ready to leave on our honeymoon. I was the only one who knew where it was. When I was in Wallace and needed a Christmas Tree that is where I went to get one.
When I worked for the Forest Service from 1958 through 1962 (5 Summers) we used a jeep and cleared that road clear up to the top of the ridge. There once was a trail from the end of the road up to the very top. It went into the next gulch (Watson Gulch) and then to the top. There once was a pretty nice cabin hidden in Watson Gulch. I have seen huge herds of Elk (60 or 70 Elk) in some of those draws between there and Mullan.
Copper recycling?
It looks like someone set up a camp and is attempting to recycle the copper in cable tv coax by burning the insulation off the wires. Unfortunately for them, that kind of coax has steel wires plated with copper. It won't yield much, if anything.
Gypsy following me down the old road in Weyer Gulch
Sometimes Gypsy will explore far ahead and then come back before racing out again. Other times she'll follow closely behind.
A decrepit dugout
Dead end at Lead Creek
About this picture, the former resident wrote:
The Providence Hospital was located on sort of a bench area across from the mouth of Wier's Gulch. The hospital was on the corner of the hillside between Canyon Creek (Burke Canyon) and the Lead Creek (Mullan Road). It looks like the picture is taken directly across from where the hospital was located where the creek from Wier's Gulch runs into the Lead Creek. There was a footbridge located across the Lead Creek and also a water pipe held up by cables next to the bridge (maybe attached to the bridge). The footbridge was just a little ways below where the creek from Wier's Gulch runs into the Lead Creek.
I believe when I-90 was built they closed off the road that went up Wier's Gulch. A hippy family (drug user type) continued to live in one of the houses for awhile. The bridge for vehicles was located about 1/4 mile up the lead creek from the footbridge. It gradually came up the hillside and crossed Wier's Gulch Creek and continued to the left up the road where the second picture you sent me is located. On the point just before the road crossed the creek there were 2 houses. The other houses you sent pictures of were further up the road and back across the creek from the road. Still probably as clear as mud.
The South Fork of the CDA River (Lead Creek) served as a sewer and all the mines dumped their chemical wastes into it. The claim was that the chemicals killed the germs from the sewers. Fish could not live in it and I know I could not eat any fish from it if I were to catch one today. A friend told me he caught an 18" cutthroat trout out of the hole near where you took the picture. I guess it is good fishing. We used to eat the fish we caught in the side streams. I don't know if they still do, but Coeur d'Alene used to get their water from the lake where the Lead Water ended up.
I kind of enjoy reminiscing about the area.
Ok, now what? How do we get back to Wallace. We couldn't follow this side of Lead Creek back to Wallace because the mountain cliffs come right down to the water's edge. We either backtrack the three miles back up the mountain the way we came, wade across the river and walk along I-80 back to town, or find some other way. We looked for some other way and found a promising trail up behind the decrepit dugout.
Sliding across a chasm
We found a trail that appeared to wrap around the mountain in the direction of Wallace. The trail was old and off-camber, which was a problem since it was covered with snow and ice. One slip and you'd be sliding down the steep slope. Still, it was good enough until we reached this cliff section. From the rotten timber, there must have been an old bridge here that spanned a ten foot section across a cliff face. Now there remained only a single solid beam. I tried walking across it, but the rocks stick out (see behind Carolyn's head) and I couldn't twist my body around the rocks and remaining standing on the board. I had to scoot across the board with Gypsy. Then Carolyn scooted across. The rest of the trail was uneventful and we popped out at the start of the trail where we headed up the mountain to the water tower, an hour or two earlier. We walked back to town. That was a fun hike in my book because we had a destination, discovered a new trail, and an abandoned town.
Cleaning one of the carburetors
On Thursday morning Eric and Tanya departed from Sammamish to come to Wallace for a few days. I started the broken snowmobile, hoping that it somehow fixed itself, but it still had the same problem. It would idle fine, but giving it any gas would cause it to stall. I figured one of the jets in one or both of the carburetors was clogged by varnish from old fuel. After disconnecting wire harnesses, hoses, clamps, and tubes, I removed the carb. Everything is more difficult when covered in snow and the temperature is in the teens. I took the carb apart, walked to the auto parts store for carb cleaner, and cleaned all the jets, ports, slides, and bowl. One of the jets was clearly plugged. After reinstalling the carb, the machine started right up and revved fine when gassing it. While the machine seemed to work, I decided to take apart and clean the other carb as a preventive measure. My neighbor across the street saw and heard me working on the machine and he came over and told me two fuel additives he uses to prevent this problem in his snowmobiles. He got in his truck, went somewhere, and came back with two bottles of fluids. I poured them in both snowmobiles. I was excited to have fixed the snowmobiles so we could go on a tandem ride with Eric and Tanya.
New trials tires
Still waiting for Eric and Tanya to show up, I reinstalled the wheels on my old dirt bike. The last time we came to Wallace I brought the wheels with worn out tires home to Redmond so I could install new tread. Many trail riders now swear by trials tires so I thought I'd give them a try. They look out of place on a dirt bike.
Picture of Pine Street before 1949
On Thursday afternoon, still waiting for Eric and Tanya to arrive, Carolyn and I went to the Wallace library to look through their collection of old photographs of Wallace. They have a file cabinet of pictures and we looked through them all, hoping to find a picture of our house. We found a lot of great photos, but only this one of the house. Ours is the house mostly blocked by the shovel. Maybe they're digging up the street to install a new water line. Some interesting things about the photo include:
- The power poles are in the front of the house. The two-wire power feeds to porcelain knobs just under the edge of the roof. Today the power poles are in the alley behind the house.
- The house has horizontal siding. Now the house has cedar shake siding.
- The three closest houses have tall, guy-supported antennas on their roofs. This was before TV and the only AM radio station is located in the valley and wouldn't require an external antenna. Perhaps these are shortwave antennas. I noticed old console radios of that era included a few shortwave bands.
Tanya and Eric at Lookout Pass
When Eric and Tanya showed up on Thursday we had another Christmas, just like we had with Allison and Tate. On Friday we went skiing at Lookout Pass. Eric is a snowboarder but decided to try skiing. It was awkward for him. He fell a lot. We stayed all day and had a lot of fun. That night we watched the BYU/UW bowl game, made more interesting because Eric graduated from BYU and Tanya graduated from UW. Tanya didn't rub it when her team won.
Snow on the Idaho side of the resort
Tanya at Lower Glidden Lake
On Saturday we headed up Canyon Creek past Burke to go snowmobiling. I started both snowmobiles and rode them off the trailer and let them warm up while we all put on our warm gear. We doubled up on each machine and I hit the gas to take off and the machine stumbled and died. Back to square one. The carbs must be clogged again. We decided we'd take turns on the one working snowmobile. Since Tanya is the picture taker, I rode her the 10 mile roundtrip up to frozen Lower Glidden Lake.
GPS track to Lower Glidden Lake
Stalled
When Tanya and I got back, Eric and Tanya took off on the good machine. I tried the trick that worked earlier in the week of gunning the motor with the choke on to load the broken snowmobile on the trailer. It worked enough to get the machine this far before it stalled for good. We had to push it the rest of the way. That afternoon I disassembled one of the carbs and cleaned the plugged jets. When I reinstalled the carb and pulled the starter, I could see floaters in the gas (visible through the clear fuel tube) surge into my freshly cleaned carb. Needless to say, the snowmobile did not run properly. I tried to pump all the old gas out of the tank, but it was so cold the hose on my pump shattered. On Saturday night we went to Kellogg to eat at Casa de Oro. We stopped at an auto parts store and I bought a new fuel filter and several feet of new gas supply tube. On Sunday we went to church and Eric and Tanya headed back home.
Made it to Moon Pass
Monday rolled around, our last day in Wallace. I was determined to give it one more try at fixing the snowmobile. I pulled the snowmobiles around back to the garage so I'd have easy access to tools. I removed the seat and gas tank and with Carolyn holding a funnel over a gas can, poured out eight gallons of gas (in several batches). What do you do with eight gallons of old gas? How do you dispose of it? I poured it in the Suburban, hoping I wouldn't cause an escalation of problems. I walked to the gas station to get a gallon of fresh gas to wash out the tank. I reinstalled the tank and replaced the old fuel filter and fuel supply lines with new ones. Then I cleaned out both carbs and all the jets. I pulled the snowmobiles to the gas station and filled the tanks with ethanol-free premium gas. When I started the machine, it seemed to run and rev fine. Carolyn and I put on our snow gear and drove up Placer Creek. We rode the machines ten miles up to Moon Pass. I definitely wasn't going to ride down the back side of Moon Pass in case my machine died and we had to pull it home. My machine ran ok, but not spectacularly. It had a lot of power accelerating, but seemed to lack power mid-range. I need to run a tank or two of gas through it before taking any next steps.
Looking down into the North Fork of the St. Joe River from Moon Pass
We rode back down from Moon Pass to the trailer and loaded the machines. Back home we started packing up and cleaning the house so we could leave the next day. On Tuesday, New Years Eve, we left Wallace at 9:30am and drove to Wenatchee. We stopped for a late lunch at Cafe Rio and then a 50 minute drive to the cabin at Lake Wenatchee. I thought I might have to dig out a spot in the snow where I normally park the snowmobile trailer, but there wasn't a trace of snow at the cabin. In fact, the damp soil smelled the way it does in the spring. We unloaded the car and planned to spend New Years Eve at the cabin before heading home on the final leg of the journey the next day. However, at 9pm Carolyn's back was really hurting so we packed up and drove home. There was very little traffic that late at night. The next day I drove Eric and Tanya to the airport for their last few weeks in Florida. It was a very fun two week vacation that seemed to go by in a blur. Happy New Year 2014!
