Don's Tuesday Column (sorry for the late posting)

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   9/22/2015

  A summer of magnificent scenery

Regrets don’t even come up when thinking about spending a couple of months in the Idaho, Montana and Wyoming areas of Yellowstone National Park—not when the alternative is the summer temperatures in these parts. We were unable to secure a campsite reservation in Grant Village due to our RV’s length; 34 feet was too long for a site in which we spent 4 weeks over 2 separate visits because allowed length is set. We retooled our itinerary to allow for RV parks, if needed, but mostly for day trips that included exploring forest service camps for suitability and availability. With a modicum of curiosity and personal chatting, first-come campground residents are happy to accommodate those wanting to time arrivals to coincide with the vacating campers.

So it came to be that our flexibility allowed for cherry-picking the best locations and views. Too much highway noise could be avoided at a campground a few miles away. A (Buffalo River) creek side site could be replaced by a filtered view of the Island Park reservoir in a site so quiet that heartbeats and high-pitched ear tones became pronounced. Day trips into Montana’s West Yellowstone and Wyoming’s Yellowstone Park allowed for checking out nearby camps around eastern Idaho’s Henrys Lake (source of some of the Snake River on its way to the Columbia River) and Hebgen Lake, created by an 80-foot dam on the Madison River as it descends out of Yellowstone on its way to the Missouri River.

The elevations ranged from just over 6,000 feet in Island Park, ID; to almost 8,000 feet at the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone; to 7,000 feet at the Old Faithful geyser and lodge; and over 6,500 feet at the Lonesomehurst campground on Hebgen Lake. Breathing and heart issues can be a concern for seniors but the Advair disk (for mild COPD) and a healthy heart kept me energized and mobile for whatever we fancied doing.

I doubt that I’ll be seeing readers showing up in our favorite spots since, from Red Bluff, it’s over 300 miles to Bend, Oregon, and a 670 mile trek across eastern Oregon and Idaho to West Yellowstone. A more (relatively) direct route from Red Bluff across Nevada and Idaho amounts to about 910 miles. Either way can take 3 to 4 days depending on how much driving punishment you can endure while staying safe and alert.

Still, the views, sights, sounds and photos which captured truly magnificent scenery, rivers, lakes, mountains and wildlife—all that made it well worth the drive. Our sojourn included several ski resorts—Sun Valley in Ketchum, ID, Grand Teton in Wyoming’s Teton National Park, Grand Targhee in Wyoming east of Victor, ID, and Big Sky north of West Yellowstone in Montana—which were each busy with summertime activities.

Some winter resorts, like Canada’s Mt. Whistler, began as cool geographical respites from summer heat long before the post-WWII development of alpine skiing. Currently, you can find activities to suit your level of adventure and abilities ranging from simply riding chairs or gondolas up to viewpoints with meals and beverages; to equestrian guided tours on horse back; to mountain bike trails suitable for any skill level; to paint ball venues or skeet shooting (not on the same location, obviously). If wedding crashing was your thing, there were plenty of parties indicated by the white tent canopies (just kidding).

The variety of four-legged and winged wildlife was such that Barb started a “list” on her smart phone: moose grazing in the Tetons and alongside the Big Springs/Henrys Fork of the Snake River; elk in the Norris campground, as well as roadsides, in Yellowstone; river otters and beavers, including a dam and lodge on an arm of Island Park Lake; buffalo on Yellowstone roadways whose hind quarters were easier to photograph than their faces (and safer).

On our next-to-last day in Lonesomehurst campground, I thought that yet another loose dog was roaming nearby, off-leash in spite of posted rules. Odd that it was white and fluffy, I thought, and even odder that it appeared to have pointed ears. No, I was witnessing a white mountain goat with horns, grazing two campsites down. What would have been a good photo-op through the window disappeared through the trees as the sound of our door spooked it.

Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Bald Eagles, hawks, ducks (Mergansers, etc.) and geese beyond count all kept our eyes upward and entranced. Regarding the geese, the campground was located at the entrance to a shallow arm of the lake and it appeared that an established flyway led endless “v-shaped” flocks right by us. On one of our boat trips, we went back and forth under their path, never tiring of the whap-whap sound of their wings. While sitting on a log on the shore of the Madison Arm of Hebgen Lake, 2 Sandhill Cranes flew 10 feet overhead. Later, sitting next to our campfire ring, some ducks flew over and a soft, green, thumb-shaped bomb landed on my shoulder. Maybe I was lucky—it might have been aiming at my head.

A day trip found us exploring Quake Lake, the aftermath of one of the greatest natural disasters we had never heard of. In 1959, under a full August moon, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake shook the whole Yellowstone/Hebgen Lake area. The ground under the lake tilted, raising the south and east shores up from 12 to 20 feet—leaving a visible bluff, including the shore in front of our site. (Cont’d next week)

The Tea Party Patriots will host Dr. Nancy Weres, who will talk about the role of government in medicine and vaccines. September 29 will be the 6^th anniversary potluck, needing your deserts and salads.