Riding the Centennial Trail

We said our goodbyes to Ray and Judy as they headed north and we continued on westward to Coeur d’Alene for the weekend.  The 300 mile long Centennial Trail runs through Coeur d’Alene and on westward to the coast.  But near here it runs past the lake, the river and several other smaller lakes that makes for a scenic bike ride.

We logged almost 32 miles on this trail but it was all flat, no hills, no curves, no obstacles to go around, just straight and flat.  Nice if on a regular bike but not a very interesting ride on the e-bikes.

We did ride our bikes to the downtown area and that made for an interesting ride as we had to contend with traffic on the roads and losing the trail so that we got lost.  Thank goodness for Google Maps.

Shoshone & Coeur d’Alene

Taking a break from bike rides, Ray, Judy, John and I played golf on a mountainside golf course called Shoshone. I played horribly but John had a good day. 

The next day we drove up to Burke, an old gold mining town that was built in Burke Canyon.  The Frisco Stamp Mill was blown apart by striking working in 1890’s.  All we saw were its footings.  The town of Burke was established in a canyon so narrow that rails, roads and river shared the same thoroughfare.  In fact, the Tiger Hotel had the river and the railroad running through the middle of it.  And that’s how it was destroyed, by catching on fire due to sparks from the steam engine. Not much left to see today.

John and I rode our bikes from Kellogg to Wallace on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene, a rails to trails that connects to the Hiawatha on the east and goes all the way to Coeur d’Alene on the west.  In between is Wallace, an historic Wild West and mining community with an interstate highway running over the top of its downtown area.  We stopped in the Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, walked the town and then rode back to Kellogg, about 30 miles total.  Most of the historic buildings and museums were closed or required a reservation so we didn’t see much.

The Route of the Hiawatha

In 1907, after years of exploration of the Bitterroot Mountains, surveying and planning, the Milwaukee Railroad started constructions of the line through the mountains to complete a route from Chicago to Seattle.  By 1911 freight and passenger trains were running through using electricity to power the locomotives.  Despite financial problems during many years the train kept running until 1980 when the last freight train came through the tunnels.

It wasn’t until May of 1998 that most of the trail was opened to hikers and bikers and it was in 2001 that the 1.7 mile long St. Paul tunnel was opened.  Today we went through that long, dark, wet tunnel plus 8 more tunnels and over 7 high trestles in our 15 mile ride down the trail.

We left Henry’s Lake on Sunday and drove 6 hours through Montana to Kellogg Idaho where we met up with our friends Ray and Judy so that we could ride the Hiawatha with them - our third time and their first.  The ride through that tunnel  was very daunting for Ray and Judy as they didn’t really know what to expect but John and I actually enjoyed it and had fun teasing them afterwards. The only lights in the tunnel came from our head lamps and bike lights, water is constantly running down the tunnel walls and collecting in ditches on either side of the bike path and it was COLD, 45 degrees all the way!

It was a beautiful day and the Bitterroots were glorious.  We’ve driven through forested mountains many times, but this bike ride took us up and into the forests, with the steep mountain sides falling below us and rock faces hugging the edges of the trail.  We could smell the pines and feel the still and quiet of the trees with gurgling mountain streams fall below the trestles.  It is a magical ride.  

Ray and Judy rode the bus back up to the parking lot below the St. Paul tunnel while John and I used the e-bikes to ride back up the 1.6% grade, 15 miles.  We all had to ride through the long tunnel a second time.  Fun, fun day!

Bubbles, Boils, Steams and Falls

We have extended out stay on Henry’s Lake through the weekend and since we are so close to the national park I decided we should spend at least one day exploring Yellowstone. We only covered about 40 miles inside the park from the West Entrance, thru Madison, Norris and to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  We were able to view the falls but the road north was closed for the summer.

Along the way we stopped to view the Gibbon River and its falls, the Geyser Basin including the Blood Geyser although we did not see it erupt, and the Artists Paintpots.  We chose not to see Old Faithful to avoid the crowds plus we have seen it before, as we have seen all the others sites.

We spent a long time around the Lower and Upper Falls of the Grand Canyon.  We walked the trails along the river to get the best views of the falls from both sides of the canyon.

We also stopped in Canyon Village to get a souvenir hat and pin and trying to remember what it was like the last time we visited but all had changed.  The crowds were not nearly as bad as we thought they might be since there are many closed campgrounds and visitor centers, no tour buses and restricted areas.  The wild animals are still on their summer ranges far from the center of the park so we only slowed a couple of times to see a lone buffalo or a small herd of female elk.

On the way back I did make John stop to view the Norris Geyser Basin which is mostly boiling water and steam vents.  I still enjoy walking on the board walks and seeing the splashing of mini geysers, the blue waters and mineral covered lands along the Porcelain Basin Trail.

Earthquake Lake

This morning was a major cleaning day for me while John spent time making arrangements to get our Oasis pump replaced so we can again have hot water on demand.

This afternoon we took a driving tour to check out RV parks for this weekend and ended up driving through the Earthquake Lake Geologic Area.

On this day in 1959 a 7.5 earthquake, with its epicenter in Hebgen Lake, set off a massive landslide that sent 80 million tons of rock into the Madison River closing off the canyon and forming Earthquake Lake.  People camping in the canyon were awaken in the middle of the night by the explosive noise and high winds caused by the slide.  Massive boulder rained down and the road was broken. Over 300 people we caught in the mayhem, 28 lives were lost. Up stream from the slide, Hebgen Lake formed  massive waves that swept over the dam and up onto the shore line taking out lodges and cabins. One side of the lake sank 19 feet. Today you can see cabins on dry land that floated away in the floods and the scar from the landslide is most evident.  Engineers created a spillway to ease the pressure on the slide so that Earthquake Lake would not break through the rocks.

Henry’s Lake

Henry’s Lake State Park is about 15 miles west of the town of West Yellowstone.  John used up some of his luck to get us a site here for a whole week.  

We arrived on Thursday afternoon in the midst of a wind storm.  The lake is surrounded on three sides by mountains which produce unexpected and unexplainable winds. This day the winds were fast and fierce.  It felt like we were going to be blown over on our side!  

Supposedly a bevy (aka flock) of trumpeter swan spend their summer on the lake but we have not seen any yet.  It’s also supposed to be a good fishing lake but John hasn’t found the energy to get his fishing gear and kayak out of storage.  So I’ve had us walking around the campground and the neighborhood.

Yesterday was “Kill John Day”!  I insisted that we take a hike on the Targhee Creek Trail.  It was supposed to be 3 miles out and back, 6 total. I packed a lunch and we headed out at 11 am, temperature 85.  It really was a beautiful hike along alpine meadows, through forest and along the creek.  We had towering mountain sides on one side and mountain vistas on the other.   We had lunch at the 3 mike mark and I felt good enough to try to go on for another mile.  John was resistant but we started anyway.  Big mistake!!

We turned around about 1/2 mile past our lunch spot and had to endure the sun beating down on us almost the whole way back down.  Both of us were struggling to get back to the car and into A/C!  With no water left in the packs, we were glad to be finished with the hike.

Moonshine Arch

Thinking we would like one more day at River Run we asked if we could extend our stay on our site one more day.  We were told ‘no’ as the people coming in had locked the site.  We could move to another site.  It made no sense to us as there were at least 50 empty sites they could put the other people on.  We left and headed west.

First stop was Vernal Utah in the heart of dinosaur country and myriad rock formations.  Temperature 100!!  That was on Monday.  Today was almost as bad and we chose to explore a couple of places in the heat of the day.  Not real smart.

Just a few miles north of town and a few miles off the beaten path is the  Moonshine Arch.  We had to walk up a hill about .8 miles but it was worth the effort. The arch is about 85 feet long and 40 feet above our heads.

Back into town and out again on the other side we headed up Dry Fork Canyon past a memorial “Remember the Maine”, a ship that was blown up in Havana Harbor in 1898.  Another flag flies from atop a tall canyon wall opposite the memorial.  This is a very patriotic area!

In Dry Fork Canyon are Native American Petroglyphs from the Fremont culture which were created over 1,000 years ago.  The trail up was a true rock climb with trail markings of ribbon in bushes and twine strung between wooden dowel rods. But we were very close to the canyon walls where the petroglyphs were located.  

We thought about eating dinner out but every restaurant that John called did not require their servers to wear masks and we were not comfortable going to any of them.  On top of that, John had been in town and very few places or people wore masks. We decided to leave a day early and go somewhere where people understand the meaning of the word pandemic. 

Back at River Run

As usual for CO this time of year all the campgrounds are reserved for the weekends.  We have to squeeze into a commercial park or stay in the City Market parking lot.  So we are in the River Run RV Resort.  This place is so new it’s like a parking lot!  But we have full service, TV and WiFi! And we washed the RV although we were told half way through the process that it was not allowed!

Our dilemma now is where do we go next.  We have a site in Dillon but not until a week from now, we can cancel that site and go back to Tetons, or try to find a walk-in site near here or near Steamboat.  Decisions, decisions!

In the mean time we tried to ride the Granby-Fraser Trail but most of it is closed or single track gravel, or wide track gravel.  We rode 10 miles yesterday and said that was enough!  We also drove up to Winter Park Ski Resort and tried to walk down memory lane but things had changed so much we couldn’t find anything as we remembered.  Of course there is no snow and the memories are from 20-30 years ago! 

Granby Lake - Arapaho Bay

We stayed in Kremmling two nites to recover from the ranch, do laundry and try to get back into our routine. Monday found us traveling back to Granby and down to the eastern end of Granby Lake on Arapaho Bay where we have reserved a site for four days.

It’s a nice campground right on the lake with a mountain backdrop. It feels like Rocky Mountain but that park is 6 miles north of us.  These are the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area and the Arapaho National Recreation Area.  

One day we hiked the shoreline of Granby Lake a short distance.  The next day  we walked 4.5 miles around Monarch Lake with so many people it felt like a day at the fair but everyone was wearing a mask!

Today we hiked 2 miles up to Strawberry Lake.  This was a rather strenuous hike up but the forest and lake are very pretty.  John was lamenting that he should have brought his fishing rod until we read the signage that the lake has no game fish in it.  The lake and surrounding meadow is part of a rare and fragile ecosystem of extraordinary value. The mat of floating grass and peat, called a fen, is very delicate but an important part of the mountain area that took thousands of years to form but could be ruined in moments by foot traffic.

Last Day

The kids were very good about rounding up all their stuff and packing up to go home but there was still plenty to do today.

Luca went on his last horse ride and Vincent and Liam had a short ride to Parshall and a root beer float at PI Restaurant and Saloon.  They also got to play foosball while there and on the ride back they attempted to run the obstacle course except that Steamboat knew she was near home and wouldn’t obey Liam.

After loading up the Jeep and RV we drove to Kremmling where we had lunch before going whitewater rafting on the Colorado River.  This was a first for the boys and I think they enjoyed it.  A couple of splash wars and a 7 foot jump off a cliff into the freezing water were the highlights but we had a few rapids and a bump on a submerged rock.

According to Vincent and Luca the best part of the day was playing with their dog Scout and then hugging mom and dad. Erin and Bryan headed back home with all three boys.  They will meet RJ in Salina to hand over Liam to his dad.

John and I are pooped but satisfied that this was a truly wonderful adventure with our grandsons and one all of us will always remember.

P.S. It was 5 days later that we finally remembered that both of us went off and left our cowboy hats hanging on the wall of our room.