Killpecker Dunes

One of my goals this trip was to explore back roads and remote places - hoping, of course, that my new car would not break down in the middle of nowhere, because I would have absolutely no idea how to fix it if it did.  I didn't see many cars on these roads - or animals, or signs, or buildings.  Verizon was far out of range. I can see why folks from Europe and Japan find this aspect of the U.S. so fascinating - the sheer amount of empty space is overwhelming within a nation that in most places craves development and connectivity.  I guess it's why I find it so appealing, too.

Green River Basin

I camped in the Wyoming Range, then drove north to Jackson for coffee and to find a copy of  Roadside Geology of Wyoming.  The drive south pushed all my nostalgia nerves - I think it was the Half Moon Motel in Pinedale where I stayed the night when I hiked out for supplies back during my five week solo in the Wind Rivers (in 1981).  Fremont Peak was clearly visible (it's a great hike to the top), as was most of the rest of the range (my post from Pinedale on our 2007 trip).

I continued south almost to Rock Springs, stopping in Farson long enough for more coffee and to check out real estate.  North of White Mountain I turned off the pavement and into the wilderness.

Bear Lake

I enjoyed getting off the freeway in southern Idaho, since I've done the direct route from Seattle to SLC many times at many hours of the day.  But it was a reminder that the mountain ranges all go north and south and that to go east or west, you inevitably zigzag, whether you are a covered wagon or 21st century Subaru.



After City of Rocks, I drove north again, reconnecting with the Interstate system for a few tens of miles - getting on the freeway was thwarted for 15 minutes while a herd of cattle was shepherded across an overpass.  Red Rock Pass is where Lake Bonneville overflowed into the Snake River system during the waning ice age and it is where Great Salt Lake (the leftover part of Lake B) would flow out of the Great Basin if it rained really hard for a few hundred years.

Bear Lake straddles the Idaho - Utah border, just east of their mutual border with Wyoming.  It drains into the Great Salt Lake and therefore is within the Great Basin - its waters are destined to evaporate without ever reaching the ocean.

City of Rocks

I somehow found it surprising that before planning for this trip, I had never heard of this place.  I can understand why I hadn't been there - it's sort of off the main road - I just couldn't understand why I hadn't heard of it. It's a fantastic landscape of granite knobs, a mecca for rock climbers, and it also turns out, an important landmark along the California Trail.

Perrine Bridge

There are plenty of high places you can fling yourself from with a parachute strapped to your back - but in the U.S., apparently the only place you can do it legally is from the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls.  And on Memorial Day, people were doing it all day long.  They walk in small groups to the middle of the bridge and then one at a time, they climb over the rail and jump, waiting a a second or two to deploy their chute.  And then they glide down to a grassy target 500' below on the left bank of the river.



Thinking about parachuting wasn't too hard (not that I considered it seriously), but I found it incredibly disconcerting standing 15' away watching someone simply climb over the rail of the bridge and ... jump.


After a long day in Twin Falls, I grabbed an ice cream and headed north and east twenty miles or so.  This spring I had read Jamie Ford's Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and besides leaving me wishing I knew the geography of Seattle's International District better, it left me curious to visit the internment center at Camp Minidoka.  It's pretty desolate country, save for the large irrigation canal that snakes past.  This must have been a shocking change for folks uprooted from Seattle - even if the circumstances weren't already so unsettling.  After the war, most of the site was sold off to private farmers, but it is a national historic site and there are interpretive signs and some relic structures.  There's also a monument to the Japanese at the camp who fought in the war -- it was a little sad to see no flags or flowers or special attention on Memorial Day, unlike all the other cemeteries and monuments I'd passed that weekend.

Shoshone Falls

All spring I explored the territory between Washington and Minnesota using a combination of Google Earth, Panoramio, Rand McNally, and AAA, along with John McPhee, Ian Frazier, Don Gayton, and others.  Somewhere along the way I discovered that despite many drives across southern Idaho, mainly on the Interstate, I hadn't seen much of the Snake River.  And in looking for non-driving options, I ran into the idea of kayaking to the base of Shoshone Falls.

I'd done enough homework to know that I might be able to rent a kayak at Centennial Park and that the paddle up to the falls was fairly simple, although it required portaging Pillar Falls.  For $20, I got a bright green boat for 4 hours, which was just enough to paddle four miles upstream and back again.


Paddling under the Perrine Bridge was spectacular, although it was a bit distracting with idiots jumping off it every few minutes, their chutes deploying with a loud sound somewhere between swoosh and a bang. See next post.  I found my way around Pillar Falls - easy because water levels were so low.  The falls isolate the upper reach from any boat not readily portaged - so it was me, two other kayak fishermen, and a family in a canoe. The power boats and the less determined kayakers stay below.

Shoshone Falls is surreal when it first appears in the distance.  I paddled below the canyon rim where Evel Knievel tried to jump his Skycycle X-2 in 1974 (the ramps are still there - although you can't see them from the river).  As you get to the falls, the water gets choppy and the breeze picks up.  These falls are higher than Niagara, so paddling this close is really neat.

My only regret was that there was relatively little water coming over the falls.  Most is diverted far upstream for irrigation, leaving a small fraction of the normal late spring runoff for the river itself.  A year ago this weekend, the flow was at near record levels -- imagine this place with water coming over everywhere!

Bruneau Dunes

I got into Bruneau Dunes too late on Sunday to find a space in the regular campground, but the overflow turned out to be far quieter and more nicely situated.  I set up the tent and then headed for the dunes - I didn't quite have them to myself, but it was still pretty peaceful for a crowded weekend.

Silver City

On Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, I headed out, leaving M at home with two weeks of papers to grade.  I stopped to admire the big trees at Federation Forest - figuring I'd spend most of the next two weeks in high desert, sagebrush steppe, and prairie - places where trees were small and often missing.  I stopped at Chinook Pass to admire the snow drifts - the pass opened the day before.  And I stopped at the Nile landslide along the Naches River - the first of many geology-inspired stops.  The observatory at Goldendale was closed.  But Stonehenge in Marysville was open.

I stopped at the Crooked River Canyon and then drove out to Smith Rocks before grabbing dinner in Bend.  Then I headed 30 miles east, turned off on a series of dirt roads, and pitched the tent next to the car amongst the sage and the junipers.  Sunday morning I swung by Malheur Lake, but decided against Steens Mountain (too early, too much snow).  I turned left at Burns Junction, had lunch at The Pillars of Rome, and found a latte in Jordan Valley.


The road up to Silver City was the toughest driving of the trip, a good test of my new Subaru, and the source of most of the dirt that was still plastered to the car when I got back to Seattle. The red dust of Wyoming simply didn't stick.


There's still some modern-era silver mining near Silver City, but the old mining town itself is pretty much a historic backdrop for an ad for Jeeps and ATVs.  And on a nice Sunday afternoon, it was crowded.

Skagit Bay

One reason for me getting the boat a couple of years ago was the desire to get to some places I couldn't get to otherwise.  Yesterday, I drove up to Whidbey and paddled across to Hope Island - one of those many Washington State Parks that you can only get to by boat.  The crossing was short enough and the conditions good enough so I felt comfortable making the trip.

The weather was perfect - almost too bad that the cold water requires me to be dressed much warmer than I would prefer.  Mount Baker was crystal clear.  There was a constant stream of boats heading out towards, or back from, Deception Pass.  And by the time I got back to Ala Spit, folks with coolers and umbrellas were beginning to show up to enjoy the warm day and the low tide.

As usual, more pictures over at Gravel Beach.

Cama Beach

I headed back up to Cama Beach this morning to check on the landslide - and the scones.

The trip from Seattle is about 65 miles and takes about an hour and twenty minutes - which on my road trip spectrum is somewhere between an impulse and a whim.  My Seattle latte (Diva) was still warm when I pulled into the Park and hung the Discover Pass on my windshield.  I spent an hour or two on the beach and another hour chatting - seems like visits to Cama are becoming almost as much social as they are geologic or recreational.  But maybe that's part of the appeal.

Kilisut Harbor

Saturday morning I loaded up the boat, grabbed coffee, and headed for the Edmonds ferry.  Over the next few hours the almost-clear skies gradually disappeared - just the opposite of the forecaster's pronouncements.

I took the kayak up to Fort Flagler and spent several hours paddling around northern Kilisut Harbor - the narrow inlet between Marrowstone and Indian Islands. I went south, taking a break at Mystery Bay, before crossing over and heading back north along the wonderfully undeveloped shoreline of Indian Island.  One advantage of the Navy storing bombs there is that security is tight and opportunities for waterfront real estate and mega-mansions are nil.  I kept expecting guards to drive down to the beach to make sure I didn't land, but if they were watching, they didn't show themselves.  A lone coyote watched me from the top of a bluff for five minutes as I paddled by.  A seal popped up at some point and bald eagles occasionally flew over - but that was it.