July 23-July31 2011 Priest Lake, Idaho

While I was at Priest River cooking for trail crew John parked the bus on Priest Lake. I joined him after the trail crew for a week on the lake. We went to the lake last year after the trail crew for two weeks. It is a beautiful area with clear water lakes and old growth forests.

John in the lake, the lake

the bus parked in the campground. John looking out over the upper lake.

We kayaked up the channel between the lower Priest Lake the upper. The channel is called the Thorofare. It is  a couple miles long of flat water. Really pretty. The upper lake has no development on it. It is just wild country.

John on the Thorofare and some ducks

a wild iris, John on Upper Priest Lake

Suep on the Thorofare, On the way back we went up a tributary called Caribou Creek, John on Caribou creek

 

tree roots and their reflection and John - The water is so calm and clear here that John appears to be floating

two more shots of Caribou creek

John, my hero hauling both of our boats back up the canoe portage to the parking lot, rain on Priest Lake

We had a rainy day. We walked to Hills resort down the beach and had a drink, then I wanted to walk home in the rain, it was a downpour and we got soaked. John went against his will into the rain. . .  We picked Huckleberries, by the end of our stay I think we had picked a gallon of them. We had huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry cake, huckleberry strudel and huckleberry cobbler and still have over a quart of them in the freezer.

rain again, and huckleberries

We hiked to Hunt lake, on the east side of the lake. A one and a half hour ride up a bad dirt road, an hour hike up a 600 feet elevation gain in a boulder field with rocks that were waist high to a beautiful alpine lake in the Selkirks. and then back.

A poster seen at Priest Lake, a tanager on the hike

Hunt Lake, John at Hunt Lake

reflections in Hunt lake and the hike back in the waist high rocks

 

Flowers etc. seen on the hike

The view of Priest Lake from the trail head, the bus is parked on the opposite side of the lake.  A peak seen on the hike.

and John resting when we returned.  My birthday I swam in the lake.

relaxed in my lawn chair and  John took me out to dinner at Hills resort

 

the next day we hiked 6 miles round trip, with very little elevation gain this time to Upper Priest Lake and back, John on the trail. A new shrub I have never seen, Devils club.

chimney rock over the lake, Huckleberry Cobbler and huckleberry crisp.

sunset on the lake our last night there

July 17-23 2011 Priest Lake Experimental Forest

John dropped me off with the trail crew in Spirit Lake Idaho on Sunday. The crew is  retired smokejumpers. They parachuted down to fight fires as a summer job when they were in college in Montana. We drove up to the Priest Lake Experimental forest for a week of work. I cooked. The men worked on making new signs, sanding and staining the benches in the amphitheater, clearing trees from a trail, power washing a deck and restraining it and clearing and putting up new signs in the Ponderosa plantation, making a new sign post for the sign by the road and more. Sprucing the place up for the 100 year celebration in the fall of this year. http://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/experimental-forests/priest-river-century-of-science/

The PREF was established 100 years ago, right after the 1910 fire that burned millions of acres of forest and killed many firefighters. At the PREF they researched  fire behavior, reestablishing forest after fire, tree pathogens and more. Some of the buildings were built by the CCC, like the lodge we stayed in, built in the 40’s.

The lodge, my cabin

the crew-left corner back, l-r Milt, Carl, Suep, Karl, Tom, Bob,Mike, front row Chuck, Paul, Hank, with Brew ski, Jimmie and Bob, Tom, Bob and Jimmie working on the new signs.

the last sign photo is one of the finished new signs

  Bob on his tractor, Milt sanding

Carl sanding the paint of the benches and the finished product. This is kind of ironic-Carl a few years ago painted the benches white. He misunderstood, the white was for the weather station and the stain was for the benches.

Paul making new metal labels for the nursery rows in the second photo, the Ponderosa Plantation so over grown you can’t see the post rows

the cleared rows, Hank clearing the ponderosas

Hank with chainsaw and part of the nursery the crew cleared last year behind  him, Mike clearing the ponderosas.

Hank, Mike and Chuck cleared a whole trail earlier in the week, but it was too far from the headquarters for me to go hike it and take photos of them there.

Milt working on the sign post , Milt, Bob and Tom working on the posts

the finished posts waiting for a sign, Mike and Bob working on the door to the shop.

 

Mike , Paul pointing out missed spots while Carl and Chuck paint.

Chuck and Mike painting, Tom, Chuck, Bob, Milt with the spaghetti dinner.

relaxing after work on the porch of the lodge, Paul and Chuck doing dishes

A bridge the crew built last year on the Crows Nest trail. I hiked it almost everyday between my scullery duties. The flowers were incredible. A sunset.

another relaxing on the porch after work. Milt cutting the NY strip into steaks.

Karl, Jimmie, Hank and Mike cooking theirs, and Bob watching Paul cook his

A new way of repelling mosquitos- a dryer sheet, Tom with his very rare steak.

Mike, Hank, Charlotte, Shaney and John at the steak dinner. We invited spouses to our dinner the last night and Paul, Jimmie, Tom, Milt and Carl enjoying their steak dinner.

Poster hung in the lodge, by committee I think.

 

During my spare time I hiked and photographed flowers and things I saw in the forest. It is so lush there and the flora is so diverse.