July 26-28 2013 Lochsa River, Idaho

All the campgrounds in McCall were full for the weekend, so we headed up to the Lochsa river to a nice forest service campground.

White Bird Battlefield was the site of the first battle between the army and the Nez Perce Indians. This is the Nez Perce ancestral land. It was given to them as a reservation in a treaty.  When gold was discovered on the land they USA made a new treaty and took away 90% of the land and forced the Indians to move. Some refused to move and the army was sent to move them. There was a battle right here and the Indians won. Of course after than the army came  back with vengeance and either killed or forced the remaining Indians to move to a reservation in Oklahoma.  This is also the White Bird Grade, it is a very steep grade, and in the left of the photo you can see many switchbacks. The current road was built in the 70’s, it is still steep, but does not have switchbacks.

We got a great campsite in the Western Gateway to the Wilderness campground on the Lochsa river. The foliage is very thick here, so the sites are very private. They all have a secluded campfire picnic area too. Here is John chasing off mosquitos with a cigar. I spent some time in the lawn chair reading.

A pink flower, a beetle that  blended with the rock. It has really long antennae, but it was on the run, this was all I got of him. The thimble berries are ripe and all over the campground. I picked a bunch, and made whole wheat, oatmeal, walnut, thimble berry muffins.  In the campsite next to us was Ken Duncan, a kayaking friend of John’s from Fort Collins and his family up here boating the Lochsa.  We had no idea they were here, it was a lucky coincidence. John joined them for a day of kayaking today.

Before he left John removed the shade over the bed. One of the cords in it was broken. It took forever to figure out how to get it off. I spent 4 more hours restringing it. It has 4 cords that crisscross in the nite shades at the top, then crisscross again in the day part of the shade,  crisscross again and then attach to the bottom. They are great, you can raise or lower them to any level. But very frustrating to try to fix. We spent another hour getting them rehung and they didn’t work. We will try again tomorrow, or just buy new shades when we get to a big city again. . .

Ken’s family kayaking on the Lochsa.  Tina, Ken, Danielle and Ty Duncan.

After the shade day I went to the swimming hole on the river and refreshed. John was already refreshed from boating. The next day we both worked on the shade and voila it works now! You can pull down the bottom day shades or the nite shades and they stay where you pull them. Guess we won’t have to buy a new shade.

We rewarded ourselves for fixing the shade with at trip to the historic Lochsa Ranger station. The building is called the composite building. It was built between 1927-1933. It is actually 4 log cabins put together. The first door on the end is the commissary, the next one is the tool room- pictured here.

Then the rangers office and the mess hall. The normal crew was 24 people, but during fires there were up to 200 to feed. The cook was busy. The ranger had his own house with a kitchen for his family.

An ad for a ranger in the early days of the forest service. John is walking to the Boulder cabin. It was originally on Boulder creek where it was the first headquarters for the Lochsa ranger district, but they took it down when they built the highway through here in 1926. They labeled each of the logs and floated them down the Lochsa to the present location and restored it.

The barn and corrals. The original ones burnt down in the 1934 fire. The staff was able to save the rest of the complex. The station was a resupply post for the other facilities in the area, so they did a lot of packing, they had a string of pack horses and mules here.  After our tour of the ranger station we took a hike on the Boulder Creek trail. It looked on the map like it would follow the creek, nice shaded and we could swim if we got hot, but it switched back up the side of the mountain and was hot where there was no shade. I love how lush it is in northern Idaho.

After the hike we took a swim in the river. When we got back I was relaxing, I was cold from the river and asked John to bring me something with sleeves to wear and he brought out my snuggly he gave me for xmas. It was not what I had in mind, but it was quite cozy.