Canoeing the Palouse River

Bryan (nicknamed "lame") texted me at 5 am on a Saturday morning to see if I wanted to canoe the Palouse River with him. He normally gets up at 4, so this is late for him. I, on the other hand, am recently retired and I responded to his text when I rolled out of bed at 9. 

We jawed back and forth about the suitability of flat water kayaks versus a canoe and eventually decided on the canoe due to my wimpy card board kayaks maybe not being tough enough to pound continuously on the rocks we were expecting to encounter. But before that I grilled him on his knowledge of the Palouse River and whether he'd actually floated this section before. He assured me he had but I couldn't shake the images of Bryan's past St Maries River debacles (yes, that's plural). I leave it to you to ask him about it. They're great stories and surely worth the price of a beer. Bryan, you should publish those.  

We scheduled a meetup at noon which somehow got later to the point where we arrived at the Palouse public park - the launch point - at about 1:30. I couldn't refrain from saying "We are gonna die." So often that I started to make Brian nervous about going at all. You see, the Palouse River was about 3 ft below flood stage due to heavy rain and melting snow, and the fact that it's January and 39 degrees, and a slight dunking in this water will leave us hypothermic, with miles of roadless land to traverse for help was causing me pause.

So we spent a half hour reconnoitering the first half mile of the river to allay my fears. It turns out that the biggest waves are right at the end of the park where the river narrows to go under a bridge. Once I saw how flat and wide the next mile was we decided to go. But all this delay meant we would be wise to shorten our trip from the original 8 miles to Elberton planned, to a measly 4 to the Altergott road takeout. It gets dark in 2 hours. Let's not make this any stupider than necessary. 

We each had brought a shorty wet suit, and since the bathrooms are locked at this time of year, we got to suit up in the empty parking lot. More clothes on top of the wet suit. If I'm going to be doing more dumb stuff like this, I better invest in a dry suit that fits me better. That shorty nearly cut off the circulation to my arms. 

The first waves were the worst and I got a bit wet in the front of the boat. The waves splashed straight vertically up the sides and straight down on my ankles. Not too bad. 

Here we are in the first calm stretch. We may survive this ordeal after all. Bryan didn't want me to post this photo on Facebook because he though he looked dorky. Of the two of us, I think I look far dorkier. Small consolation for him. 

The river is quite high and brown with the extra flow. In fact, we hit no rocks the entire trip. 

One of the reasons to float this river is the exceptional scenery. The vertical basalt walls in many locations on this stretch of the river make roads down in here impossible, so there is a 6-mile stretch between Palouse and Elberton that is completely solitary. The terrain down in here is incredible, but things were a bit brown and dark due to the early season. This would be better done in March or April, but the flows would be lower and at some point it becomes impassable. We went so early this year because Bryan didn't want to miss it like last year. 

The river coasts head on into numerous rock walls like this one. Often it is serene before the corner and just the other side you can hear water churning. You will not see any pictures of the corners of the river because I was always paddling there. 

Three inch thick ice shards litter the bank in places, remnants of the deep freeze this area suffered just last month. 

Interesting rock. I thought it looked a bit like Sid from the movie "Ice Age". 

Here is the longest straight, flat stretch on this whole section.

Plenty of time for photos. 

My job was to call out the river and where we should be on it. It went something like this:

"Big rock river right with the fast water line going right to left. We should point left and stay left of the fast line."

Bryan's job was to steer. I couldn't point the boat much but I would add power when necessary. 

Getting more comfortable with taking photos during a riffle. 

Low bank near the takeout. Good timing because it's starting to get dark. 

The river gets fast at the bridges because they narrow it to build the abutments to minimize the span for cost. At the takeout there is a small patch of backwater right next to very swift current. The hard turn to get into the backwater out of the fast current is tough. We timed the turn perfectly but the result is the front of the boat in still water with the back in the high current. Whiplash!  We were a bit off balance but we didn't dump. 

What do you know. We survived. 

Here is the mid point take out. It took us about an hour and a half and we're guessing 4 miles. But we measured neither. 

Here's Bryan tying the boat back on the truck. I failed to capture his confused look of a moment ago. 

Great fun, Bryan. Let's do it again. St Joe river next time?  

Who else wants to go?

SF Trip 2015 Day 2

First things first. Let's go see one of the two iconic San Francisco things. Luckily we got out early on this one because by the time we got back from walking the bridge, the parking lot was full. 

No, Elaine is not spitting off the bridge. Below the railing there is a u-shaped rail that is mostly full of pennies -- like. Wishing well. We all took a shot, and hit 50% (Joe and Dad). 

It's quite a bridge. Look it up and read about it. 

Did you know you can pano up?

My iPhone survived this selfie, mostly because I was careful to not hang the phone over the railing.   This will be our Christmas card photo. 

On the walk back to the car, Joe spotted dolphins in the water near the bridge footing. 

What would normally be an inspiring city view would be better with the afternoon sun lighting up the near side. But in the morning, what I consider a very white (buildings) city was a dull, backlit gray. 

So we headed to Sausalito. In fact, this (http://youtu.be/C60kcAzmbAU) was our theme song for the trip. Sausalito turns out to be a trendy little tourist trap. I didn't know they. But just the way the old wooden houses, some even Victorian era, are jumbled on the vertical hills above the narrow waterfront two lane. At times the houses hang over the road. We made the mistakes of turning up on side street and found it one-lane and mountain goat steep in a matter of 50 yards. Damn. How will we even turn around. I was remiss in not taking more photos, but a walking tour would have been more like a mountain climb, for which I was ill prepared. The above picture was from inside a store called "Sauxalito". Lame, I know. 

The view from the downtown Sausalito is great, but the pano detail gets lost in the blog app. Sorry. 

We lunched at a trendy $14 burger joint that filled us so much that for dinner we only had desert. Very good local Pilsner. 

The trendiness of Sausalito, not to mention highway 1 lockup caused us to run screaming back to the peace of Golden Gate Park. Actually, we tried to walk through the Muir Woods, on the north side of the bay, but were shocked to find all three parking lots full andoverflowing far down the street. It would have been a half mile walk to get back to the entrance so we bail d and headed back to town. But the drive the entrance road to park was amazing in itself. It's only five miles but the road winds around a series of tightly waving hills with a 45 degree angle of repose. 5 to 10 mph on two twisty little 10-foot lanes with coastal wind-swept trees hanging half over the roadway like a passing shred of fog. 

Back at Golden Gate alarm we entered the Botanical Garden as the afternoon faded to dusk. This is the succulent section. Sounds dirty. 

The redwood section (w stern forests) of the Botanical Garden. It was fun getting lost in a small redwood forest, not to mention the bamboo forest of the Asian section of the garden, in the middle of a huge city. 

The gardens abound with small nooks like this isolated gazebo. All fuel for Elaine's vivid Lanscape Architect imagination. 

The conservatory. Darkness fell upon us here so we headed back to the car through a bridge underpass, in which we found a small digeridoo (so?) band using the reflective acoustics of the underpass for fantastic effect. Here is a short recording I made of them warming up: http://youtu.be/Bge6i7YBuaw

After dusk we had some extra time and pulled the multi-phone lookup on a Cineplex that was playing th new Star Wars movie. We wanted to watch it before any of us ran into spoilers.

Spoiler alert -- it was a dumbed-down Disney version almost identical to the plot of the original 1976 movie that was merely a hand off vehicle for the next generation of bland merchandizing vehicles. 

SF Trip Xmas 2015 Day 1

We decided to take the kids on a trip before Joe graduates from college this spring and moves away. I'm sure there will be family trips in the future, but it will never be this easy again. We opted for San Francisco because we procrastinated too long for a Hawaii trip. Plus none of us had ever been. 

Great, we have tickets. Where are we gonna stay?  I wanted something more than a hotel so I checked out Air BNB and VRBO and found this place within three miles of Golden Gate Park. The map said it was in an area of row houses and it didn't look like one. Funny. I was reading the map wrong and the house turns out to be in Pacifica. It all turned out Ok because it was in a quiet neighborhood with beach views from every room and only a 20 minute drive in to San Francisco. Just lucky I guess. 

Here's the view from the living room. I'm testing out Nan's new selfie stick. Seems like a great way to lose an iPhone. More on that tomorrow. 

We went south on the first day to have lunch at a local crab shack (Sam's Chowder Bar in Half Moon Bay - actually it's closer to El Granada) with some great friends from days of old. We've known Andy since Nan was in high school and Amy soon after that. We had a lovely catch-up and some awesome chowder and gumbo. 

Then we walked around Pillar Point to Maverick's beach. I wonder if the name has anything to do with the movie "Top Gun". The town of Miramar is just 3 miles away. Nope. Wrong Miramar. 

We found this comfortable seat in the rocks at Maverick's. The tide was out and the waves of middling size were breaking on the rocks beyond the tidal pools. 

Long-arm family selfie, suitable for our upcoming (late) Xmas letter. 

We still had a little daylight left so we headed into Golden Gate Park. Wow! What a park!  I've always been intrigued by New York's Central Park. Someday I will visit. It turns out that Golden Gate Park is similar in size and intention. It was shocking in its size and diversity. We thought we would have to park at the ocean-side parking and walk in, but then we realized that it's about 3 miles long by a half mile wide and there are lovely, wide drives throughout with bike trails, walking paths and ample free parking everywhere. It also has a polo ground, a large, authentic, Dutch-style windmill, an art museum, a botanical garden (tomorrow), and lots of ball fields and other amenities.

 We happened to wake up Elaine just in time to see the Bison paddock. Her eyes grew large at the shock. Bison were the last thing she expected to see. Shortly after that we found the most idyllic meadow (Hellman Hollow Meadow) and beyond that a small lake (Lloyd Lake). 

Here is Elaine posing at a small portico by the lake that is all that remains of the entrance to a great railroad magnate's home after the 1906 earthquake and fire. It was moved here around a century ago.  

Here is a panoram of the lake setting. The trees in the park all remind me of landscape paintings of America from the 17th and 18th centuries. The lake itself is fed by a waterfall that tumbles from a canal that is inches from the sidewalk that follows the road up the hill. The entire park is full of water features like this, many fed from a lake atop the highest hill in the park, which must have water pumped there. Though man-made, it is still wonderful to happen upon the sounds of falling water just about everywhere in the park. 

Here we are goofing around with the pano feature. Note Joes's Picasso-esque face on the left side of the image. 

Our last walk before dusk was to the top of Strawberry Hill, which is on an island in Stowe Lake, which you can paddle around in rented row boats. From there we saw the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown (the tops of the buildings), and a couple of the hilltops of the city. 

This iconic bridge is shown in all of the videos of the park from the 1950s. It is a bit larger than I expected. The stones are all larger than a person. You can barely see Joe peaking over the top. 

See. 

We stopped at Nick's in Pacifica on the way home for some very good seafood. We parked the car here and had to wipe salt water off the Windows from spray from the breaking waves. Thence "home". 

Side story:  it's kind of awesome traveling with four phone-internet enabled adults. We got really good at finding things fast and navigating in "just-in-time" mode. Yesterday we arrived at SFO at 5pm, picked up the rental car by 5:30, and before we drove out of the parking garage we had located a really great pizza place at the foot of the hill below our rental house, ordered a half Hawaiian half meat lovers pizza for pickup in 22 minutes, which is exactly how long it would take us to drive there, which we knew because we had another phone running the google maps navigation app which shows where all of the traffic is. We easily navigated the surprisingly hilly and narrow San Francisco in the darkness because the app gives you a heads up on what lane you need to be in to make the next exit. By 6:20 we were ensconced in the viewed, sunken living room of our rental house eating awesome pizza and binge watching Big Bang Theory. 

Grand Teton Relay

I didn't take a lot of photos on this trip, so I'll have a lot of stories with no supporting pictures. Bear with me if you want a yarn or just scan the pics and scram if you're in a hurry. 

The relay was in August, but 

like many good stories, this one started in Las Vegas 

(in March). 

Clay (a.k.a "Big Toe" -- a nickname I can only assume he earned because where ever the big toe goes the rest of the foot follows) caught me off guard. I was in Vegas with four OLD frat brothers. The "quiet" ones from my class were just taking a long weekend to talk over old times. I hadn't seen one of them in a decade and another since college. I got the invite and it was no question I was going. I'm kind of an anal prick and seldom get invited anywhere, so I accept invites whenever I get 'em. 

It didn't even have to be Vegas. All we wanted to do was sit in the hotel room and talk about each others' kids, which is what we mostly did. There are some awesome side stories, like Tobin giving Eis fashion advice until he got pissed off, Ernie losing a wad of money at craps and then gaining it all back plus $300 at poker, then blowing all that on a Lobster dinner for five at a side booth in an Italian restaurant in Ceasars Palace with great atmosphere and Sinatra playing on the overhead.

Top that off with a text from work on Friday while we were out at the cabana bar next to the Mirage pool that my company's stock just went up 35% and I could quit my job at any time. 

I was feeling pretty good. 

Then Clay called. 

I don't think Clay quite understood why I was pissed at him. But I was acting like a woman and not telling him, so I guess I get what I deserve. This part of the story starts in Sept 2012. About 13 Betas were going to run the Salmon Marathon, and I heard about it so I was going to join. I registered late, as usual, and prepared to ride the Buell (a motorcycle that has way more testosterone than I do) down, starting on Thursday. A motorcycle is always a poor choice for transportation to a marathon because it's no fun to mount the thing where you're sore after the run. But it gets about 55 mpg and a gas stop at Lolo only costs about $12, so pain it is. 

HUGE fire around Salmon that year scared all the Betas away. I was the only one that showed. Ash from a fire only 20 miles north rained down on Salmon as I rode into town, but luck was with me and the wind picked up out of the south on race day and clear skies and clean air prevailed. I ran the race and finished all by my lonesome. I sat by myself at a post race party on the banks of the beautiful, cool, clear Salmon river texting Clay how I wished he were there (love notes, you know). 

Come to find out the following year Clay and all the Betas ran it without even mentioning it to me. So next time Clay mentioned wanting to run with me I said "You want to run with me?! No you don't."

Like I said, I don't think he understood what I was pissed about because he made a special effort to invite me to this relay. 

What is a Relay?

Ok, a marathon is one thing, but a relay is a completely different animal. On a marathon, you kill yourself running for 4 hours -- by yourself or with others. Everything hurts for a week but you're done in four hours. And you can really get to know someone, running together for four hours. 

But a relay is 12 smelly guys in two claustrophobic vans for 36 hours and 180+ miles. One person on your team is running at any given time, day and night. 36 hours straight. If you get two hours sleep you're lucky. Each runner gets 3 legs of about 5 miles each, but the grade, distance and elevation (not to mention the weather) will vary from leg to leg. 

There are relays all over the U.S., and the granddaddy of them is the Hood to Coast relay. It draws 1000 teams and there is a waiting list. The elite teams average something like 5:30 per mile for 206 miles. Nice coastal finish in Seaside OR. Crazy. This one only has 125 teams, and none so fast. We were averaging 9 min/mile and took 20th place. But the elevation is no lower than 6500 ft and peaks at 8400. Lots of monster hills too.

Plus it's expensive. There are vans to rent, food and supplies to procure and travel to and from the race. Counting my flight down and back this one set me back over $650. 

So on a normal day I would tell Clay to stick it in his ass, but I was feeling sooo good and August was sooo far away, so I just said "yeah, ok."

Well, August came. And damn! Logistics! Getting in running shape! Shit!

How'm I Gonna Git There?

I'm in Moscow and it's a 6 hour drive to Boise and another 6 or 7 to Island Park, where we're camping in Degen's cabin which is close to the race start early Friday morning in Ashton ID. 

Or I could motorcycle down through Lolo and Hamilton MT and Salmon in maybe slightly less time, but I would still have to leave Wednesday at noon or shortly after work and get 5 or 6 hours in to make it on time. 

Or I Could Take My New Airplane. 

(See my previous Monocoupe entries on this blog). 

Only four hours of flight time -- three if I fly straight through the wilderness area from Grangeville to Salmon. That sounds a lot better than 13 hours, now doesn't it?

So I pull the usual trip procrastination routine and waited until past the time that I could drive and the only way I could get there on time was by flying -- the day I had to be there. So I'm gonna fly, so I look up where my flight watch buddy, Mike Hamby is. Mike is from Parma and I'll be flying through Boise so he's the first one I'll check with on all aspects of the flights. Turns out Mike is up in McCall for the weekend. He flew up there with his wife because he got a free weekend from the farm -- unusual for this time of year. So we make arrangements to meet there on Thursday morning. 

That morning I start up and head for Lewiston for gas, and I noticed that the plane has been starting more and more sluggishly of late. Well, it barely cranked over, but it did start, and I got to Lewsiton quickly for gas. I gassed up, hopped in, and what do you know -- the battery won't crank the engine over. Well, I was contemplating calling Clay to tell him they'd be down to 9 runners out of 12 (two runners had already cancelled), but instead I borrowed a battery charger from Stout Flying Service and worked my way down to the battery in a box behind the passenger seat. I got it charging at a measely 2 amps, but 45 minutes of that was enough. The plane started right up and then I remembered the previous owner telling my a story about a switch on the right side of the dash that turned the alternator field on and off. Now, why you would ever want to turn of the alternator field, I have no idea, but somehow that switch got turned off and I'd been starting without charging since May (it was now August). That's actually a pretty tough battery. Once I got it started, I played with that alternator field switch a bit and also discovered a charge indicator on the dash that I'd never looked at before. With the switch on it was charging at 50 amps. Off, 0 amps. On 50 amps, off 0 amps. 50, 0. 50, 0. Ok, let's leave that thing on and head to McCall. 

Out of Lewiston I climbed to 8500 ft in anticipation of flying through the Salmon River valley over Riggins to New Meadows. The highest pass in the valley is 5000 feet at the south end, but it's 50 miles between landing sites through there and the plane glides at a rate of 14 to 1, or 1 mile per thousand feet of elevation, so 8500 feet will get me 3 1/2 miles of glide. Not enough to make it the whole way through, but better than nothing. But I haven't even gotten to Grangeville and I see the picture above: so much smoke that it's practically lFR (instrument flight rules). Honestly, I'm watching the artificial horizon to make sure the wings are level and I'm not diving, and I'm looking straight down every now and again to make sure I can still see the ground. I couldn't even see the Seven Devils. 

I squeak through there, listening to 122.9 (the back country frequency) to make sure the three charter flights that followed me out of Lewiston are not about to run me over in the smoke. No problem, they're going down the Snake River valley. 

Well, I get to McCall about an hour late due to the battery problem and Mike and his wife Shelley are there waiting at the airport. When they fly to McCall they don't even get a car, but walk the mile to their waterfront condo. They escorted me to a great breakfast restaurant and we had such a nice chat that I wished I was staying there instead of going off to a run in the Tetons.

I had hoped to arrive in Idaho Falls by noon to avoid the bumpy heat across the lava fields of the great Idaho desert but the battery fiasco and the leisurely breakfast in McCall set me back to about a 3pm landing. The worst time of day to be flying there. 100+ degrees and lots of bumps. I was ready for a shower when I got in. 

Luckily, I chose Avmark from the four FBOs on field to gas up and park my plane. It turns out that they had recently completed an awesome new jet port. 

The cool thing about jet ports is they really roll out the red carpet for those high-rolling biz jets that suck fuel at the rate of hundreds of pounds per hour. In order to lure in the Jets and sell oodles of fuel, the set up posh passenger and pilot lounges. But they don't differentiate jets from props. I might buy $60 in gas but they still treat me like I bought thousands. 

They park me in their cavernous, spotless hangar. 

With jets and classic aircraft. 

Awesome pilot lounge (and shower) separate from the wall-to-wall glass passenger lounge. 

So I spent a couple hours here waiting for the crew to drive in from Boise in the rented vans. I could have flown to Boise and ridden over in the van, but that would be another 12 hours in the van that I will be stuck in for the next two days anyway, so I opted to fly as far toward the start as I could. 

Here's the view from the back seat of the van. It's the same view I will have for the next two days with an ever increasing smell quotient. 

Ok, there are some redeeming features to a relay. This relay happens to have some spectacular scenery. Those are the Grand Tetons, on the border of Idaho and Wyoming. The course would take us right up under those on the far side near Jackson eventually. 

The first morning and afternoon is very nice. Lots of teams close together. Lots of fresh, happy people ready to run. Beautiful scenery in the daylight hours. Here is Mesa Falls on the Fall River. 

And the weather was fantastic. Gorgeous sunset. Funny. What I don't have here is pictures of any actual runners. I guess I saw so much of it that I didn't even think to take any pictures of that. 

We ran up and down the road to farther ski resort all in the darkness of night, so there were no views. 

Maybe I should explain the two team vans. Each team has (supposedly) 12 runners -- 6 in each of two vans. There are 36 total legs to run so Van #1 takes the first six legs while van #2 does whatever it wants. Mostly cheering support the first day. Then van #2 takes over on legs 7 thru 12, and so on. Each van is on duty for as much as 6 hours straight. By the end of the first day; the off van is just looking for a place to get some sleep. I was in van #2 at the end of leg 24 at the top of Targhee drive and everyone in the van was dropping like flies. I found myself driving and navigating amongst a bunch of snoring monsters. So I pulled up the web site on the phone,  found that our next leg (31) started at Victor, ID, then pulled up a map on the phone and made a bee-line for Victor. We arrived there at 2am at the city park, where I found a patch of grass to sleep on. When I shut down the van, Clay woke up and said "Where are we."  I said "We're at Victor. Our next leg starts 100 yards over there at the exchange point, in about four hours, and we can sleep on the grass right here in front of the van."

Seriously. I think everybody hopped out in their sacks and collapsed into a deep sleep within seconds of hitting the ground barely 3 feet from the van. We only got two hours sleep before the sun came up, but it was an extremely refreshing 2 hours. 

Here's the view to the east from the top and of the pass between Idaho and Jackson. Tight little road with small shoulders and tons of traffic. Great views but let's do a different relay next year. 

Obligatory Dane towel picture. Clay is grilling Robbie so hard he's clutching a teddy bear. 

Robbie blistered his foot a week before the race and was limping mightily at the end of his first leg. He performed major surgery prio to his second leg and I think he even picked up an extra leg due to our being short two runners. 

Big dinner as a reward for taking 25th overall out of 129 teams. Ok, this was a pretty cool moment that could have been better only if someone would have produced a dozen cigars and the group had broken into a spontaneous, low version of "Pass the Loving Cup Around."

Everybody in one van for dinner. Not enough seats in there so we're all on the cooler and floors. 

Plus everybody is clean for the first time in two days, so we're fed and happy. 

Next we went to the bars, but 50-year-olds don't last long under these conditions. 

The following morning after a good night's sleep we headed back home. On the way to Boise, van #1 dropped me off at the IF airport, which had so much smoke from the central Idaho fires that is showed up as rain on the radar. Smoke across the Snake River Valley was so thick that I could barely see 6 miles ahead. After a quick lunch stop at Nampa I charted a zigzag path home to avoid temporary flight restriction areas near Riggins. I went straight north to Council and then left across Hell's Canyon to Joseph, OR. 

Every one of those red outlines on the map is where only fire fighting aircraft can fly. Not to mention that some of them are producing tons of smoke. 

There is some I nteresting and frightful terrain just on the Oregon side of Hell's Canyon. For one thing Hell's Canyon is VERY deep. But the terrain on the other side is horizontally layered lava flows with orange-ish dirt layers between. The trees won't grow in the basalt layers, and all of the land is deeply vertically eroded, leaving dark green trees alternating with orange dirt that seems to form contour lines as if on a map. But this map looked a little like "Where's Waldo". It was strange, and a bit nerve racking because there was nowhere to land in there for about 45 minutes. 

Eventually the air cleared a bit in that direction and I got these pictures at the airport there. 

Little did James Hiltoy know when he was buried here in 1903 that I would tie down my Monocoupe within 3 ft of his head. I hope to be thus buried. 

The 'Coupe at Joseph. After this there was only the uneventful flight home across the great chasm that is the Grand Rhonde River. Only an hour home from Joseph.