We've been off of the road now since September 12. After finally settling in back home, I'm just now getting along to these trip reports! I know many people have been looking for them, and we're definitely looking forward to sharing them!
After getting through Washington, it was sinking in that we were heading east, homeward bound. We have friends that moved out to Missoula, Montana almost 5 years ago that we intended on visiting on our way back. Before we hit them, we wanted to explore Idaho some more. We had done some exploring in western Montana and central (near the Lehmi Range) Idaho last summer. We found it breathtaking and looked forward to seeing more.
Came in on Rt. 90 to Coeur d'Alene, which seemed like a nice town with plenty of money. The lake was gorgeous and my park finder map (an app on my phone) told us there was some BLM camp spots along it. After much searching, there was not. It did look like they were doing some construction along side an area right outside of town that may have been future camp spots. It would've been a nice view, but too close to town for us.
We ended up driving further down 90 to a NF campground, with unfortunately very noisy intoxicated neighbors. After hardly sleeping at all, we were awoken by bees. So many bees (yellow jackets I believe).....swarming the camper. I am slightly allergic (whatever appendage is stung becomes quite enlarged and painful), so I fear them. Little did we know, we would be dealing with bees, in large quantities the rest of the trip home!
We packed up swiftly and headed south on rt 97, stopping along the way for a coffee and breakfast sandwich at Hutton's General Store. Our destination for that night was Dworshak State Park, on the Dworshak Reservoir, specifically for showers. The drive was very scenic along the lake.
Here's the lake that morning.
Even off of the lake in between small mountains were small farms and rolling hills. The road to Dworshak Campground is a narrow, descending road with many switchbacks. It dead ends you right into the state park. We had the non-electric grounds mainly to ourselves and enjoyed a swim in the reservoir then showers. Made a nice dinner with the company of hundreds of bees and watched while the late evening crowd filed in. After getting to bed early that night, then next morning we awoke early and moved onto rt. 12.
Our plan was to take a two-track across the rest of Idaho into Montana, but fires south of 12 determined that we couldn't.
Stopped at a ranger station in Kamiah to get more info. We were told we could take 500 across, and that it happens to be the "original" route that the Nez Perce took Lewis and Clark across the Bitterroot Range. We opted to follow the Lochsa River on rt. 12 instead. It was very beautiful, we agreed that we would love to explore more in this area, and perhaps fly fish, at a later date.
We stopped to do a very short hike back to an area we were told had been a Japanese labor camp during WWII, all that was left was a big open space in the middle of the forest.
We knew we wanted to disperse camp along the river, so we drove until we found this spot at one of the river access points. Right across the river is the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area. We were secluded and found much solitude this evening.
The next day we drove the remainder of 12. Stopping in at Lochsa Lodge to have a bite to eat, we had a pretty amazing view. After a good lunch, we continued on and took a turn up Parachute Hill Road. We climbed and winded on the stone road until we found the 500. We drove a bit of it headed west before finding a turnout to turn around. We just wanted to see what it was all about. It seems like it'd be a great deal of fun to come back and drive that all the way across. There are cabins and old ranger towers along 500 you can stay at also. Here's some of the views on the short time we had with this road.
On the way back down, we had to pull off to the side to let the NFS guys through with their big trucks. Later (while in Montana) we came to find out, there was a fire. So big in fact, they shut down Rt. 12. I don't know if that is what these guys were headed for or not, but maybe it was a good thing we didn't take 500 across....
Almost back onto 12 we spotted a red fox.
Was unusually pacing back and fourth in the road. Maybe a female with pups?
Back onto 12, we stopped at the LoLo Visitors Center before crossing over into Montana. There, I purchased a sweet George Winston(pianist) cd called "Summer" that I played so frequently I think Pete went crazy! It is real nice music that totally fit the scenery. :-)
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