Fire in the River
My boots and new gloves were under my tent vestibule so it took brave rodents to chew on them. My overpriced Klim socks were missing entirely. Sad day for me, happy for woodland critters.
I learned the limits of how long I can charge things without the bike running. Funny thing was, I hit the starter and it fired right up last night. I was checking for exactly this.
We roll started it but it ran for only about twenty feet after which it was so dead the dash didn’t even come on. I was kind of worried the computer had locked us out (I’ve heard the BMW horror stories) but after trickle charging off the Honda battery for a while, it came to life.
After Diamond Lake, we would head down to Superior then back to Idaho over Hoodoo Pass to The Cedars campground.
Based on population, we thought there would be more in Superior, Montana but Durango’s was the only restaurant we could find. The plastic basket food was okay, the service less-so.
The road up the Montana side of Hoodoo Pass was gravel, oiled all but the last couple miles. It was Sunday so we faced a mass mountain exodus but we were still able to scoot along fairly fast.
A GS rider was parked at the entrance of the Hoodoo Pass lot as I pulled in. I waved and hoped he’d walk over as I pulled off my gear but his body language communicated disinterest. Shortly, another GS rider pulled in and parked at a spot as far away as possible from the first. Later we could overhear them arguing. We kind of hoped for a fight but left before anything that exciting happened.
The Idaho side of Hoodoo Pass was awesome asphalt. It would have been more awesome but for the slow going, unyielding pickup driver in the middle of the road who earned the radio call sign “asshole.”
The Cedars campground was chock full of people so we felt lucky to get a nearby unimproved site right along the Little North Fork of the Clearwater.
His reaction wasn't inspiring.
The fast roads over Hoodoo Pass put us into camp quite early. We filled the time with construction of a fire pit in the middle of the river. Why not?
We spent hours clearing slippery, uneven rocks and using them to divert the river flow around hard-won wood. We were kids again.
We had the regular fire pit ready to go when it grew dark. It's not safe to have just one.
Jesse came up with a stump somewhere.
by Jason Abbott