On Mara's recommendation, we stopped at Old Fellows Bakery. We each had a delicious ham and cheese croissant and a much-needed large black coffee.
Refueled, we headed back on the road. Unbeknownst to us, however, was that it was the wrong road. We both missed the turning for the 93 and it wasn't until we had done about 45 miles in the wrong direction that I thought we should check the map. There was no cut through to get us back on track, so we did a U-turn and did the 45 mile trek back to Salmon. Thoroughly annoyed with ourselves, we filled up with gas and headed off - in the right direction.
Our route to our next camping spot near Sunbeam, Idaho, was in large part along the Salmon Scenic Byway. As its name suggests, it runs alongside the Salmon River. This was a very cool drive which snaked its way between towering walls of sandstone and granite, from time to time opening out into lush pastures upon which cattle grazed.
A town with a population of 7 people
And this is the town
In one small town we passed through, Sam spotted what looked like a festival. Her curiosity resulted in a quick Google which, instead of telling us what the festival was, pointed us to the Sawtooth Salmon Festival. This free event highlighted the plight of the dwindling Salmon population in the area and included a trip to a local Salmon spawning location. This was taking place only a few miles from our campsite, so we put our foot down and made a beeline for camp.
As we neared our destination, we noticed some very strange cloud formations that created some eerie colours in the sky. We thought it looked like smoke, and we later found out that a wildfire had indeed just broken out in nearby Grand Jean.
After pitching the tent in record time, we headed to the small town of Stanley down the road. We arrived at the tiny festival to find out busy with people sitting on chairs and laying on the grass listening to a live band playing. There were a number of different stalls showcasing things from Salmon preservation to the area's status as a Dark Sky Preserve. The old ranger station, active until 1972 had been preserved, so we grabbed a free (donation-supported) beer and wandered around this and the ice house out back. We learnt that Stanley was usually one of the coldest places in the lower 48, and immediately questioned our decision to camp nearby!
At 5pm we hopped on an old school bus and took a 5-mile trip up the road to a salmon spawning area on the river. Our two guides, Tom and Dave, were both knowledgeable and passionate about salmon, and their catastrophic decline caused by the damming of the river. The free field trip was both interesting and sad, and we managed to see a few salmon as we stood at the water's edge, but the scene was nothing like it would have been 50 years ago.
The association that put the event on has more information here.
By the time we returned, the event was shutting down so we hopped back in the car and back to the campsite. Funding no camp hosts or drinking water at our campsite, we got back in the car and up the road to another one which did have both of these. With firewood and water loaded up, we returned for the final time to camp to get the fire on and cook a lovely meal of veggies and - what else - salmon.
Nice coffee mugs and good to see a pic of the Owl Club from the night before ;-)
ReplyDeleteBummer about your wrong turn but the (eventual) route looked very scenic, I like that you were on the 45th Parallel too - pretty cool.
I love the photos of the river, especially the one with the granite rocks in the background.
A cool photo of the Salmon in the river and it looked like you did a fair bit of hopping around but great when you got your pitched sorted and a lovely looking meal on the go.