Day 110 - Salmon River Scenic Byway, Salmon & the Lewhi County Fair & Rodeo, ID

Our plan today to see the ringing rocks of Montana didn't quite work out but there was an unexpected surprise at the end of the day when the town we were staying in was hosting the County Fair and Rodeo.

The drive today took us through mining towns and communities, including Anaconda. Asides from the unusual name, we didn't really notice this town until we were leaving and saw what looked like a black mountain. We knew immediately that this wasn't a natural feature and after quick look on Google, we found this is the home of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and what we were looking at was a huge slag heap. Cooper mining and smelting stopped in the 1980s but there is still a lot of waste left behind.

At the border with Idaho, we reached Lost Trail Pass and the start of the Salmon River Scenic Byway. Today, this is a ski resort called Lost Trail Powder Mountain but back in 1805, this was the site where famous explorers Lewis and Clark traveled when their native guide lost the trail.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was a U.S. military expedition, led by Capt. Lewis and Lieut. Clark in 1804 until 1806 whose mission was to explore the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Northwest. They traveled 8,000 miles by foot, horseback and by boat across 11 states. Maybe this was the first version of a MERTA road trip! Today parts of their trail are maintained by the National Park Service accessible for people to hike, bike or drive.

Whilst we stopped at Lost Trail Pass for a quick break, we did wonder how anyone managed to do a trip across this landscape back in the 1800s, the hardships and struggles they must have gone through, the determination they must have felt and the reward when they see landscapes such as the magnificent views we were looking at and then having to try to explain it to people back home without sounding like a mad-man dreaming of heaven.

With our minds back on our own trip, we headed down the Salmon River Scenic Byway which follows the same route that Lewis and Clark took whilst travelling along the Salmon River through the Salmon-Challis National Forest. We enjoyed reading the information stations dotted along the road learning more about their journey and the importance of the river.

We reached our Century 2 Campground and found we had a lovely spot right next to the Salmon River. Our tent neighbors were a lovely couple called Leeman and Mara and to make us feel at home, the campground owner put up a Union Jack flag outside his office This is one of those campsites we could have easily spent a lot more time at.

As we were driving into the campground, we saw that the town was hosting the Lewhi County Fair & Rodeo. Once pitched, we headed down to check it out. Entry to the fair was free and we enjoyed waking around the various competitions and stalls.

In the evening, the site also held a Rodeo. We had wanted to see a Rodeo but we couldn't line up our schedule with a rodeo in the Southern states, all hope of seeing one had gone until we reached Salmon. The tickets were only $14 per person and the amount of fun we had made them worth every single penny.

The Rodeo started with a lady riding a horse and flying the flag whilst the Johnny Cash song called the Ragged Old Flag was played. This was the first time we'd heard this song and we found it really thought provoking and for a foreigner, more powerful than the National Anthem at showing the American people's pride in their country and their independence.

The events included bareback riding, steer wrestling, team roping, saddle bronc riding, tie down roping, ladies barrel race and bull riding. There was also a special act from a Mexican cowboy who blew us away when he managed to get the horse he was riding to lie down and then get up again all whilst he was spinning his lasso.

Like any good fair, there was also a raffle. It was run by the Salmon Search and Rescue team and first prize was a Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22 riffle, second was a 60 litre cooler and third was a nights stay at a lodge with dinner. We did have to giggle to ourselves that only in America would first prize in a raffle be a gun!

After the Rodeo, we met up with Leeman and Mara and hit the town. Given there are only about 3,000 people who live in Salmon, we were surprised by the number of bars and clubs, all were kicking due to the Rodeo and there was a great party atmosphere. We went to Owl Club and listened to a live band in the garden until about 1am before heading back to the campsite and leaving those without a long journey tomorrow to continue partying into the morning.

Day 109 - Wallace, ID & Missoula, Garnet & Georgetown Lake, MT

We packed up the tent and hit the I-90. Today was going to be a long day, we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us an quite a few different sights we wanted to stop off and take a look at along the way.

Not long after setting off, Lee pulled off the Interstate and into a town called Wallace. He had seen a sign for 'Historic Wallace', a unique town with 125 years of silver mining history. Apparently the town has long been famous as the 'Silver Capital of the World' with 1.2 billion ounces being produced since 1884. They still mine silver near the town but the bigger economy is the people who now come here from skiing biking trails.

The town was definitely unique with a quirky feel that I couldn't work out whether it was for the tourists or just a representation of the history of the town and the people who live there. Either way, it was a cool place to drive around.

Back on the Interstate, we headed over the border to Montana. Usually we try to avoid Interstates as they tend to be boring, monotonous roads filled with traffic but the I-90 from Idaho to Montana was different. There was very little traffic and the scenery was amazing, it felt like we were on a scenic highway rather than an Interstate.

We stopped off at one of the rest stops for a breakfast of banana, melon, yogurt and broken up breakfast bar before continuing on our winding journey through the forests and hills of Montana.

To break up the journey, we stopped for a coffee break at the town of Missoula. This is the same place where the great Ice Age floods caused the formation of Dry Falls (which we saw yesterday). Thankfully, we didn't see any masses of water but we did find an awesome little coffee house called Zootown Brew. Lee had a Chai Tea Latte and since I hadn't had a coffee yet today, I kick started my wake up with a double espresso. The coffee was all locally roasted and the shop itself was more like a social club with fantastic internet to get some work done, conference rooms downstairs and a stage for entertainment.

Once we had both perked up, we headed back to the car via the Conflux Brewing Company. Lee is continuing his education in beer making and felt he needed to check out the newest brewing company in Missoula. The inside of this place was very cool with an industrial / skater type vibe. As it was a new brewery, beers are still being tried out so the beer list was on the wall and each of the tap handles had the name written on them in chalk so they could be changed as new brews are created and less successful ones are removed.

After just one beer, we hit the road again but this time we were heading off the I-90 and headed through farming communities towards Garnet Ghost Town.

Lee wasn't impressed when the road we were on turned into a single track dirt road, his least favourite road to drive on in a rental car! The cows grazing alongside the road kept him distracted from the bumps and craters for a little while along with my encouragement that it was "just around the corner". 

8 miles later, with no more cows to distract Lee and my 'just around the corner' act falling apart, we finally reached our destination.

Garnet is one of the best preserved mining towns in the US. In 1898, 1,000 people lived here but 20 years later, the town was abandoned when the gold ran out. In its heyday, the town boasted 13 saloons, food stores, a barber shop, mercantile store, and three hotels. A fire in 1912 destroyed half of the town but what was left, has been preserved as it was with only some minor structural changes to stop the buildings collapsing.

We enjoyed walking around Garnet, reading about what each of the buildings used to be and going inside to explore what life must have been like for a mining community in the 1900s.

Short trail to get to Garnet

One of the saloons

Lee reenacting a night in the saloon 

Grocery Store

Inside the hotel

Hotel kitchen

Posh rooms in the hotel

Cheap rooms in the hotel - you sleep between the wooden lines

Hotel 'Bathroom'

The jail

Biggest billows Lee has ever seen

A toilet each for this household

The married couples house - anyone recently married stayed here

until they could afford to build their own house

Back at the carpark, we saw a sign for a nature trail to see the old mines. We didn't have much time as we wanted to pitch the tent before dark but the sign said it was only a 20 minute walk and we thought with our youngish legs, we could beast it in 10. We were wrong. The 20 minute timing on the sign must have been for people with an electric wheelchair or quad bike, there was no way you could get around in less than 40 minutes and that's walking very fast. 

Even though it was a lot longer than we expected, we enjoyed walking through the woods looking at the different mines and some of the mining equipment left behind. 

Yeah right! 

Finally back at the car we looked at the map, the only way back onto the main road was back the way we came, along the 8 mile single road dirt track that Lee so enjoyed driving along. Ooops!

Lee manned up and got back onto the Interstate where we then headed South towards Georgetown Lake, our campsite for the night.

We couldn't choose the pitch at this campsite, it is allocated to you but we were lucky to have a huge site that backed into the woods. Time was against us so we quickly put up the tent and started a fire for dinner. There was lots of firewood lying around the campground, we couldn't believe how lucky we were that we weren't going to need to pay for any but there was a reason it was lying around the campground. The days before we had arrived, there was heavy rain and all the wood lying around had been soaked through, it wasn't dry enough yet to burn. On the positive side, the rain had meant that the fire ban had been lifted but we still needed to get our chicken cooked. Lee set out to look for the camphost where he managed to buy some dry(ish) wood and then with some help of the self lighting charcoal, managed to get a fire going.

Dinner was chicken and vegetables in a cream cheese sauce and for pudding, we made use of the hard work Lee put into getting the fire going and had roasted marshmallows on our new marshmallow roasting stick.