Heading for Wyoming we decided to travel US Highway 12 from I-5 across Washington, Idaho, and more than halfway across Montana. What a pretty ride.
Washington....
In Washington we followed the Cowlitz River up to the summit of the Cascades. Then the Tieton River down to Yakima. Through the Yakima Valley following the Yakima River to the Columbia River at the Tri-Cities. Lots of apples, grapes, peaches, and hops.
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| Mad power |
Then we basically followed along the Snake River to Clarkston, WA through the Palouse rolling hills and finally to Lewiston, ID where the Snake River comes north up through Hell's Canyon.
Idaho....
In Idaho we followed the Clearwater and the Lochsa rivers up to the summit of Lolo Pass and Montana.
We camped for a couple nights at the Wilderness Gateway Forest Service Campground and were lucky to be able to listen to good old country music coming from the Wilderness Jam Campout. This is the 33rd year this informal festival has been held. It is held for a week in mid-June and another week in mid-August.
From our campsite we drove a ways back to tour the historic Lochsa Ranger Station. The volunteers on hand that day were rangers from 1951 and had lived in that building during their stay.
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| Beargrass |
We learned that the highway in this area wasn't finished until the mid-1950's.
We asked about the billboards we had read about "megaloads". His explanation: these loads were equipment shipped up the Columbia and the Snake River to Lewiston to be used in the mining of oil (fracking?) in Alberta, Canada. They would travel only at night on Hwy 12....on the slow, narrow, and twisty Hwy 12. Pull-offs were paved to allow traffic to get off the road to allow the load to pass.
A megaload is: 24' wide, 196' long, 30' high. Total load 500,000 lbs. Only one truck made the route and there was lots of damage: car accidents, road damage, tree limbs, power poles, signs. And then the state of Montana wouldn't let the load go down the road between Lolo Pass and Missoula and cause more damage. The "megaload" sat at the top of the pass for 6 months before being allowed to move.
A megaload is: 24' wide, 196' long, 30' high. Total load 500,000 lbs. Only one truck made the route and there was lots of damage: car accidents, road damage, tree limbs, power poles, signs. And then the state of Montana wouldn't let the load go down the road between Lolo Pass and Missoula and cause more damage. The "megaload" sat at the top of the pass for 6 months before being allowed to move.
The volunteer also told us that the river was way to low for rafting. That the peak season was last month. But we saw a lot of short kayaks and rafts in the campground and we wondered if they were waiting for a big rain???
But we were lucky, at the next turnout was a group of 5 commercial raft captains from Colorado preparing to take a raft down river. What fun they had to not worry about bouncing a tourist out. We drove ahead of them and got this picture.
Montana....
And then it started raining as we headed up Lolo Pass and into Montana. And it rained the next day. Big Sky Country was turning into Low Gray Cloud Country. The citizens promise us that the weather will be turning around soon. We'll see.
