Day 13. Alaska Ride 2017: Whitefish, Montana

I wake, get some breakfast and check how the smoke situation is doing outside: it is bad.  I hit the road and although it is 10 am, the sun is just an orange globe in the hazy sky.

I travel south on the 93 until I hit Missoula, Montana where I grab some lunch. I continue south thinking that the road will now change into a winding mountain road with little, or no cars, but quite the opposite is true. There are tons of cars going both South and North, and on both sides of the highway are industrial buildings. I stop to get some gas, and as I am working on the gas cap I hear a diesel pull up behind me and out of the dodge pickup truck steps Jim, who is about 75 years old and wearing rancher garb.  “What part of California are you from?” asks Jim. I tell him that I am from Orange County. “The last republican holdout.” Spouts Jim. “I was born in Alameda, and went to school at Berkley. Alameda was a good place to grow up” Says Jim.   Jim is filling a gas can and says this Suzuki ATV only gets about 15 mpg.  I wish Jim a good day and head back on my way.  The industrial view goes on for about 2 hours and finally, the canyon walls narrow, and the meandering Salmon river springs into life. The Salmon river was use by Lewis and Clark on their expedition across the West, and there are many historical markers describing their efforts. I get about an hour past the town of Salmon, and decide to ride to a BLM campground that is about 7 miles off the highway. The road quickly turns into gravel, but thanks to my new-found Dalton highway skills, and my off-road tires, I make haste to the campground. 

I pull into the campground and find that I am the only one here. There are two picnic benches, a beautiful little babbling stream, an outhouse, and a water pump. I was really expecting no water on such a remote and small campsite. I start working on the bike, as always and a little white car pulls up into the campground.

I am thinking that I now have neighbors, but Tom jumps out and assembles his fishing pole.  As he is walking by, I ask Tom if there are really fish in this little steam and he says “You bet, there are rainbow, brook” and a couple of other trout that I cannot recall.  I then say “They stock the stream?”, and Tom says “No, they are all native.”, which does not make sense to me, as I recall that only brook trout are native to most these areas?  Tom heads off and I eat dinner.  About an hour later, Tom comes back from the stream, and I ask if he caught any fish, and he tells me he caught about 6 or 7, with the largest being 7 inches long. I do not see him carrying any of the fish, so I assume he did a catch and release. We start talking and I find out that he is volunteering at one of the local state parks. He has been here six months, and prior he was down near Death Valley for six months. They have been full time living in an RV for a year, and he is loving it. Technically, they are citizens of Texas, which allows people that live in an RV to only have a PO box.  Tom used to work at the University of Arizona in Facilities Management.

I told him I received my degree in Landscape Architecture at UofA.  Tom says that the new building housing Landscape Architecture was a disaster, because they put no insulation in the roof, as it was to be green, and then they tried to plant vines to go up the side of the wall, but the extreme heat killed them all. Tom says his wife is a biologist, and loves this area because of all the diversity.  Tom says that he does miss other areas, and that the closest thing to ethnic food in the area is pizza. Just then Gloria comes back from the other side of the road. Tom asks if she saw anything new, and she says “Na”.  Tom asks if I am carrying a gun, and I say “nope”, although one of the rider club guys from Montana wanted me to carry one. Tom laughs and says that the locals always ask him if he is going to take a gun when they go for a walk, due to rattle snakes. Tom says “All you need to do is walk around them.  You don’t need to kill them.”  Tom and Gloria then pack it in and head on out. I am now all alone in my own private Idaho.  The area quickly grows dark and cold, as I am in a canyon.  I climb to a little hill in my campground to survey the area, and find that there are no lights at all. Tom says there are a few ranches up the road, but I see no indications.