Wilderness Gateway Campground to Lochsa Lodge, Idaho. Thursday, May 3, 2024.
I was delighted to see how the tent kept me dry in the steady rain all night, not so delighted with the situation when I woke up. The rain had stopped but the rain fly was soaked. Despite a clever apex ventilation system, the inside of the fly had condensation on it, so if it touched the inner tent, that would get wet also. Some of it dripped down on my top quilts.
Normally in this situation I would wait until the sun dried everything out, but it was mostly cloudy, and that probably would’ve taken hours. I didn’t have that time to spare. I folded the wet panels in on themselves, and tried to put everything away without making it wetter, but it was no use. My sleeping gear was pretty damp all over.
I had a visitor while I was packing, Dustin Gould, a full-blooded Nez Perce who, like the traditions of his people, had been migrating up and down with Clearwater and Lochsa valleys the past few months. He gave me some insights into the audiobook I was listening to about the Nez Perce, and demonstrated how they got their name. They did not pierce their noses—the gestures they showed Lewis & Clark when asked for directions made it appear that’s what they were doing.
Otherwise, the ride was the same as yesterday, seemingly level, but following nonstop churning rapids, which indicated I must be going uphill. Periodically trails would take off across the river via dramatic suspension bridges, which offered better views of the rapids.
At one of these I met Ed, a motorcyclist heading in the opposite direction, doing an 800 mile loop from British Columbia in three days. It was interesting to compare our experiences.
As Billy from the B&B had informed me, Lochsa Lodge was the only accommodation in this stretch, and the only place that had Wi-Fi. It was the weakest Wi-Fi I’ve ever seen, taking many minutes to load a single webpage, but I was finally able to reach Jane. There was also a pay phone at the general store (how long has it been since you’ve used one of those?) where you could talk as long as you liked for four quarters (I kept waiting for the operator to say “40 cents more for the next three minutes”).
At the store, I met Chris, a forestry inventory specialist from Mount Kisco, New York who trained at Binghamton University and traveled to various gorgeous locations to assess the health of the local flora. We chuckled that he was following his dream while many of his classmates were selling insurance.
Also fun to talk to was Tony, another northern New York native who’d moved to California but loved to visit gorgeous places like this. He’d played hockey for the UVM Catamounts in the sixties. Small world.
I dried out all my camping gear and got to bed early. I went to make it over Lolo Pass and into Missoula while the Adventure Cycling headquarters is still open. This is where Lewis & Clark crossed the Rockies. A major challenge for them, sure, but at least they didn’t have to deal with truck traffic, or with losing an hour crossing into Mountain time.
Distance 40 miles, 1,184 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,493 feet
©️ 2024 Scott Luria
The Ends of the Earth 