Category Archives: Idaho Events

Alturas Lake #7: Choppy Water

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The white caps are the strongest memory of my encounter with Alturas Lake.

Alturas Lake is two miles long and stretches along the valley of Alturas Lake Creek. There is a relentless flow of cool air settling from the Sawtooth’s high peeks down to the floor of Stanley Basin, the site of Alturas Lake. With two miles for the wind to blow along the surface of the lake, the water was always riled up. Choppy swells covered the lake like meringue on a lemon pie and I was introduced to the term, “white caps.”

What better place to rent a tiny boat and take the family on a putt-about?

life vests

It was all perfectly safe, we were assured by the man behind the counter of the Alturas Lake Lodge. The boats were all steel, which would sink like the Titanic. But at both the front and back of the boats were compartments sealed shut with strong welds. The trapped air in the compartments would float the boat should the choppy waters cause it to capsize.

front end

At the time I did not know of the Titanic and its unsinkable compartments. Nor do I remember the man behind the counter making the comparison.

It was a lovely time on the choppy lake, being beaten on the butt by the metal seats and sprayed in the face with the wind-blown icy water of glacial melt. We frolicked on the beach at the far end of the lake for an afternoon and then headed on the two-mile journey to the lodge.

beach

Checking out my Dad’s slides, I did seem to have an encounter with the lake on the return trip. We were not at a pier or sandy beach, so perhaps my sisters, mother and I were being let off near the campground while Dad returned the boat. I vaguely remember a mass of leaves, logs and twigs luring me off the boat. With no experience on lake water, it looked perfectly solid but was, instead, floating in some two feet of water.

My dad caught my nine-year-old reaction to being shocked at the unexpected results.

crying

Atlanta to Alturas Lake #6: Alturas Lake

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The gentle, blue-blooming saddle between the trails of Mattingly Creek and Alturas Lake Creek is a ten mile hike from Atlanta and seven miles from Alturas Lake.

The ten miles from Atlanta were filled with all variety of gentle and steep trail, narrow and fairly open areas, and views up rocky peaks. All I remember of the seven mile trail down Alturas Lake Creek was a gentle slope on reliable sand and gravel. All down a wide mountain valley.1 wide valley

I also remember when the trail became a dirt road with two ruts rather than the one option of the path. I was convinced the lake could not be far away and remember my disappointment when the lake never seemed to appear.

2 road

But appear it did, although still a long way in the distance. And, once we did finally get to it’s shores, I found out there was still the walk along the north side of lake to get to the campground. It was a long, long walk.

3 lake in distance

4 north side

The campground was filled with trucks and cars and all sorts of tents and gear. We made quite the entrance, walking through with three horses, three kids, and Mom and Dad. We had barely settled on a spot and started pulling the packs off the horses when other campers were joining us and asking questions.

5 in element

My Dad was in his element!

Now that I think of it, these sixty-two years later, I’m not sure but what the attention Dad knew awaited when he came into the campground, fully loaded as a horse-packing family, was one of the reasons he’d drempt the entire trip up.

Just sayin’.

Atlanta to Alturas Lake #5: Surprising Ridge

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On our Sawtooth Mountain trek from Atlanta to Alturas Lake, one surprise for Mom and Dad came half way into the trail.

They had been looking forward to crossing a steep ridge at the saddle between Mattingly and Alturas Lake creeks. Yet as we got close to where the saddle should be they saw a pretty blue lake.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but to most of us lakes belong in valleys, not straddling mountain ridges. Call me crazy, but water is supposed to run from ridges like caribou scamper from wolves.

Yet there, in the distance, was a lake right where a rocky ridge should be!

Getting closer we came to realize the ridge was not straddled by a lake. Nor was it a rocky spine. Instead, at 8,300 feet, a gentle curve crossed between the two creeks. And that meadowy curve was covered with a vast cluster of the bluest little Alpine flowers we’d ever seen.

ridge flowers

It was a treat.

into Alt Lake Creek

Years later, when the Idaho Transportation Department was looking for a direct route from Boise to the Sawtooth valley, Dad wrote many letters encouraging the route we walked that day. I’m sure he mostly wanted an improved, paved road to Atlanta, but his letters pointed out the advantages of the Atlanta – Alturas Lake route, including: 1) it was the most direct, 2) it was the most scenic, going right through the heart of the Sawtooths, and 3) building the route was simple, crossing the ridge in a gentle, flowering meadow.

The road was built by extending Highway 21 past Grandjean, around the north end of the Sawtooths, and into Stanley. But you can’t say my Dad didn’t do his darndest to talk some sense into them!

Dad's box of letters

Dad's Map

Dad's %22letter%22

Atlanta to Alturas Lake #4: Breaking Camp

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After a long mountain climb while leading horses and corralling three needy, rambunctious kids, I can’t imagine facing the work it must have taken to make camp. But camps must be made and dinners must be cooked.

Heavy tarps and blankets were pulled off the horses, then heavy wooden boxes packed with skillets and canned foods were hoisted off the pack saddles. Before anything else the horses had to be tended to, so Dad got busy with that. We kids were put to work gathering wood for a fire and blowing up our air mattresses. Now that I think of it, the mattresses were always flat by the time we got to bed — were they brought along just to keep us busy?

These days, with light mountaineering equipment and scores of Sawtooth hikers, I don’t know if there is wood for camp fires or not. But in 1954 there was abundant dry wood laying on the ground and hanging as snags from the trees. It wasn’t long before we kids were through with chores and were entertaining ourselves by bareback riding the horses around camp.

Meanwhile Mom arranged what rocks she could find so they would hold the Coleman white-gas camp stove and spent rest of the day cooking, feeding, washing dishes, and reading aloud by fire light as we snuggled under blankets watching the stars come out.

The next morning, after breakfast was cooked and the dishes were cleaned, the hard work of unpacking was reversed. But everything had to go back on the horses, so camp was broken.

Breaking Camp

One camp ritual I had forgotten until looking at my Dad’s slides was our daily bath.

bathing in creek

We did not have a tub to heat water in, so Sawtooth Mountain “bathing” always consisted of a washcloth in the creek. What with the sweat and dust of the trail, I remember the concept of a bath being most welcome. I also remember these being extremely quick approaches to hygiene. Even in August, those mountain streams were snow just hours earlier. They were cold!

Those washcloths never approached my body with enough water to run, I’ll tell you that. I soon learned to get them just damp enough to wipe off the grit and get the bath done.

August Snow

Atlanta to Alturas Lake #3

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Map INT copy

I had no idea where we were headed that day as the trail from Atlanta began to climb. The valley got more narrow and the mountains around us grew higher and rockier and crowded in closer to the trail. The creek got more wild and filled with falls.

narrow & rocky JPG

falls JPG

But there were wide spots as well, places where the trail was not as steep nor as rocky. And there were wild flowers covering many of the Alpine meadows, filing the lush grasses with color. The air was crisp and clear. We continued to climb, a step at a time.

flowers JPG

Looking back now I know we were following the trail up Mattingly Creek, headed over a ridge to join Alturas Lake Creek and then follow it to Alturas Lake. I’m pretty sure we were on the Atlanta side of the ridge when we stopped to make camp.

I had forgotten until I looked at the pictures Dad took, but of our three horses only two carried our gear on pack saddles. In their planning our folks had been wise enough to hire an extra horse to carry kids. I have no doubt that being able to put two tired kids on a saddle horse and toss one on the top of a pack horse made the entire trip much more enjoyable for the adults!

extra horse JPG

Flower Shade

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Boise is in a desert. We have sunny, hot summers.

Not only does the sun make cars into ovens, it is the fastest way to fade paint and deteriorate a car’s interior. For these two reasons I never worry about walking across a large parking lot. The only consideration I have for summertime parking is finding shade.

Winters are different, of course. The low sun neither heats the car up nor damages dashboards. From November to March, I forget about looking for shade.

Every March, when the temperature gets near sixty and we have a sunny day, I find myself thinking, “Is the sun hot enough and will I be parked long enough to heat up the car?”

Not that it really matters. We are in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and our winters are cold enough so when warm, sunny days start in the spring the trees do not yet have their leaves.

Even so, there is one place I can park in the shade of trees even though they do not have leaves. From what I can tell the trees are ornamental pears and their blossoms are thick.

Like moon shadows, I always get a particular joy from parking in the shade of flowers.

Photo JPEG

Atlanta ID to Alturas Lake #2

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INT

After packing our horses on that Atlanta morning in 1954, we found ourselves walking the entire operation up the familiar road to Atlanta.

Atlanta was a virtual ghost town even then, so probably no one noticed Mom and Dad and we three kids and three loaded horses, but we did our best to provide a parade for anyone interested in watching.

After the few buildings of Atlanta we walked past the Forest Service bath house, fed with hot springs, and a short bit later the swimming pool, also fed by hot springs. Back in 1917, when he was fourteen, Dad and his school buddies had kicked the mud up from the bottom of this pool when the schoolmarm walked by. The mud made a good curtain to hide their skinny dipping from such a pretty authority figure.

Pool INT

I knew what that warm mud felt like between my toes. Returning to Dad’s youthful haunt had filled many an evening on our summer camping trips. The crisp air at 5,500 feet, the warm water, the mossy mud and the smell of pine trees were all one Atlanta amalgam.

But this time we didn’t stop for a swim. We just kept walking. Past the rusting penstock of an abandoned powerhouse. Past the upper campground we never stayed at. Along the deteriorating wooden flume that had run water to the penstock. Then we crossed the green-clear rushing water of Leggit Creek on a most precarious bridge of barely more than logs laying on rocks.

Then the climb began. A steep and rocky and dusty climb in my mind. And tiring. Before long I had been hoisted up on one of the pack horses to ride (What? A nine-year-old whine about walking uphill? Pshaw… I’m sure the horse just needed more weight).

Folks, to my mind it was a long way up to the back of a horse. Add another yard or so because of pack boxes piled over with blankets and tarps — blankets and tarps I was sitting on that left no room to reach my legs around!

Way down beneath it all was a steep slope littered with rocks to bash my head on should I fall off.
Nyla INT

Well. I was one very attentive boy and my knuckles turned whatever color they had to while my hands gripped the ropes that cinched the awkward mound on a swaying and bucking perch!

But I didn’t ask to get off and walk …

Atlanta ID to Alturas Lake #1

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I was nine in the summer of 1954, the year mom and dad took on the task of herding three kids and guiding three horses over our first trek through the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho.

Atlanta, Idaho, is some eighty miles from Boise, up a very rough road along the Boise River. Dad was thirteen years old when he first saw Atlanta and his mother ran a laundry there until he was fifteen. He loved the rugged mountain setting of towering peaks and rushing cold water, all sprinkled with hot springs here and there.

Atlanta 1952 INT

By 1954 we had camped in Atlanta several times, so I didn’t think much of yet another summer vacation in the remote reaches of Idaho.

Atlanta camp INT

The first hint of this being an unusual camping trip was Dad talking with locals about horses. And then having horses in our camp while we loaded wooden boxes with raw potatoes and cans of food and our Coleman camping stove and a can of white gas for the stove and pans and can openers and knives and matches — only to double check and check again that we had everything.

Packbox INT

Then, next morning, dad put what looked like small sawhorses on the backs of the horses. The sawhorses were called called packsaddles and had little legs that stuck up from them. Where these legs crossed made a notch to catch rope loops — rope loops that were attached to the wooden boxes holding our heavy 1950s camping gear.

Packsaddle INT

Photo: A special thanks to Trailhead Supply of  Kalispell, Montana.

Mom and Dad were careful to make sure the weight of each box was real close to the weight of the box on the other side of the horse. Then they mounded the loads ever higher with quilts and canvases thrown over the tops of the boxes and the backs of the horses. Finally the entire kit and caboodle was secured to the packsaddles with ropes.

My beautiful picture

And we were off !