19-26 August
The once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse of the sun visible from Oregon to South Carolina was scheduled for my birthday. Fortunately, months ago our friends Chris and Patricia invited us to join them at Patricia’s family’s homestead in Midvale, ID, right on the path of totality. This was a very good thing because other locations on the path of totality were going to be crowded with eclipse chasers and charging high prices for lodging, camping, even parking.
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Crescent-shaped shadows
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19 Aug, Sat – We got an early start and joined up with Chris
and Patricia at Indian John Rest Area on I-90 east of Cle Elum. We traveled
more or less together (although, we took the 15-minute-slower route through the
Yakima Canyon. We met up for lunch at the first rest area in Oregon, got gas at
the casino east of Pendleton and exited I-84 at the Weiser Exit. We
met up again at the Midvale Ridge rest area and followed them to the only
family farm on Hopper Road. Dave Hopper, Patricia’s father got our trailer
situated in the shade of a mobile home and we soon joined the extended family
for dinner. In addition to Dave and Liz (Patricia’s stepmom), there were her
sister, Lynn, and family: husband Barry, and kids Erika and Bevan, plus at
least one uncle and maybe others. I don’t remember exactly when our paragliding
friend, Andre Akakine, arrived with his five-year-old daughter, Katie, from the
Bay Area.
20 Aug, Sun – After breakfast with the family – Dave’s
sourdough pancakes - most of us spent time preparing various viewing devices
for the eclipse the next day and setting up for the family potluck in the evening.
I think someone said we had 37 people (a little short of the 50 that Dave had
originally expected). There was lots of food including pulled pork and sliced
beef, salads, rolls, bread, dips, tomatoes, and more. The dessert centerpiece
was Lynn’s offering of four lemon meringue pies. 21 Aug, Mon – Eclipse Day. After breakfast (Dave and Liz served biscuits and gravy and a baked egg dish with fresh fruit) we all got our viewing projects set up. I got my spotting scope out and
Bevan kind of took it
over using his phone to record photos of the progress of the eclipse. Andre put
together a big box with a monocular at one end to focus the sun on the far end.
There were several pinhole shoebox and larger size cameras, but the best gizmo
was one Lynn put together with cardboard, a pair of binoculars,
a tripod, and a
screen. It produced a nice large image that was easy for a group of people to
all see at once. Of course, everyone had eclipse glasses for individual
viewing. The moon started taking a bite out of the sun around 1010; totality
lasted for around two minutes; and the whole thing was over by 1148 (?). I used
my 10x binoculars during totality. It got quite dark and cool and the light
near the horizon was like that of a sunset. It was a really fantastic experience. We had
more potluck for lunch with fewer people. Afterward we all hung around
as people packed up and started to head for home. After everyone but Dave, Liz,
Chris and Patricia and we had left, Dave took us up the hills behind the
homestead in his truck and pointed out the historic sites and places Patricia
had gone to when she was staying in Midvale during the summers. Back at the
trailer, we had a light supper before going to bed.22 Aug, Tue – We got a later start than we thought we would so we didn’t get to McCall until after 1130. Then we drove out along Warren Wagon Road to the north end of Payette Lake and beyond the North Beach part of Ponderosa State Park into the State Endowment Lands where dispersed camping was permitted. We stashed the trailer in a big snowmobile parking lot with an outhouse, then drove back to McCall. We had no trouble finding the McCall RV Resort where Davis
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| Bronze at the McCall Library |
bathroom break in Cascade where Davis and
Belinda had watched the eclipse. Then we continued steeply downhill along the whitewater
of the Payette River to Banks where we turned east toward Lowman on the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway. At Lowman we
stopped at the USFS ranger station then continued on with a couple of short
stops, one at the 7000ft summit and another near Stanley Lake where we walked
out on a nature trail. At Stanley we turned north on 95 following the Salmon
River. We stopped at an overlook above the abandoned dam used to run the
turbines to produce power for mines up the Yankee Fork. At Salmon we stopped
for gas at a Sinclair station then turned SE into the Lemhi Valley. It
was about 30 miles to the Lee Creek turnoff that took us up on a bench above
the valley and to Chris’s parent’s homestead. We had dinner with Don and Judy,
brother Tim and two young nieces, Eva and Zoe Wong. Chris pointed out where he
thought we could fly in the morning if the winds were light enough.
24 Aug, Thu – Up at 0630 so we could head over to the local
flying site while the winds were light. But the leaves were already shaking on
the trees we could see through the skylights. After some discussion we decided
to have breakfast and then do something else like look for fossils or crystals.
After fruit, scrambled eggs w/cheese, and Tim’s cheese bread the conditions
seemed to have gotten light so we took two cars to the LZ on the other side of
the valley. We used Chris’s 4WD to get to the 
top over a couple of steep spots
and some rutted track – probably not easy for the Sorento. The sky was just
beginning to get smoky from the NW as we got ready to launch. I went first from
the 7500ft take off and found lift just in front of the launch. There were some
small, sharp-edged thermals and I pretty much flew through them into the
accompanying sink. I flew to the left and went over the rocky ridge then out
toward the LZ which was also on a ridge. The wind streamer that we had left in
place showed variable directions and speeds, but I lined up with the length of
the ridge pointing toward the highway in the main valley. Landing was easy but
I was able to kite right 
afterwards with my back to the north. C.J. was next
off and she had about two minutes longer than my 08:42, saying that she didn’t
like the looks of the building clouds. Apparently, neither did Chris because he
spiraled down; Patricia saw that and landed, too. Chris’s father showed up and
was able to use his truck to get Chris back up to launch to retrieve his
vehicle. We went back to the ranch with Patricia and hung out until lunchtime
when Chris and John got back. Later, Chris suggested several things to do: go
looking for crystals, hunt fossils, or drive the mountain roads to the other
side of the range and loop back. Naturally we opted for the drive. Chris
started up Lee Creek Road which climbed up behind the Amonson Ranch (huge!) and
up FS 010 past the turnoff that would lead up a rough 4WD road to the dam on
Mill Lake that needs repairing. We stopped occasionally to walk to places that
Chris remembered visiting as a boy and young man while repairing fences or
“pushing” cattle, or just riding his motorcycle or ATV. We found some currant
bushes which were done bearing but we also found a few raspberries. At one
place on the divide before descending into the Hayden Creek drainage we spotted
three pronghorn, about the only critters we saw. Near the bottom of Hayden
Canyon, past the Bear Valley Road we turned up into
top over a couple of steep spots
and some rutted track – probably not easy for the Sorento. The sky was just
beginning to get smoky from the NW as we got ready to launch. I went first from
the 7500ft take off and found lift just in front of the launch. There were some
small, sharp-edged thermals and I pretty much flew through them into the
accompanying sink. I flew to the left and went over the rocky ridge then out
toward the LZ which was also on a ridge. The wind streamer that we had left in
place showed variable directions and speeds, but I lined up with the length of
the ridge pointing toward the highway in the main valley. Landing was easy but
I was able to kite right 
afterwards with my back to the north. C.J. was next
off and she had about two minutes longer than my 08:42, saying that she didn’t
like the looks of the building clouds. Apparently, neither did Chris because he
spiraled down; Patricia saw that and landed, too. Chris’s father showed up and
was able to use his truck to get Chris back up to launch to retrieve his
vehicle. We went back to the ranch with Patricia and hung out until lunchtime
when Chris and John got back. Later, Chris suggested several things to do: go
looking for crystals, hunt fossils, or drive the mountain roads to the other
side of the range and loop back. Naturally we opted for the drive. Chris
started up Lee Creek Road which climbed up behind the Amonson Ranch (huge!) and
up FS 010 past the turnoff that would lead up a rough 4WD road to the dam on
Mill Lake that needs repairing. We stopped occasionally to walk to places that
Chris remembered visiting as a boy and young man while repairing fences or
“pushing” cattle, or just riding his motorcycle or ATV. We found some currant
bushes which were done bearing but we also found a few raspberries. At one
place on the divide before descending into the Hayden Creek drainage we spotted
three pronghorn, about the only critters we saw. Near the bottom of Hayden
Canyon, past the Bear Valley Road we turned up into  |
| Chris with niece Eva, mother Judy, and C.J. |
Basin Creek just to see if
it still looked like Chris remembered. It was hard to see the surrounding
mountains with all the smoke that had come in during the afternoon. We got back
to the main highway around 1830 and then it wasn’t far back to the ranch. Tom
and Robin, Eva and Zoe’s parents (Robin is Chris’s sister), had returned from
their first vacation without the kids. They had gone to Fairmont Hot Springs
near Butte for two nights. Tom had barbecued up a bunch of pork chops and we
ate those along with some baked potatoes and asparagus. C.J. cooked up some of
her fresh beans, too. And she brought out the blackberry kuchen for dessert
with whipped cream; the kids had probably never seen whipped cream in an aerosol
can before. As we were eating outside with Patricia (avoiding the TV that was
on in the cookhouse), there was a lot of thunder and a little shower, just
barely enough to send us back inside. It was a good impetus to get me packing
up the stuff that was outside.
25 Aug, Fri – We got up around 0800 and fixed our own
breakfast then started seriously packing up. We were out of the ranch shortly
before 1000, but stopped at the Sacajawea Monument and Interpretive center soon
after in Salmon. The interpretive building was quite small but the grounds
around it with tepees, sweat lodges, brush, willow and woven mat lodges was
pretty large. We missed out on the class on cordage held in the red barn which
we didn’t see until later. We left around 1130 and headed up US 93, the Salmon
River Scenic Byway (and Lewis and Clark route), eventually crossing Lost Trail
Summit; a 7000ft pass, and entering Montana (ski area name?). We lost a lot of
elevation following the Bitterroot River down to the plains. The biggest town
we went through was Darby (Sorry I didn’t stop for a photo of the Welcome To
Montana’s Bitterroot Country and Darby sign, Darby, but I got one using Google).
We passed through Lolo and were surprised that Route 12 was not closed right
there because of the fires (maybe it was closed farther up before you got to
Lolo Pass). We could see fires burning even on the nearby hillsides. Missoula
was kind of slow, traffic-wise and smoky, but we got to Costco eventually and
filled up with the cheapest gas we had seen all trip (2.419) and bought a berry
sundae to share. [If we had been a little more patient we would had run
into a Freddy’s Frozen Custard place at the intersection of 93 and I-90.] It
was about an hour to Quartz Flat USFS campground east of Superior. We had
considered going on to Sloway CG, another 16 miles, but since there were good
sites available, we stopped early, not long after 1600. The campground is on a
bench maybe 150 steep feet above the Clark Fork River. We found a trail that appeared
to start in our site and followed it east a ways and then down a gentler grade
to the river. Back at camp we relaxed with a drink and some chips and hummus
before catching up with our journals. Since we have run out of ice for our
cooler, we needed to eat up some of our veggies. So we had cooked spinach and
fried sausage. It cooled off nicely for sleeping but a couple of vanloads of
people across the road stayed up late talking loudly, and that kept C.J. from
getting to sleep early.
26 Aug, Sat – We got up around 0800 and were on the road by
0930, another sunny day with quite a bit of smoke in the air. We stopped for
gas at Costco in Coeur d’Alene (2.479) after passing over Lookout Pass, driving
through Mullan (same population as Wallace (?) but hardly any historic
features), and crossing the lower Fourth of July Pass. The wind seemed to be
light east as we drove through Spokane and I considered calling Steve Baran to
see if he was down at Steptoe Butte, but flying there would have entailed midday
conditions in Eastern Washington, at a new site - too many negative variables.
We stopped at the rest area west of the one near Sprague Lake and then drove
into E-burg to get a scoop of Winegar’s ice cream. CWU must not be in
session yet because we were able to park in Jerrol’s Bookstore lot. There was a
lot of smoke as we approached the Cascades. It appeared that there was a fire
up toward Salmon La Sac. But there was no smoke in North Bend when we got home
shortly after 1600. There was still a good crop of berries on the blueberry
bush in the north garden and C.J. couldn’t pick all the green beans that were
ripe. I got a bowlful of blackberries, too. We unpacked and spent some time
cleaning up. I even scoured out the porta-potti, a job that had been put off
for too long if the stain in the lower section was any indication. I left it to
soak overnight with some cleaner, laundry detergent and bleach. We were gone
only a week but we covered a lot of territory and met lots of new and
fascinating people. It was a unique experience to watch the total solar eclipse
with Patricia’s family and then get to meet Chris’s family…and we even got a
flight from a new site!
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