In spite of the influx of newcomers, I'm still amazed at the accessibility to incomparable solitude around this area. Yesterday, Bill and I drove to Clark Fork where he planted a new geocache.
He placed it on a 300-acre piece of property on the south side of the Clark Fork River purchased by the Idaho Fish and Game. It sits at the base of the mountains, and its huge pond surrounded by tall grass serves as home to hundreds of honkers, hawks, and herons.
His cache is located where you look one way and see the runs on Schweitzer; turn the other way, and there's Scotsman, still snow-covered and rising from a row of spectacular Cabinets. We had the place to ourselves for the entire hour spent there.
Saturday, I introduced my sisters to the National Bird Refuge at Bonners Ferry. It's not far from where our dad spent much of his adolescence riding horses belonging to the Kootenai Indians. We took our bikes and rode approximately six miles on a road where motorized traffic can go.
Yes, we met a few cars, cuz we started at the wrong end and were riding against the traffic. But meeting half a dozen on a gorgeous weekend afternoon, crusing along at 20 mph so they could enjoy the hundreds of geese, ducks and beautiful white swans ain't bad.
The bird refuge has oodles of hiking/biking trails on old dikes constructed across the Kootenai valley when it used to flood every year before construction of Libby Dam. When you set off on one of these trails, which can span anywhere from a mile to several miles, you'll seldom see another human being.
And, right smack dab in the population center of our area, there's the pedestrian bridge across Lake Pend Oreille in Sandpoint. I've biked or hiked the bridge about half a dozen times this winter and "half a dozen" would be accurate for the people I've met in all those experiences.
Obviously, the summer brings 'em on, but most of the year, we locals still have some nice escapes.
No comments:
Post a Comment