Return to Beautiful Boulder Meadows . . . .

We have a few places around this beautiful God’s Country where we like to return year after year. 

For Bill, Smith Creek, up by the Canadian Border off the Kootenai Valley’s West Side Road, probably ranks right up there among his favorites.  He often goes alone to the area where he spent his first summer in Idaho, working for the U.S. Forest Service.

We usually make a couple of trips a year to Farragut State Park where we first met and where new geocaches, among other activities, give us a good excuse to head south to the area along Lake Pend Oreille.

In Boundary County many of our favorite places----the Bird Refuge, Nature Conservancy, Fish and Game land, the Moyie River---keep us on the road and on our feet, enjoying the glories of scenery, wildlife, fresh air and just plain simple entertainment.

Boulder Meadows is another area in Boundary County where we try to revisit at least once a year. 

Yesterday we took a trip up the long, winding, bumpy road for our first-ever time in the fall.  Other visits have usually occurred in early summer when the meadows are lush with abundant green grass.

Yesterday’s trip gave us a different perspective on those meadows as all that grass has turned amber, and most of the foliage sports autumn colors, all though not yet in the height of brilliance.

We visit some of the same areas on each trip, and, of course, we took off down a trail off the main trail to Kelly Pass, where Bill wanted to check the geocache at Inscription Rock.

Inscription Rock, a big slab along the trail near the creek,  is not very “inscribed” these days.  

Only a few letters remain visible in the rock face from what many locals guess were religious words etched in the stone by a sheepherder hanging out with his herd many decades ago.

The cache, however, remains in pretty good shape.  Bill opened it, and it took us a minute or so to remember that we were the cache hunters who left business cards from Ireland inside the jar on a visit in 2011.

 

Ironically, one of the cards advertised the restaurant in Killarney where we celebrated Willie’s 37^th birthday this past April.

 

Bill took along his Go Pro camera yesterday, and I must say the hills were alive with Bill from time to time, narrating to the camera some key facts about the area where he happened to be filming.

 

I think Bill likes his Go Pro, and since he’s pretty difficult when it comes to picking out a gift he really appreciates, I’m thrilled.

Bill usually buys everything he needs, thus leaving me scratching my head every time birthdays and Christmas roll around.

But I hit the jackpot with this gift----only because I heard him comment one night while watching a “60 Minutes” segment about the Go Pro, “I want one of those.”

Well, he has one now, and he’s having a great time experimenting with it.

Besides our 3.4-mile tromp around the newly groomed trails in Boulder Meadows (even a fancy new picnic ground off one trail), we met some elk hunters who had set up camp in preparation for this morning’s opening day of elk season.

Two were Sandpoint High grads, Joe and Bill.  Joe had gotten to know our new old motorhome really well this past summer when my friend Kari borrowed it for horse camp, only to learn that it had an electrical problem.  

Joe and Kari’s husband Clay diligently tore apart the electrical guts of the motor home but never did figure out what ailed it.

It still worked for Kari and the gang, though, and kept them dry through a very wet week of camp.

 

Good new old motor home!

Joe and Bill had their horses and a mule to transport them and possibly some elk meat.  Another trio who had grown up in Boise also had horses.

We saw a contrast in elk camps between the two groups:  tents in one case and a new new pretty classy looking motor home in the other.

I’m sure that as I write those guys are out on their horses enjoying the truly pristine alpine beauty and keeping a sharp eye out for some hunting bounty.

In our case, after another memorable visit to the “wilds” of Boulder Meadows, we need only look out our window to see some wildlife.  Bill just reported that Mama and twin fawns are out in the pasture with the horses.

They know that today deer season has yet to come.