Three Nights on a Mountaintop By Thomas Moore Two scathing bolts of lightning tore through the air above the trail to Bonneville Peak. The rain transformed itself into a blistering hail. Spheres of ice as large as ping
Not Easy but What a Ride Story and Photos by Pam Streeby Astley The Backcountry Discovery Routes began with the establishment of a nonprofit group devoted to creating motorcycle adventure riding on public roads, including Forest Service roads
The Cabin Fever Antidote Story and Photo by Pam Streeby Astley I woke up with cabin fever. My husband Rick and I packed a picnic and our dog Bubbles and went for a drive into the Salmon-Challis National
A Long, Unplanned Journey By Thomas Moore I sat at my desk in Pocatello last winter on a day no less dreary than the one to come. Sheets of rain pelted the windows of my house and cascaded
In Tough Times, the Right Choice Story and Photos by Alyssa Charpentier A flash of frothing blue beamed on the rugged canyon walls—and my intrepid mini-drone surged straight for it. I urged it on, faster and faster as
A Thunderbird Convertible By Max Jenkins On a pleasant evening in Grangeville in July 1955, I came home early from work and was helping Mom set the table when Dad pulled into the driveway. He’d been honking halfway
By James J. Pizzadili The old cowboy stood along U.S. 95 with his thumb out. He was dressed in clean ostrich-skin cowboy boots, jeans, brown leather jacket, and a large Stetson. He looked a bit weathered and worn,
One of my first of many business trips to Idaho came just after a huge storm hit the Burley and Rupert area in the early 1980s, extending all the way to Twin Falls. I found it remarkable that I-84 wasn’t plowed, because the state government didn’t have the money to plow it. The interstate was lined with thousands of pheasants, which had come to the edge of the pavement and for some reason had simply died. Continue reading
It is winter and we are traveling, once again, from McCall to Boise for my piano lesson. The canyon road is recently plowed and only a few inches of snow cover the pavement. Snow is piled high on the mountain’s side of the narrow road. Continue reading
OVER THE YEARS at IDAHO magazine, we have been privy to a number of harrowing and sometimes funny tales of driving Highway 95’s old White Bird grade between the towns of White Bird and Grangeville, before the modern highway was completed in 1975. For example, our copy editor and regular contributor Les Tanner wrote a three-part series about his travels on “old 95” (August 2009, September 2009, and April 2011), which included plenty of tales about the dangers of the route. And Nancy Sule Hammon wrote a rollicking account (March 2009) of her first experience with driving the frightening grade at night in 1971. Continue reading
