Blog Archives

Snowfoot

Posted on by Alex Thatcher / Leave a comment

One summer weekend, after we had grown tired of the bike paths around Boise, it seemed time to explore other options. I had no idea where we were going, but I liked the direction, Idaho City.

There are all kinds of things to see and places to go out there, and the driver, my friend Johnna, who was then my girlfriend, knew I wanted to go someplace I’d never been. The car stopped. I look around dazedly, sleepy from the non-stop switchbacks. The someplace I had not been was Banner Ridge. Continue reading →

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Two Hundred Dollar Pancake

Posted on by Mike Kincaid / Leave a comment

The aviation phrase, “hundred dollar hamburger,” was common in the good ol’ days —prior to the 2008 election— back when both gas and hamburgers were cheaper.

It referred to jumping in an airplane and flying to another airfield for lunch, which even then was a big price to pay for a gut bomb that usually began its slow detonation on the flight home. But now that gas prices have doubled, it seems crazy to fly cross-country just for lunch. So, how about breakfast instead? Continue reading →

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The Incredible Exploding Tent

Posted on by Ray Brooks / Leave a comment

Finally he said, “I’ll tell you what happened, but you have to swear not to tell anyone.”

This was the summer of 1974, and it had been a slow day of retail in my Moscow outdoor store. All my customers appeared to be out having summer fun. But suddenly here stood hope, in the form of a customer I had recognized when he walked in. He was one of three forestry students I made friends with a month earlier. They had won a contract with the Forest Service to thin trees and were working all summer sixty miles east of Moscow, cutting down numerous small trees to give the surviving ones a better chance to grow and prosper.

These gents had bought good gear from me: quality sleeping bags and accessories, and what I believed to be the best three-man tent then available.  I think the tent retailed for $150, which was big money back then. I had sold them my only one in stock and immediately ordered a replacement.

Today my customer wanted a second one of these three-man tents. I was excited, nearly giddy, about selling another of my best and favorite tents, but he was reserved and grumpy. Even so, I couldn’t help myself, and asked if the three guys had more people working with them. He said no. I asked if they had found the three-man tent too crowded for an entire summer of sleeping together. He said no.

There was an uncomfortable silence, while he looked around the store. After a moment, he loosened up and told the story, but not until I swore a sacred oath to keep my mouth shut about it. Continue reading →

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Zip Lining Idaho

Posted on by Mary Syrett / Leave a comment

I stand on a platform with my back to the Snake River Canyon near Twin Falls. Suited up in a body harness, helmet, and gloves, I’m clipped to a safety cable.

The words of the guide at this moment will forever ring in my head: “Put your hands on the knobs, step to the end of the platform and, when you’re ready . . .” Easing off, I sail along the steel cable through a cluster of treetops and watch as the ground gives way beneath me. Continue reading →

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In a Meadow

Posted on by Wallace J. Swenson / Leave a comment

I stepped out of the thick, dark, pine forest and into a meadow. As though on cue, it started to snow: big flakes, soft and fluffy, globs as big as daisies.

They fell straight down, but at a lazy pace. Actually, leisurely is a better word, like each one was looking for just the right place to settle to earth. I stood mesmerized for a minute or so, then stuck out my tongue to try and catch one like I used to when I was much younger. I managed to do no more than spot up my specs. I’d guess the open area was about two acres, and pear-shaped, more or less. I stood at the stem end. At the other side, a small grove of aspen trees huddled. Just the place for a deer to spend the day.

I don’t get around in the hills like I used to. I mean, I can’t head up a mountainside just to check out a copse of quaking aspen for a bedded deer. Nor traipse three ridges over and back again in eight hours. But I can still walk through the lower meadows and meanders around Palisades Reservoir. And I do, carrying my ancient rifle just so I don’t look like some old fool, lost after wandering out of camp. Little did I expect that this walk would present me with a life-changing image.
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Trafficking

Posted on by Tony Latham / Leave a comment

The author, now retired as a decorated regional investigator for Idaho Fish and Game, describes exactly what game wardens do, and how he became interested in a career of undercover work. “Crossing Paths,” the first chapter of his 2012 book, Trafficking, is reprinted here with permission.

I remember the first time I was at Dworshak Dam [near Orofino]. My brother Nick and I were on our way to school at the University of Idaho in Moscow. He was studying architecture and I was struggling with a degree in wildlife management. He wanted to build stuff and I wanted to be a game warden.

Dworshak Dam was being built and Nick wanted to look at it during its construction phase. It was no minor project since it would be the country’s third highest dam when it was completed. It was quite the sight to see.

Twenty years later I returned to that spot near the dam where my brother and I had looked over its creation; but this trip wasn’t as a curious spectator. I was recalling the earlier visit with my brother but thinking about how bizarre this revisit was. I was investigating the illegal trafficking in wildlife. I wasn’t wearing a uniform, badge, or gun-belt since I was working undercover. I was about to initiate my first “illegal buy” of wildlife all while the deja vu of the past trip with my brother was playing though my head.

I think most kids ponder what they are going to be when they grow up. I’m sure I didn’t dwell on the subject, but I do remember my grandmother talking about her brother Hawley and the respect she had for him as an Idaho game warden. I don’t remember meeting him until well after he had retired. Regretfully he passed on before my appointment as an Idaho conservation officer and I never got to talk to him about his career. Hawley Hill attained the rank of Enforcement Bureau Chief, and after I was hired, I found that his troops had called him “Holy Hell” behind his back. It’s my belief the nickname came from a combination of fear and respect. Continue reading →

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Reel Recovery

Posted on by Mike McKenna / Leave a comment

Cancer is a scary word. Whenever it’s uttered, most of us naturally recoil, if only subtly.

“When people hear you have cancer, they get scared, especially at first. They act like it’s contagious,” Jeff Entringer said last summer, as we bounced in my old pick-up down the dusty roads of Idaho’s spectacular Copper Basin, in the Salmon-Challis National Forest. “The funny thing is,” Jeff said, with an easy smile, especially for a guy battling prostate cancer, “there’s nothing to be afraid of. Being afraid is the last thing you need to be around someone with cancer. What you really need to be is a friend.”

Those words were a reassuring and solid reminder for me, while I spent my first weekend volunteering as a “fishing buddy” for the Idaho chapter of Reel Recovery, a national program founded in Colorado in 2003. For three years now, thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Dick Wilson, Idaho has been hosting an annual fly-fishing retreat, free for men throughout the Gem State who are coping with any form of cancer. Each weekend-long retreat run by the grassroots nonprofit organization hosts about fourteen participants and at least that many volunteer fishing buddies, inspired by the simple motto, “Be Well! Fish On!” In between angling sessions, a handful of Reel Recovery staffers lead the participants in “Courageous Conversations.” And courage is something you learn a lot about when you go angling with cancer patients.
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On the Cattle Drive

Posted on by Gloria Jackson / Leave a comment

Burdened with Greenhorns, Cowboys Take a Herd to Pasture

By Gloria Jackson

We saw Indians on the hills during the day, so Vike instructs the men to circle the wagons and corral our horses inside the circle after they’ve been given time to drink from the river.

I begin boiling river water for coffee and cooking what little food we have left. The cowboys will hunt tomorrow, the Indians permitting. Eating slows conversation, and we remain alert while one of the cowboys stands guard. They will spell each other during the night with guard duty. Pete, one of the younger cowboys, helps me clean up and put things back in the supply wagon, so the four-footed scavengers won’t think they’ve found an open buffet.

“Okay, but we won’t have any wild Indians on this drive, will we?” I ask groggily as I crawl out of bed. Continue reading →

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Married to a Legacy

Posted on by Ashley Brown / Leave a comment

I married into a five-generation logging family. I’ve always thought this to be impressive, and it makes me proud, even though I’m sometimes bewildered at how the family has stayed so close-knit throughout the generations.

Jake and I married in 2007, after dating for nearly two years. During that time, I learned only a fraction of what it takes to keep a logging business going steady, even while trying to balance the constantly shifting demands of family time and work. I’m still learning, although at a much more relaxed pace than in the early days. I have come to appreciate what has been passed down in the family business: hard work, long hours in the woods, a few more hours at the shop on Saturdays, and the razzing from a brother-in-law who has, well, no filter.

As we head into February, I become anxious about the layoff season for the guys, who include my father-in-law, Tim, his brother John, and Tim’s sons, Matt, Luke, and Jake. I’m getting extremely anxious to spend more time with my husband, Jake, and I know our two boys, Wyatt, three, and Blake, two, feel the same way. The busyness of those little boys is one of the reasons I look forward to Jake being closer to home during winter and spring. They are busy like their father, their uncles, their great-uncle, and grandfather. This busy life of the men, away from home nine months of the year, stretches back decades, to a time when logging was quite a bit different than it is today.

In 1901, Peter and Mary Brown settled in Prairie for roughly eleven years. They had fourteen children, an amazing challenge to take on while trying to make a living in those days. For Peter, making a living consisted of waking early to go with his horses to the timber, where he felled with crosscut saws. He then pulled logs down the mountain and hauled them to the mill, with only his team of horses to help. Continue reading →

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