I don’t know how many times I’ve fallen. Two? Twenty? But this time I’m lying face down in Victor Creek. Groping for the far bank, I stumble to my feet and find myself smiling, strangely amused at my own plight. This is what I signed up for, the adventure . . . living life. Continue reading
One evening in Los Angeles, Walter Weymouth took my mother for a walk and asked her, “If you could lie on your back in the grass and look at the stars in the heavens and make a wish that could fulfill a dream you had dreamed more than once, what would it be?” Continue reading
I’d accidentally explored the Wilson Creek area three years ago, at the hands of a GPS-less driver who’d mis-understood directions to Reynolds Creek Cemetery (see IDAHO magazine, February 2012, “Good and Lost”). Although the driver strenuously denies it, we were essentially lost amongst the area’s mountains and valleys for a couple of hours. Continue reading
The memories ebb and flow, from crystal clarity to blurry amalgam. Some things do not dim: the sight of the night sky full of brilliant stars, the smell of pine and smoke sticking to one’s clothes, the bend of the rod and pull on the line, and the sparkling flash of a fish as it breaches the water’s surface. These do not fade. Continue reading
When I hear my college roommates talk about Idaho, they usually don’t give it the respect it deserves. They think it’s all desolate flatlands consisting mostly of potato fields mixed with sagebrush and perhaps an occasional small town. I laugh to myself. It’s best they think that way. But I have a vision of my home state that is something quite different.
I was born and raised in the Boise area, a city boy and an only child, but I have a large extended family filled with outdoorsy people, and my parents quickly made me aware of the small towns, farmland, mountains, and desert within our state. Now that I’m a twenty-one-year-old sophomore at Utah State University, whenever I’m not in class, I’m usually skiing or hiking in the nearby mountains.
Last summer, I came home intent on working, but instead of flipping hamburgers, sitting in a cubicle, or answering inbound telephone calls like most other students, I ended up with the world’s best summer job. There were pristine lakes, dazzling rivers, and mountains filled with pine trees as far as my eyes could see. I was in a place where the sunshine strained to touch ground that was dominated by bushes with leaves big enough to almost cover my laptop. There were huckleberries, millions of pine needles, and some of the sweetest smells ever. Continue reading
Under a Thunderhead By Stefano Carini Since childhood, I’ve had a fascination with clouds, but when I went to Pebble Creek, near Inkom, for a sunset photo-shoot on a beautiful night in August 2011, I didn’t expect a
Along the Boise River Greenbelt near Eagle, a man and his daughter had caught three little crayfish in a big ol’ bucket, but there was promise for more, and they ran from hole to hot spot in search of the tasty, miniature lobsters. Two other fishers were clearly in love as they showed off their puny catch, and a couple celebrating their sixteenth anniversary posed for a picture along the Bethine Church River Trail. A woman surfed with grace at the well-known recreational wave. All of them seemed to be enjoying the present.
The twenty-mile greenbelt from Eagle Island State Park to Lucky Peak Reservoir includes six parks, wildlife sanctuaries, a municipal golf course, land “donated” as a consequence of bridges built across the river, the Idaho Fish and Game Nature Center, and a stretch along Boise State University, among other acreages. There’s also the 36,000-acre Boise River Wildlife Management Area, which skirts Lucky Peak Reservoir, to support deer and elk wintering range. This seems entirely the “people’s stretch” of the river, although it also supports a wide variety of wildlife. Continue reading
Two years ago, I once again took up watching the old TV series Little House on the Prairie. When I first saw it as a child in black-and-white, the program spawned fantasies of living in the wilderness.
But I lived in Los Angeles, and remained there for almost thirty years, until my wife and I moved to Garden Valley in 2012. No sooner did I realize we would relocate to the mountains of Idaho than I started watching that old show again, as if it would prepare me mentally for the change of habitat and the cultural shock I was about to experience.
Nowadays, I often find myself going alone into the wilderness, and have learned to cherish this solitude, although I realize it can be dangerous at times. Some places are accessible only by ATV or motorcycle, unless you have a horse, and on those occasions even my dog can’t come along. I now do some of the same things the children on the show did, such as going fishing alone at a creek with a lunch sack and sometimes with the dog. I had never fished in my life and, to my surprise, I caught two trout the first time I tried. Continue reading
As the phone conversation ended, a wave of anxiety washed over me. Did I really want to climb two of Idaho’s tallest mountains with a group of strangers?
I had once made it to the top of Mount Borah, but that was almost a decade ago. Since then, my body had suffered more wear and tear, and I was sure my tolerance had lessened for exposure to weather at high elevations.
The offer to accompany an informal hiking group, most of whose members called the Magic Valley home, was my own fault. Earlier in the year, I had talked to Norman Wright, a Filer resident, about a potential trip. He organizes several outings annually that include ascending at least one of the state’s highest mountains. My initial desire to bag another Idaho peak waned as the spring unfolded into summer, but even so, I phoned him again, part of me hoping I had missed the opportunity.
Norman said my timing was perfect. “We’re headed to climb Mount Church and Mount Donaldson next Saturday. We’ll have the rare chance to summit two twelve-thousand-footers in one day.”
I cautioned him that I didn’t want to attempt anything beyond my ability, but after he heard about my Borah trek, his enthusiasm held steady. “There are a couple of tough spots, but you’ll be fine.”
That evening I opened the definitive book on the state’s high elevations, Exploring Idaho’s Mountains: A Guide for Climbers, Scramblers, and Hikers, by Tom Lopez. Reading that the author rated the climb we would make as one level more difficult than Borah, I groaned. Ten years ago, Chicken Out Ridge on Borah had seemed to be at the edge of my abilities—could I take on something more than that now? The doubts began adding up, and my heart throbbed faster, reminding me of my not-quite-prime physical condition. Not wanting to waste a quickened pulse (or perhaps to mask it), I hopped on the treadmill. Could I get into any kind of decent shape in ten days?
Every night, I doggedly did time on the machine. I wasn’t sure if my cardiovascular condition improved much, but was comforted to find that the exertion on my heart and lungs didn’t cause them to fail. Other parts of my body clearly were not happy. My arthritic hip joints, one of which was replaced a year after the Borah summit, whined for less abuse and more acetaminophen. My back felt out of alignment, requiring a crack by my chiropractor.
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Kidd Youren was on a horse with his dad the day after his birth, and claims he’s been an outfitter ever since. Garden Valley’s peaks, peaceful fields, the South Fork of the Payette River and nearby natural hot springs provided an ample playground in his youth. His grandpa did some casual guiding and ran some cows, his great uncle outfitted, and his dad turned it into a full-on business. When Kidd was asked at age eight what he wanted to do for a living, he talked with his dad, who said the answer was easy. Choose something you like and find a way to get paid for it.
“I want to do what you do,” he said.
But that didn’t include giving an interview on the location of a “docu-soap” TV series, the first reality-based show to be filmed in Idaho backcountry. Kidd stars as one of three featured Idaho outfitting families in the series, including the Yourens, Bullocks, and Korells. My visit to the set outside Garden Valley had been arranged by truTV, which broadcasts the show.
“I‘ve been through plenty,” the dark-haired and sun-tanned Kidd said with a grin. As a youth, he team-roped and rode broncs and bulls between hunting seasons. When he was a high school senior competing at the Silver State International, the last bull he rode smacked him in the side of the face, shattering an eye socket, his nose, knocking out teeth, and displacing sinuses. Still conscious, he made it out of the arena and back to his host’s house before realizing he had a serious concussion and “sort of passed out.”
He has lived in Nevada and Canada, but ultimately returned to Idaho. His friends went to college or got their own places, but Kidd used his savings to put a down payment on an Idaho hunting area. He passed the state test with a near-perfect score and became the youngest licensed outfitter in the state. Continue reading
