Lochsa River, Idaho
Trip Start
Apr 12, 1992
1
49
65
Trip End
Jun 15, 1992
Lochsa River,
Idaho,
United States
Saturday, May 30, 1992
5-30-92
Beside the Lochsa River, Idaho
Mild, clear
Saturday morning came in under a clear sky with cool air and a warm sun. Open roads lay ahead. There were no cities to jostle through...and it felt good. I moved back up US-95 to US 12 and headed east again toward Montana. The Clearwater Mountains loomed on the right
92.734.Near Lolo Pass. Mont.
. Straight ahead I faced the Rockies.A long freight train moved slowly down the mountain toward me. It hauled nothing but huge redwood logs, stacked lengthwise on flat cars. it was probably headed down to the potlatch lumber mill.
I gained altitude rather rapidly. As expected, the white-water rapids occurred often on the Clearwater River. From time to time kayaks and rafts bobbed along in the ravine below the highway.
At other times clouds of small darting birds, very acrobatic, swarmed around the faces of cliffs. I think they were cliff swallows. They resembled bats swarming and, like bats, probably were feeding upon flying insects.
The little town of Orafino was first settled during the gold rush days. Later it adopted the bawdy culture of early lumber camps. Today it bears very little resemblance to either. It's just a small rural town in Idaho catering to the needs of fishermen and campers.
I stopped for a while in Kamiah, primarily to stretch my legs and mail some letters written the night before
92.735.Blackfoot River, Mont.
. Then I followed the highway east toward Kooskia, where I crossed the Clearwater again at a fork. I trailed along the north bank up to Kooskia and Lowell and encountered another fork. From there i moved up hill along a river called the Lochsa. A little farther on I stopped to top off my gas tank because a sign warned, "Last chance for gas. "Next station 112 miles."As I rode along I tried to start merging all my experiences from the trip into some common themes. In a relatively short period I have wandered across the face of a land where dinosaurs roamed and bred and ate and fought for millions of years before they disappeared-cause unknown.
I have noted the tenacity of plant and animal species that survive terribly harsh conditions in the south-western deserts, particularly in an oven we call Death Valley
i crossed huge mountain ranges that were thrust two miles high out of a vast ancient sea.
Twelve years ago Mt. St. Helens, stimulated by stupendous natural forces literally blew her top, throwing millions of tons of herself on to the surrounding forests
92.739.Philipsburg, Mont.
. She utilized piggy back rides on high altitude jet streams to deposit volcanic ash and influence weather over much of the rest of the world. In moments 1400 feet of mountain top vanished. Almost immediately, natural forces started spewing molten rock from deep below. In time the mountain will rebuild;or a new explosion will take another chunk off the top. The animals and plants which were destroyed are coming back, but if measured in man time, very slowly. In geologic time, it's nothing.I have examined stone apartment dwellings built, lived in, and left deserted by unknown tribes a thousand years ago. I rested in the shade of huge trees that sprouted from tiny seeds hundreds of years before Christ walked near Galilee. Today these same trees are perilously close to becoming extinct. They hold the distinction of being the largest living things ever to inhabit our planet. Sadly, that may not suffice to save them.
I held my breath at the beauty of hundreds of miles of Pacific coast...harsh, dramatic, beautiful. It owes its beauty partly to the random erosive effects of ocean waves rolling in ahead of winds from far away in Asia. Rain and snow-melt waters plunging down mountainsides added their creative touch. Random forces of nature affect results we would be willing to attribute to the genius of a master artist
92.741.Philipsburg,Mont.
.Throughout the northwest people are almost ready to take up arms.They are hostile toward government because policy making environmentalists seem to them overly concerned about the welfare of spotted owls and other species endangered by the "clear-cut" method of harvesting trees. If the choice is between being able to 'work to eat" or owls, the locals are ready to say good-bye to the owls.
Everywhere I travel I see litter. The most remote stretches of road are lined with refuse. We are despoiling and scarring the face of earth, its land and water. We are despoiling and scarring the face of earth's land and water. Even melted snow run-off in wilderness streams is not safe to drink.
I stood on the shore of lake Ponchartrain, my feet surrounded by bottles, cans. Styrofoam, old tires, discarded TV sets, you name it,,,it was there. I tried to ignore the ugliness so i could enjoy the beauty of moss draped trees, of weathered water-front structures and sunlight sparkling on the wind blown water. It was difficult.
Fast food wrappers and drink cans lined the highways ever since I drove out of Huntsville weeks ago.
I watched a Navajo Indian lad toss a beer can over the rim into fantastically beautiful Canyon de Chelly- and it's his home-his reservation-land reserved for him. It's as if we can't bear to part with our junk. We are, in some strange way, bonded to our trash. It's part of us and we will not be separated.
Weekend recreational vehicle riders in southern California turn figure eights and perform wheelies across hundreds of square miles of fragile desert, creating wounds sure to leave permanent ugly scars.
I suspect it has been this way since the beginning of man-time. The only difference is now there are more people generating more trash to perpetuate outrages against the environment. I saw soiled diapers discarded in Death Valley. In that climate they may never decompose. The diapers will be there to greet travellers hundreds of generations after the bodies of the infants who soiled them, and their descendents are again one with the dusty earth.
The earliest people left litter. What we know of them we learned primarily from their litter, including their bones. And all men have destroyed species, including his own. The earliest men, who hunted, fished, planted crops, and domesticated some animals were, in small ways, beginning to interfere with and alter/damage the environment.
It seems to me the environmentalists are allowing their spokespeople to focus on the wrong issues. In my view it matters very little whether we "save the whale" etc. What we had better be concerned about is "saving mankind." We can foul our air and water, set loose chemicals and radio-activity, abuse our environment to the point where no human remains alive. Of course that would follow on the heels of many years of suffering from environmentally related illnesses. What then? Not much. And who will complain?
