2nd of Two Motocaching Trips of 2019

Son Clint and I recently finished the second of our two planned motocaching

trips of the summer. On this three day trip we picked up geocaches in Idaho, Montana and Oregon. We left Clint’s place in Lewiston shortly after 6:30 am Friday. It was cloudy and threatening rain so I had my rain gear on when I left. We headed east up Highway 12 and stopped in Kamiah for gas. We had no rain up to that point but it soon began. It wasn’t bad but enough to keep our speed in check. I have traveled up the Lochsa so many times that there aren’t any caches along that route that I haven’t already found so we didn’t stop for a cache until Montana.

Cache at very top

Near the top

Success

Our first endeavor was one called “Hippy Music Fest” a little west of Lolo which has little to do with the cache other than the beginning point was at a large open area with a stage near the highway. The cache was only about 100 horizontal yards from where we parked but maybe 200 feet or so in vertical distance. The first three pictures will give you some idea. Not only was it very steep but the poor footing was exacerbated by the rain. We eventuality made it to the very top and looked quite a while before Clint found it. This cache had been placed 10 years ago and had not been found in over two years. It was easy to see why. Going back down was as bad as going up.

We continued to Lolo where we stopped for gas and ate lunch. I had lined up quite a few caches along Highway 93 but we stopped for only four and didn’t find two of those. One was supposed to be a 5 gallon container near the Lost Trail Pass Rest Area and I’m sure it was gone or we would have found it. I’m pretty bad sometimes but not that bad. And Clint certainly isn’t.

We had reservations at the Super 8 in Salmon and it was very nice. We hiked about ¾ mile down town to try to find some Mexican food. We eventuality settled for a Mexican fast food place. Mine was fairly good but certainly not what I would call Mexican. Just before we started to hike back a downpour ensued. It finally let up somewhat and we made our way back from awning to awning.

Thermal Hot Springs

Sagebrush find

We had a nice breakfast at the Super 8 and proceeded south down Highway 93 to Challis. This is a fun ride along the Salmon River. A little south of Challis we turned east on Highway 21 to Stanley. We continued south on Hwy 21 picking up a few caches along the way. One was at a thermal hot springs where there was a crowd of people. The sun was shinning and it was warming up so I decided to take off my rain pants. As I was leaning against my bike trying to get the pants over my boots the bike rolled back a bit and down it went. It wasn’t even on pavement so I told Clint it didn’t hurt anything to which he answered, except your dignity. I told him I didn’t have any to hurt.

Not the Waldorf

This is a great motorcycle road with lots of tight curves. We passed through Idaho City and began descending into the Boise valley. This was the warmest part of our trip but it was only in the mid to upper 80’s. We took a route through Boise south of the interstate mostly on Victory and Amity roads taking us to Nampa.

Our stay in Nampa was at the Downtown Inn right downtown as the name states. It was an old unkempt dumpy looking place but it wasn’t all bad. It was clean, everything worked and the help was friendly and accommodating. After settling in we rode over to visit son Milo. His roommate was out for the weekend so we ordered pizza and had a good visit.

Rodentville

We had a decent breakfast the next morning at the motel and were on the road by 7:30. We rode the interstate to the Fruitland exit and proceeded north to Cambridge on Highway 95 picking up one cache along the way. Then we took Highway 71 west which was new territory for me. It was a nice motorcycle road with lots of turns and pleasant somewhat open scenery. It looked like the beginning of chukar country. At the summit we stopped for a cache in an old abandoned cabin which was part of a cabin series. You could not see the floor for all the animal droppings. The cache was supposed to have been in a coffee can but all we found was the container and lid. I suspect the rodents had gotten into it and made off with or eaten the contents.

We began a long descent down to the river and across and eventuality to Oxbow dam. Idaho Power has a campground there which was about as nice as any I’ve seen. Clint had been there for some training when he worked for Idaho Power. They had placed one of a series of twelve caches there. It was an ammo box chained to a tree. We took a nice break there at a picnic table in the shade.

Clint has it

Next we resumed our ride on nothing short of a world class motorcycle road. There were so many twists, turns and ups and downs that you literally had a workout by the time you got to Joseph, OR. All this was on a narrow but smooth road in thick forest. I was surprised than I hadn’t heard about this road from some of my friends in our riders group.

We picked up a couple more caches a few miles from Joseph and then one at a Fish and Game office in town. It was in a long cylindrical container representing fish eggs placed in a box full of rocks like where salmon would lay their eggs. It had received over 30 Favorite points from previous geocachers.

I’ll only briefly mention my leaving Enterprise in the wrong direction heading to a cache in Lostine that we hadn’t found on our previous OR trip. After noticing that Clint wasn’t following I turned around and went back. Like I said, I have no dignity so I just took it in stride.

The rest of our trip was familiar territory north and down Buford Grade and up Rattlesnake Grade. We got to Clarkston before 3:00 pm having traveled over 900 miles. We did more motoring and less geocaching on this trip finding only 16 with 5 more that we didn’t find. It was a great trip and the rain failed to dampen our spirits. M/W