The oldest standing building in Idaho

This post is about a little trip within a trip.  On my way back home from Glacier last week, I decided to stop at Old Mission State Park near Coeur D'Alene, ID.  There were three reasons I wanted to stop here.  The first was because Arika and Sheldon were on the Old Mission peninsula in Michigan the same weekend, which also has an Old Mission State Park, so there was an off chance that we both visited the same named park in the same weekend (turned out to be no).  Second was because I have an Idaho State Parks annual pass and I want to use it more so I can my money's worth before the year is over (I still have 5 trips to state parks left- so I may not actually accomplish that).  And third was because "why not?"  I was ahead of schedule for getting home, so I figured a little detour would be fine.  Despite an actual interest in the place being on the list of the reasons I stopped, it actually was a really cool place.

I learned that the Cataldo Mission Church (pictured above) is the oldest standing building in the state of Idaho.  It was pretty nifty inside.  The educational "trail" also had some pretty spectacular views of the surrounding Idaho Panhandle National Forest land.  I only spent about 20 minutes there, because I was pretty antsy to get home, so I hope one day I will get to go back and fully enjoy it.  It was a pretty cool last pit stop for my awesome weekend last weekend.

The inside was artfully crafted, despite their lack of any real tools.

It was a very hot, but beautiful day in Northern Idaho.

The Crown of the Continent

A little trip out to the Crown of the Continent will probably end up being the crown of my summer.  It was my first time there in two years, and it was my first time ever spending time in the back country there.  It was only a four day vacation, but it felt like it gave me a two-week break because it was so action packed.  Even the drive to and from was incredible and gave me breathtaking views of an amazing part of the our country.

This one, just like most of the recent posts will be mostly pictures, although I may share an anecdote or two at the end to elaborate on some of the pictures, or to discuss moments that weren't captured on camera.  Also, I may have to put an updated post about this trip once I get pictures from Mike and Caroline, since they have some really cool ones that I don't, including a picture of the three of us with a Mountie!

This was my favorite vista of the entire trip.  The fence is for the horses that live at the Ranger Station. 

And we're off!

The first part of the trail had a lot of meadows with wildflowers popping everywhere.

Mike and Caroline before we took a quick break at the fence.

Chief Mountain

I've always wanted to go over a suspension foot bridge.  Now I have! (Picture is of Mike)

It is actually someone's job to live here and ride horses and do work in the woods.

This is one of the loudest and coolest waterfalls I have ever seen.  It is hard to tell because my camera isn't very good, but the pool is so incredibly blue, it looks straight out of the Caribbean.

This is a view from out beach front property for our campsite the first night!

Another beach front property shot.

Here is where the food prep area was.  Check out below for a great story about the other guys in this picture.

We woke up to a really cool inversion over the mountains.

This muley didn't seem very scared of us.

He was just hungry for some breakfast, so he ate with us.

Appropriately named Pyramid Peak.

Cool butterfly with false eyes.

Another cool waterfall.

Caroline headed back over the bridge.

A nice close-up of the wildflowers in the horse field.

Another great shot of the horse field!

We took a little jaunt up to Canada to check out Waterton Lake.  This is what we got to see.

I'm standing weird only because the wind would have pushed me over otherwise.

Our last day, we took a little hike to see a bunch of waterfalls near St. Mary Lake.

A very secluded dock on Lake St. Mary.

This was part of Virginia Falls.

St. Mary's falls.

The story about the other people in the picture above is actually pretty hilarious and was one of the many running jokes we had along the weekend.  It was a research group from Indiana State University.  When we first saw them getting ready at the trailhead, one of the guys needed the help of four others to get his pack on.  As it turns out, he was carrying an inflatable boat they could use to go out into the middle of the lakes that we were camping near to collect cores of the sediment.  They also had to carry all of the equipment related to the corer (not to mention sediment cores on the way back out).  So, needless to say, we kind of felt sorry for them.  Until we got more details about their trip itinerary and general backcountry packing skills.  First of all, they were only staying out for three days!  They carried all this equipment out 12 miles just to stay for 2 nights.  Then, when we were all eating dinner together the first night, one of the guys pulled out a full jar of peanut butter (large size)! Another pulled out a jar of jelly.  The only sensible one in the group was the girl that brought a jar of Goober- at least she had the sense to combine the PB and J.  Another guy had a 6-pack of 20 ounce Mountain Dews with him.  So we made fun of them for the whole next day about that.  Until the next day when we had dinner with them again.  This time, they pulled out whole cans of Chef Boyardee.  And whole grocery bags of dried fruit.  And whole freezer bags of cookies.  To top it all off, they had also packed freeze-dried backcountry meals, but had no way to cook them because nobody in their group brought a backcountry stove (maybe it was too heavy).  So, we let them use our stove in exchange for some snacks, which was great, because Mike had been obsessing about having a dessert and rationing our three Pop-Tarts just wasn't cutting it.  Anyway, I hope they learned a couple lessons about packing for a three day trip and will maybe be a little more weight efficient next time.  Of course, we don't actually know if the whole group made it out ok.  As far as we know, the Professor made it out, but he was hurting really bad, and the one strong guy in the group had gone back to try to help the others with their loads.

Overall, it was an incredible weekend full of hiking, good food, singing bear songs, skipping down trails, and friends.  The last night, Mike and I also got to see a little Northern lights show and I got to see about 15 shooting stars before going to sleep.  Probably the only downsides to the weekend was that I wasn't able to fully show off my newly acquired and much practiced bear bag hanging skills, and that we didn't get to see any bears, though we did get to hear a couple fighting on the second night in the distance.

I can't wait to go back (and/or explore other awesome areas).

Only-Two-Meadows Creek

If you are expecting a post about Glacier this past weekend, you will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow after I load the pictures.  Instead, this post is going to be about my backcountry trip the previous weekend, since I didn't get around to writing about that last week.

The trip was originally supposed to be up at Lake Pend O'Reille (pronounced pond o-ray), but due to some issues with getting out of town on time (which somehow Christie and I have never been able to avoid in all of our camping trips), we changed plans and headed back down to the Selway Wilderness.  Just to switch things up, though, and to avoid all of the 4th of July weekend traffic along the river, we headed up Meadow Creek.  As the title of the post implies, the name of the creek was pretty misleading.  We were actually pretty worried about whether we were going to be able to camp or not, since the first good meadow we found was ten miles in.  The second was about 12 miles in.  And after our afternoon hike, which we made it about 14 miles in, those were the only two meadows along the creek.  At least the side we were on.

The name of the creek was also misleading because it really wasn't a creek.  As you will see from the pictures, it was much more the size, speed, and awesomeness of a river, so that was a pleasant surprise.  With the exception of way too many bugs, it was a pretty awesome weekend.  We were the only people on the entire trail, so we didn't see a single other person all weekend, so it was very secluded.

Enjoy the pictures.  Remember, to see the pictures full size, simply click on it.  To exit the picture viewing mode, either hit the ESC button, or click outside of the picture frame.

Even though the trailheads for this trail and the last one we did were right next to each other, the flora was much different (and much more dense).

We got a little higher than last time, too, which gave us some nice views of the canyon.

Like I mentioned, it was a very big "creek."  

Christie and her happy horse.  Also, notice that this time we have saddle bags.  They were awesome, especially because I had much less to carry this time.

This was a pretty cool creek crossing with a nifty little waterfall where we crossed. 

Christie and blue posing in front of the waterfall.

This was a pretty big creek almost where it drained into Meadow Creek.  It was our water source for the weekend.

Our camp was situated right next to the big creek  feeding into Meadow Creek and Meadow Creek, so we got to fall asleep to rushing water again.

We made sure to stay somewhere where Blue could eat some dinner, too.

My second time hanging a bear bag in the backcountry was much more successful than the first.  This wasn't quite ten feet high, but it worked just fine to trick the black bear that was in our camp when we came back from a hike.

I liked the couple pictures we got as the sun was dipping below the mountains (from our point of view at least).  The picture at the top of the post was around the same time.

This was a very impressive structure.  I am still not sure if it is beaver formed or not, because it is so big.

Butterflies again.

We went further down the creek for our evening hike after we set up camp.  It was nice to hike without a pack.

Taking a look at the map on a cool bridge about 12 miles into the woods.

Here is a nice shot of the creek on our way out, about 3 miles from the trailhead.

I thought this was a pretty cool waterfall.  It was on the other side of the creek, so I couldn't get a better picture.