July 25, 2010, Arco, Idaho

After a day trip with crystal clear skies for most of the day, it turned cloudy and very blustery as we were getting back to the campground.

Yesterday, I was invited to join two other bloggers on The American Civil War page on facebook.  We’re  following the history of the war as it unfolds day by day.

1,385 people like The American Civil War page. 

photos – July 25, 2010

Located in the central section of the Lost River Range, Borah Peak (aka Mt. Borah) is the highest mountain in Idaho.

On Friday, October 28, 1983, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake centered near the base of the mountain lifted Borah Peak about a foot, while the Lost River Valley floor dropped up to 7.5 feet in places.  It also resulted in a 20-mile scarp along the base of the Lost River Range and sand boils near Chilly Butte and the Lost River and Pahsimeroi valleys.  Two elementary school students were killed in Challis.

The scarp – highlighted in blue – resulting from the quake can still be seen 27 years later. The red line highlights a dirt “road.”  The above image was cropped from the photo below.

Karen’s blog, Quilt’s…., etc., was selected as the blog of the week by the American Quilter’s Society on Facebook. 😉

Pioneer Mountains, Idaho, July 25, 2010 –

While it’s nice to find a picnic table, when we’re traveling, we can picnic in places that don’t have tables.  We were going to picnic at Wildhorse Campground, but the flies and other bugs were just too annoying.

We had driven all morning on dirt roads and it shows on our black 2004 Honda CRV.  I took the car to a car wash several times on this trip.

Below – Wildhorse Creek and Pioneer Mountains.

We own a modern motorhome – a class C – and  had two other recreational vehicles previously.  We bought the first one in the late 1980s, a small, used travel trailer. The second was a fifth wheel trailer that we bought new.  We’ve had our motorhome for a little over two years.

I’ve been a bit curious about the history of recreational vehicles in America and, last weekend, came across an article from the early days of vehicle camping, “Luxury Trailers create new army of Modern Gypsies,” published in the April 1936 issue of Popular Science.

I’ve republished the article , Modern Gypsies, as part of a reference library of vintage articles and articles I’ve written related to recreational vehicles.  At this point, though, the library is rather sparse, with only three articles.

Needless to say, the campers of 1936 differed greatly from many that we see today.  There are a lot of similarities, though, and a lot of innovation.  There are also “interesting” snippets:

Jack Bartlett, Tucson, Ariz., showman, recently purchased a trailer for $395, loaded into it a trained donkey weighing 800 pounds and a trunk containing fifty horned toads. With these as his performers, Bartlett tours the southwestern United States staging toad races and exhibitions of animal intelligence in hotel lobbies and schools.

An itinerant minister, traveling through sparsely settled sections of the West, has converted a house-type trailer into a portable church. He seats a dozen people, preaching from a small chapel and pulpit at one end. A woman evangelist, Mrs. Julia A. Locke, tours the country in her trailer, preaching from a platform while music is provided by a bungalow-type piano carried within.

The early days of work campers, I guess.

From Antelope Valley road, we turned right on Forest Service road FS-135, heading for Copper Basin.

At the Antelope GS (Guard Station), FS-135 heads north up Bear Creek and Cherry Creek, then reaches windswept Antelope Pass.  The stretch of this road that climbs to Antelope Pass is narrow, winding, rutted, and can be very slick after rain.  A 4WD is recommended.  (Idaho: A Climbing Guide: Climbs, Scrambles, and Hikes (Climbing Guides) by Tom Lopez)

Heading toward Cherry Creek Summit:

Crossing Bear Creek Summit:

There were several aspen groves along the way:

Antelope Pass looking back at the road we had just driven up:

Antelope Pass, looking ahead into Copper Basin.

Roughly triangular in shape, the central core of Copper Basin is an approximately 20,000-acre expanse of rolling sagebrush steppe, drained by the East Fork of the Big Lost River, Star Hope Creek, and numerous other named and unnamed waterways. Prairie potholes and erratic boulders near the valley’s heart are a reminder of the earth-shaping glaciers that once covered all of this land.  (Copper Basin by Jason Kauffman, Sun Valley Guide, Summer 2007)

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any more photos of Copper Basin.  We were driving through, on our way to Wildhorse Creek and, looking back, I wish we had done the Copper Basin Loop Road and gotten more pictures of this area.

On July 25, 2010, we headed a few miles north of Arco, Idaho to Antelope Valley (#6 on the map to the right, from a Lost River Valley Brochure from MackeyIdaho.com) on a back roads drive that would take us to Copper Basin (15), within 25 miles of Sun Valley, and to the foot of Idaho’s highest peak, Mt. Borah (17).  Note that the brochure map doesn’t show a “road” from Antelope Valley to Copper Basin, but there really is a way to drive there.

This particular area was a favorite when we lived in Idaho from 1977 to 1980.

Today’s images are from Antelope Valley.

I just couldn’t resist sharing this one, especially since the author encourages use of his cartoons.

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