Happy Cycling and Photovoltaic Spring!

What an early and beautiful spring this year!  We've already been out cycling up the Rattlesnake and then down to campus to see the University mens' tennis team play Sacramento State in the Big Sky Tournament.  Amazing to be able to do that on March 27.

 

And the other amazing spring event is that Solar Plexus has installed our 18-panel, 5 KW photovoltaic rooftop system.  Here are the rails, power optimizers, panels, and crew:

Cross-Town Bikes and Trikes

We love our cross-town bike route that takes us across the Clark Fork, along the river, west through Missoula, and then back from some point out there.  Today, Robin happily proposed going to the Kelly Island Fishing Access Site.  We four met at the Van Buren bike/ped bridge and had lunch outside at the Good Food Store--mid-October! Missoula! lunch outside!  amazing! 

"Earth and the Great Weather" Redux

highway 33 and the Teton peaks off yonder

We made use of the relatively quick route between Missoula and the Tetons (using I-15 and Idaho 33) that we found on our retreat from our August weather-vexed trip.


And we also made happy use of the multi-use/bike pathways that we discovered then.  Returning to the Tetons with bikes, day-hiking packs, and car-camping gear worked out well, and the clear weather helped!

The 20-mile stretch of paved and separated-from-the-road pathway connecting the town of Jackson with Jenny Lake and completed in 2012 is dedicated to the memory of Gabriella Axelrad, a 13-year-old bicyclist who died near Jenny Lake in 1999, hit by a car while wearing an orange safety triangle on her back and a helmet.  High-visibility clothing and helmets aren't enough protection against inattentive drivers, but those things plus separation from traffic, hopefully, are.  The pathway honors Gabriella's memory beautifully.

What wonderful views and feelings of quiet and freedom!

The pathway has, in addition to views and separation from the road, a tunnel for crossing highway 191 at Moose Junction and separated river and creek crossings.

And separation from the road invites riding in low light.

North of the Jenny Lake campground, there is a paved pathway that goes a short way to the one-lane, one-way southbound road for cars.  As part of that road, a bike lane goes as far as String Lake.  The pavement markings seem to make the bike lane one-way as well, but north- and southbound cyclists, including rangers on bikes use this lane.

String Lake makes a great lunch place!

String Lake

looking across Jenny Lake and west up Cascade Canyon

We also biked the multi-use/bike path that goes from the town of Wilson to the park's Granite Canyon entrance station. 



It also has a great lunch spot!














We also took two day hikes on this trip--



one to Leigh Lake and Paintbrush Canyon and the other up Cascade Canyon.

looking across Leigh Lake and up Paintbrush Canyon

 

lunch near Inspiration Point above Jenny Lake

Cascade Creek

duct-tape boot repair in Cascade Canyon

discussion at the Murie cabin

Mardy's cookbooks in the Murie cabin kitchen

September 3 was the 50th birthday of the Wilderness Act.  We joined celebrations in the Tetons with birthday cake, a ranger hike, and a discussion at the Murie cabin, where discussions on the front porch in the 1960s contributed to the ideas and wording of the legislation creating the National Wilderness Preservation System. 

We spent our nights in the Jenny Lake campground, which meant that we could leave the car at the campsite and take off on bikes or on foot for many of our adventures.  It also made an evening saunter to the lake possible.  It's a quiet, open-piney, friendly-feeling place.  At night we heard elk bugling instead of car alarms and car doors slamming.  One restroom for 50 sites causes a bit of a rush-hour crunch, but it also leads to sink-sharing camaraderie and the chance to meet very nice people.  Sin problemas no hay chiste--loosely, without problems, where's the fun?  We really had fun.

"Earth and the Great Weather"

"Earth and the great weather / Move me / And move my inward parts with joy."  --Uvavnuk (Inuit)

Training and packing for a dream of a backpacking trip in the Wind River Range of Wyoming occupied us for three weeks.  We hiked up Jumbo twice and around the North Jumbo Loop with new trekking poles twice (and got to watch a parasailer launch and fly from Mt. Jumbo right before our eyes). We also saw the weed-eating sheep on one training hike.

On the Jumbo North Loop

With our eyes on the NOAA forecast for the town of Pinedale, Elkhart Park (our trailhead), and the Titcomb Basin (our goal), we drove to Pinedale but retreated step by step as the weather and forecasts turned from showers to rain to thunderstorms to heavy downpours and snow, first deciding not to backpack in the Winds, then backing off to the Tetons to dayhike and backpack there if the forecast improved, and finally driving home--almost all of the time in rain or heavy rain and often surrounded by lightning.

On the Taggart Lake Trail

We took advantage of a few dryish hours by hiking to Taggart Lake in the Tetons.


 
Over the four days we were out, we did have fun and satisfactions talking with other wet people, camping, and discovering a good place to get coffee, cinnamon rolls, and The New York Times in Jackson.  We also found a route between Jackson and Missoula that takes about seven hours to drive (much faster than driving through Yellowstone), so maybe we'll get back to the Tetons soon and be able to take the camera out of its case (and ziploc bag) more than on this trip.

The Big Blackfoot Runs through It

Robin inflating the first of the stack of five boats

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing...half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

--Water Rat to Mole in The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

Our book group had been planning for some months to camp at Russell Gates Fishing Access Site on the Big Blackfoot River and paddle the 12 miles from River Junction back to the campground.  A few weeks ago, Robin and Gary scouted the dirt-road maze out to River Junction and walked upriver from the Scotty Brown bridge to preview the rapid marked on maps.  Very helpful!  Brian's hip replacement and Joyce's splenectomy kept the whole group from making the floating and camping part of the trip, but Joyce, Kathy, and Brian brought food and spent an evening with us.  Also very helpful--and fun.  We're grateful to Catharine and Robin for having so many boats; to Gary and Robin for their scouting and leading the way; and to Joyce, Kathy, and Brian for driving out, cooking, and setting up dinner.  And what a campground--open ponderosa forest and sites with views and sounds of the river!

Eric, Robin, and Gary at our lunch and sunscreen stop

Paddling along the river, we saw cliff swallows, red-tailed hawks, osprey, and a whole bunch of folks fishing from rafts.  It seems likely that much of the attraction of this beautiful stretch of this river is the pull of fishing Norman Maclean's river.  The book sure was part of the frame for our experience floating:  "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it."
 
And then there's the tao, the energy of live water.

Keeping the camera dry, we took very few pictures on the river, but we do have these from lunch and a leg-stretching and boat-draining stop.

Happy campground photos follow these few from the river.

Catharine showing Joyce the cabinets

Robin cooking

Eric breaking camp

Brian cooking

Kathy

Joyce

Brian

Eric and Gary at breakfast