Wildfires, Again!

Sunday evening we were sitting outside the RV, gazing over the mountains and listening to the river when Dave said - look how all the campfires here are causing it to be hazy up on the mountainsides.  Okay, I'll by that.  We had a large group of tent campers beside us and their evening campfires would make any Indian cringe.  By yesterday morning all was clear.  Didn't think anything of it.

Salmon River near North Fork, Idaho

Yesterday we drove north about 2 miles to North Fork (only 1 store which has gas station, post office, general store, bait shop, and restaurant) where people stop to get supplies or eat on their way to getting on rafts to float the Salmon River.  This particular place is exactly where Lewis and Clark split in 1805 - Clark taking 11 men and with the Indian guide - Old Toby - left to see if the Salmon River was navigable, hoping the Indians were wrong when they told him it wasn't, while Lewis stayed behind and bartered for horses and supplies.  Clark and party returned after 17 miles of transversing rapids and swift moving water and the entire party then had to travel up over the mountains on horses, leaving their cache of boats and supplies needed for the return trip buried in the ground.  This is where Sacajawea's people, the Shoshones, spent their summers, trapping and fishing and stocking up on foods for the winter.

 I have to say that this area is gorgeous.  We were also told that this drive along the river was quite stunning, most times you can see animals and birds.  Only things we saw were rafters on the water and once in a while a home/ranch. If we weren't in Idaho I'd say we were in the wilderness of Montana.  Would love to see this area in the winter.

Stopped along the way and saw/read markers commemorating something about the Expedition and what went on at a particular place.  One sight that stopped us and we took pictures - we saw a helicopter and a huge tanker truck with maybe 10 men (all dressed in dark shirt and pants) by the helicopter - Dave thought it was firefighting training exercise.  When we got back I decided to walk out into the river to see how cold the water was and how swift the current.  Wow. And it's a good thing I did it then - later in the afternoon a rattle snake was caught at the far end of the campground and they brought it over to the bank where I had stepped in and put it down.  Wasn't happy about that - why didn't they take it much farther away?

Smokejumpers and truck

Last evening while sitting out watching the world go by, again we saw that the mountains were engulfed in smoke/haze.  When we came in I got on the computer - and you guessed it - 9 wildfires were started over the weekend from lightning - right near us.  And had we known that we were driving right by it (on the other side of the mountain), we would not have gone on our little excursion.  We believe that what we saw:  the helicopter and SmokeJumpers (firefighters for wildfires) taking a break before heading back out to fight the fires. This morning the mountain is clear - hopefully the fires are getting in control.