2013--Island Park, Idaho: Springs

Headwaters of Warm River

Normally, by this time of year, we would have made somewhere between three and five trips to Yellowstone.  This year, however, since I was acting in a play, we only made it up once, on Memorial Day weekend.  It was the only weekend day I was not involved in rehearsal.

Last Friday, the show ended and I had no obligations to be around on Saturday.  We had to wait for my son to get home from Treasure Mountain, Boy Scout Camp where he is a staff member this season.  He returned home at about three in the afternoon which meant a Yellowstone trip wasn't going to work.  We did, however decide to visit Island Park.

Island Park is a great vacationland on the Idaho side of Yellowstone National Park.  It is situated inside the crater of the largest volcanic caldera known to exist on the planet.  The community of Island Park boasts the longest main street anywhere in the world.  It is around 31 miles in length.

Island Park is truly a wonderland.  There is a movement among some groups to make Island Park into a National Monument which would essentially enlarge the borders of Yellowstone.  From the time you descend into the caldera until you reach the town of West Yellowstone, you are in a beautiful lodgepole pine forest with rivers, lakes, ponds and springs.  There is Harriman State Park, Henry's Lake, a migratory bird refuge, big game animals and several small communities of vacation homes all along highway 20.  It is idyllic.  Yellowstone gets all the press, but Island Park has plenty to offer.

We decided to visit a couple of the springs in Island Park for our short trip on Saturday.

We took the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway from Ashton, Idaho up through Bear Gulch and past Mesa Falls.  One of my neighbors had told me about Warm River Spring which gushes out of the side of the cliff about forty to fifty feet up and cascades down the side of the mountain.  We needed to see that one.  I wanted to show my boys where rivers come from.

Warm River Spring issues about 200 cubic feet per second of water, and the temperature is a constant 50 degrees all year long.  Some rivers will freeze over, but not Warm River.  Even when it gets to sub-zero temperatures it doesn't freeze.  It's because the water is heated underground from the residual effects of the last volcanic eruption.

In the 1930's, the CCC (Civil Conservation Corps) built a fish hatchery and cabin at the site of Warm River Spring.  The hatchery is long gone, but cabin is still there and is available to be rented.  The CCC tapped the spring during the great depression and some of the water still pours out of pipes that were put in place at that time. 

As I walked past the cabin, I smelled the unmistakable scent of Yarrow.  There were hundreds of mature Yarrow plants in the "lawn" in front of the cabin.  I like Yarrow a great deal and I don't know if it's a real thing or if it's my imagination, but when I'm hiking and my muscles get fatigued, I crush up some fronds of Yarrow and hold it to my nose and inhale it.  It seems to make me have more energy and my muscles to lose some of that tension.

When I was a boy in scout camp, one of the merit badge counselors told me that the Native Americans used to chew on Yarrow for relief of toothaches.  It apparently has mild analgesic properties.

Yarrow flowers

Yarrow fronds

The cabin at Warm River Spring

The headwaters of Warm River.  Note the two pipes at the top of the spring.  Those were installed by the CCC

The water comes out quite rapidly

Drinking from some of the purest water on earth

Apparently it meets the standard.  It did seem a little warmish though, but without the sulphur aftertaste you might get in Yellowstone. 



The family at the spring so you can see how large it is

The family at the spring

From Warm River Spring, we went to a place called Big Springs, which is near the hamlet of Macks Inn.  Big Springs is a different kind of spring than Warm River Spring.  Big Springs bubbles up from the ground while Warm River Spring erupts from the cliff face.

On our way over, we stopped for a couple of pictures.  One was of an osprey in a nest and the other was of the Tetons.

Osprey on nest

The Teton Range from Island Park

Back in the early part of the twentieth century, a German immigrant named Johnny Sak moved to Island Park and built a cabin at Big Springs.  He was only 4'-11" tall.  He met a girl in Ashton that he loved and she loved him, so he went to Big Springs and built a cabin for her.  It took him more than two years to complete it, and when he went to get her, he found she had gotten married.  He lived in the cabin as a hermit for the rest of his life.  He made his living by making beautiful, hand crafted furniture from Douglas Fir.  He would bury a tree for a year, allow the worms to eat trails through the bark and then he'd dig it up and shave the bark down to the worm burrows and make his furniture from that wood.  On another excursion, I'll take photos inside the Sak cabin.  By the time we arrived on Saturday the cabin was closed.  The workmanship inside is very beautiful.

Johnny Sak cabin

Big Springs is the headwaters of the Henry's Fork of the Snake River.  One of the big attractions here is that fish from the hatchery in Ashton migrate up the river and find sanctuary under the bridge.  Fishing is illegal at Big Springs and so the trout grow to enormous proportions.  There is a machine that dispenses a handful of Purina Trout Chow (yes there is such a thing) for a quarter and you can feed the fish.  Seagulls and ducks have found that handouts are a cheap way to get a meal here, and I have in the past seen muskrats.

Sadly, some rotten people came in on snowmachines last winter and killed the fish.  I don't know if they were hunting trophies or were eating them or were just rotten people.  The fish haven't recovered yet and we only saw a few of them and they were normal size.

Big Springs has a temperature of 52 degrees year round and is not subject to freezing either, the same as Warm River.  The water percolates through glacial sediments and volcanic debris.  Geologists believe it is water that originates as snowfall and rainfall and absorbs into the ground all over the area and expresses itself at Big Springs. 

It is about six miles off the main road, so it never seems to be crowded.  My parents used to take us there when we were little kids.  I have made sure to take my kids there as well.

The headwaters of the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, Big Springs

Me being bald

The hot chick and I at the headwaters of the Henry's Fork

Spider making a living at Big Springs

Beautiful view along the trail

Random boulder.  I like rocks, so it was a natural shot for me to take

The pumphouse that Johnny Sak built

Seagull far from home

And his brother

I was trying to take a picture of the fish in the river and what I ended up taking was a picture that looks like a watercolor.  My personal favorite picture of the day.  Totally serendipitous.

View of the spring from the bridge

It was a very nice half day trip.  One that I'd like to make again.  There are a few trails at both Warm River Spring and Big Springs.  We didn't take them this time for lack of time and the fact that I injured my ankle awhile ago and it hasn't healed all the way.  We will take the trails in the future though.  We truly live in a magnificent part of the world.

2013--Moreland, Idaho: Memorial Day

Memorial Day flag

Every year, for a fundraiser, the scouts rent United States flags to the members of our congregation.  It costs $45 for a year and the scouts take care of the flags and fly them in our yard on flag waving holidays and take them down again.  They store them for the next holiday.

We got up and got ready on Memorial Day to go to the Moreland Cemetery to pay our respects to our deceased ancestors.  Maybe it was how I grew up, always getting ready to open a show at the Playmill around this time of year, but I never really cared to visit cemeteries on Memorial Day.  That changed about five and a half years ago when my father passed away.  Now it seems more important, more immediate. 

I enjoy visiting the cemetery now.  Some years it's the only time I get to see some of my relatives.  We meet as an extended family and spend an hour or two visiting and reliving old memories.  Usually it's a little chilly and windy, so we always bring good outer clothes in case.

The Moreland Cemetery is an interesting place.  Moreland is a very small town situated near Blackfoot, Idaho.  The Cemetery isn't very big.  When Chimene and I were first married, we were talking to her Grandmother about the fact that my parents had already purchased a plot in the Moreland Cemetery and she said that was where her husband was buried and where she was going to be buried.  Small world.  Turns out that Chimene's grandmother and my grandmother were very good friends growing up.

Fast forward to last year, and when we were wandering about we found a tombstone that belonged to members of my son-in-law, Nick's family.  Pretty weird, huh?

For the first time ever, we got to the cemetery first.  We were there about twenty minutes before any of the other family showed up.  Nick and Cynthia and the boys were the next ones to arrive, and then people started showing up.  We placed our flowers on Dad's stone and on Chimene's grandparent's stone and then we started visiting with the relatives.

Dad's headstone.  My kids think it's creepy to have Grandma's name on it already

The back of Dad's headstone.  My kids think it's creepy that my name is on the back of it.

Grandma and Grandpa's headstone.  I knew her, I never knew him

Aunt Fern and Uncle Cleo's stone.

My cousin, Joe's headstone

Aunt Lorna and Uncle Rex's headstone.  Uncle Rex is still with us.

Nick's relatives

The burial plot for Nick's relatives

Chimene's grandpa and grandma's headstone. 

The family plot of the England family, my direct ancestors

My great great grandfather's marker

My great grandfather's headstone.  Everyone called him Granddad England

First we all paid our respects to our dead, then we commenced enjoying the company of our living.  We visited and posed for pictures and visited some more.  I tried to get photos of everyone, but I think I may have missed a few.  It's always good to see my relatives.

Renee, Yvonne, Uncle Rex and Paula

Kay, Chimene, Jolene and granddaughter and Marie

Bruce, Mom and Ferron

My cousins, Ben and Bill

Nick and Cynthia, Allison and Richard

Paula, the bald one, Bruce and Jolene

A cousins shot with Uncle Rex and Mom

Chimene and I and our three boys still living at home

I thought I had more and better pictures of my extended family.  I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get any pictures of Pam and Lela and Bonnie.  I love my family, my whole family.  Life gets in the way and we sometimes need Memorial Day to remember to get together.  All of us are busy and actively engaged in good causes so it's nice to be able to come together to remember.

We were the first to arrive and the last to leave.  Before we left, I read a poem over Dad's grave.  It was one of his favorites that he had read to me a million times.  I read it from his very favorite book, Pack Up Your Troubles by Ted Malone.  It was a book that was given to him by his mother on the eve of his entrance to World War II.  He read the book until he nearly wore the words off the page.  It's currently held together with tape, and many of the pages are just sitting loose in the proper order.  This was a book that was loved.  I read him a few of his favorite poems just before he died, then I read them again at his funeral.  Mom gave me the book the first Christmas after he passed away.  I bring it to the cemetery each year and sometimes I read to him from it.

Me, wearing Dad's jacket, reading Which Are You from Dad's favorite book of poetry 

We drove around Moreland for a little while to see if we could find Mom and Dad's house when they lived there.  We only found it because Mom said it had been painted an awful yellow color.  It was easy to spot.  We then found a plaque that told of the founding of Moreland, Idaho.  Chimene was worried about what the people inside were thinking when a green van pulled up and started shooting pictures of their house.  I drove away before they could investigate.

The old homestead

The founding of Moreland, Idaho

Of course no trip to Moreland would be complete without a stop at the rest area at Hell's Half Acre Lava Flow, and the obligatory rolling down the hill.

Garrett rolling

rolling

rolling

Rhys rolling

rolling

rolling

Finally, we re-assembled at our home and had a birthday dinner and cake and ice cream for our oldest daughter, Cynthia.  She turned 28 on Memorial Day this year.  I took a few pictures in a darkened room with just the light of the candles to illuminate.  28 candles put out a lot of light.  I didn't need a flash!

Cynthia illuminated only by birthday candlelight

It was a very good day.