We have had to put our planned longer adventure on the shelf for the time being, mostly because we’re having to take time off work for our trip to OvEx this week.
Instead, because the backcountry travel season is closing down quickly in Montana, we’ve been trying to get out at least for some overnights or short weekend jaunts, including this past weekend. I thought we could do a bit of a recon for the northern part of our “Historic Wilderness” trip, so we loaded up the cooler and hopped in the Jeep for a 90 mile ride over the ridge of the Bitterroot Mountains into Idaho.
Where the rain-shadowed east slopes of the Bitterroots in Montana are dry and dominated by Ponderosa pine and plucky spruce trees, the west slope in Idaho is another world. Massive cedars and Douglas firs shade groves of ferns, and moss drapes in long strands from the branches.
This is incredibly remote country. Most of the drainages are devoid of people, and the fishing is world class. We were looking for a short, easy camping trip - just an opportunity to relax and get some solitude for two nights before heading home Sunday morning.
I picked out a USFS campground that counted only 5 sites situated in a grove of ancient Western Red cedars; and with rain in the forecast we left right after work on Friday. Forest Road 250 took us up and over Hoodoo Pass into Idaho. The road was recently graded on the Montana side, and, surprisingly, paved on the Idaho side, so the going was easy. We pulled into the completely deserted campground at about 7:30 and trundled into a prime spot right on the banks of the North Fork of the Clearwater River.
We popped the Smittybilt, lit a modest fire in the pit, read our books for a while, listened to the song of the river, and waited for the rains to come in earnest. We turned in about 9:30, and I fell asleep almost immediately.
This is going to be a brief report, and something of a rant, because we cut our trip short.
Why?
Around 11:30pm I woke up suddenly because two monster Cummins Rams had arrived in the campground. One was towing a 25 foot Terry fifth-wheel camper, and the other towed what looked like a trailer for a race car. They drove around in circles through the campground, and, of course, chose the site immediately next door to ours.
“Ok, fine,” I thought, “they got in late, no problem. They’ll need to get situated, and then they’ll knock off for bed.”
It took them 40 minutes to get the trailers arranged with lots of shouting directions and yelling at the kids to get out of the way. But they finally shut down the diesels and piled into the Terry.
Then they turned on the generator. And they turned on - I’m just estimating here - the 60,000 watt LED house light on the outside of the trailer.
“Alright,” I thought, “they need to charge up for a little bit, then they’ll go to bed.”
Nah.
***
The generator droned, and the flood light illuminated the highest reaches of the majestic cedars like some kind of movie prop.
I got out of the tent to “water the ferns”, and afterwords I casually wandered over to see if I could convince our new neighbors to douse the light and shut down the little Honda.
But they had gone to bed.
With the light on.
And the generator running.
By this point it was 1:30am, and I’d be pretty dumb to knock on the door of a camper unannounced in rural Idaho at that hour.
So the generator kept generating, and the light kept lighting. By the time we had finally drifted off into some semblance of sleep, their dog, which they had locked in the cab of one of the pick-ups, joined the chorus with barking and whining at about 4:00am.
Well, that pretty much did it.
We climbed down out of the tent sometime around 6:00, completely exhausted, and started making some coffee and breakfast. That’s when they finally shut off both the generator and the light. Great.
Their ridiculous dog (and I’m a dog person, so I don’t really blame it) came bounding over to our site looking for someone to play fetch with, proceeded to piss on everything and jump all over Julie.
I tried to shoo the dog back over to their place as they were disgorging five ATVs from the race trailer. Five ATVs for two adults and two children. They said they were staying for a few days to hunt moose, then they fired up the Polaris’s and roared off into the mountains with an arsenal that would have made Scarface proud. We made the decision to pack up and head out.
Julie had to work on Sunday afternoon, and worn out from the sleepless night, we didn’t feel much like finding a new camp site or going on the hike we had planned. So we drove back over the pass, and hit the highway for home.
***
In general, I try to be tolerant of the generator crowd. When we choose to stay in more developed campgrounds, we expect them and take it in stride. I actually find most RV folks are very conscious about quiet hours, and I believe they try in good faith not to disturb their neighbors.
But some of the highlights of wild nature are that it’s dark. And it’s quiet. And it’s nothing like civilization. Why some people feel the need to disrupt that experience not only for themselves, but for their fellow travelers is beyond me. This is why we usually try to choose dispersed camp sites. I don’t feel like too much of a misanthrope saying this: I really wish they’d just stay away from me.
Oh, and the power steering pump on the Jeep died about 15 miles from home. So that was fun, too.