TRIP 06 DAY 09, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 – Basques and sheep country
We knew today would be a long one, so we accepted Dick’s generous offer to drive out with us first thing so Joe and I could walk at the same time, thus avoiding the extra 45 to 60 minutes of moving the car from spot to spot. We drove east through Hill City on Highway 20, looking for a road to the left called Mink Road. We did not find it and felt we had gone a couple miles too far east. So we took the next dirt road leading north toward a farm. We encountered a big truck and flagged them down and asked them where Mink Road was. They did not know that road. Another guy showed up shortly thereafter, and he also did not recognize the road name. So much for Google.
However, we had found Harrison Road running east-west, and that was the road we would end the walk on. So we decided to drive west on that, hoping to find Mink Road where it crossed. The road we were on was labeled “1400,” and a mile later we reached “1300.” We figured this had to be within a mile or two of Mink Road, so we parked our car there. Dick then drove us in his pick-up west along Harrison Road for 28 minutes until we reached the spot where we had ended the walk the previous day. He had brought his dog Lucy along, a pointer pup already in training for hunting, and he was going to take her up to Castle Rocks, maybe do a little fishing in Camas Reservoir, so he left, and we started walking east.
At first, the dirt road went straight ahead to the horizon, bisecting pasture defined by barbed-wire fence and dotted with wildflowers and sheep and cattle dung. After about 3 miles of this, we reached High Prairie Road. We turned north for a few hundred yards, and then faced a very large flock of sheep across our road and the road we needed to take to the right (Wild Horse Road). Across the flock in the distance and to the left, we could see a Basque sheepherder on horseback managing the shape and location of the grazing sheep. The most proximal ones stared at us and baa’ed at us. Of course we gave it right back, even though they were not in the least impressed.
We walked east, away from the sheep. At the top of the next rise, we saw the campsite of the Basque, which consisted of a truck in front of a Conestoga-type canvas-topped wagon with an end door and a smoke chimney out the top, and a small trailer behind that. Two sheepdogs were tied to the truck and barked at us from the shade as we passed. It must have been their day off from running the sheep.
Past this point, the road, as Cow Creek Road, became a squiggly line both horizontally and vertically for quite a ways, passing two small ponds or reservoirs and lots of sagebrush. This was the country where Dick had told us he did most of his bird hunting. What made it interesting were the many dark green swales where streams flowed. We were still in mile-high territory, so the desert was tempered by more moisture, more green grass, more wildflowers (at least in May) than the more arid desert 2000 feet lower that we had crossed. And we kept getting peeks of peaks covered with snow up into the Sawtooths on our left.
After we passed Cow Creek Reservoir (crossing from Elmore County into Camas County at this point), the road name changed once again, this time to Harrison Road. It leveled out and straightened out as it reentered farm fields. In the distance to the right, we could see the traffic of Highway 20, but it was too far away to hear most of the time, almost 2 miles south of us. We passed a few nice-looking farm houses with big rows of trees around them for a windbreak, then the road marked “1200,” which the GPS identified as Mink Road, and a mile later, the car at road “1300,” which the GPS identified as Wolfe Road.
Walk rating: 9.0
Money found: Day: $.00 Trip: $1.55 Project: $15.98
Distance: Day: 12.7 miles Trip: 93.3 miles Project: 588.3 miles
Starting point: 43 20.052N 115 15.336W (elevation 5504 feet)
Ending point: 43 20.567N 115 01.677W (elevation 5049 feet)
Significance: Saw a real Basque sheepherder herding sheep.
It was 4:30 p.m. by the time we got back to Mountain Home, and we were feeling the extra long miles we had done on the day. We cleaned up, and then it was our turn to give back a little in recognition of the generous hospitality we had enjoyed. Dick and Joanna chose a nice restaurant in Glenns Ferry, about 30 miles down the freeway from Mountain Home, for dinner, and Dick drove us down there. Glenns Ferry is a very pretty swatch of green on the Snake River that was a famous crossing for the pioneers on the Oregon Trail. There is a beautiful park at that spot, and nearby is a golf course and winery with a restaurant called “Carmela’s.” We had really excellent food there, as well as the usual warm conversation, while sharing a bottle of Carmela Winery’s Johannesburg Riesling. Portions were more than ample, and we had no room for dessert. Dick drove the scenic route on the way home, including a side trip to the amazing Bruneau sand dunes, huge sand dunes that sit on both sides of the Snake River northwest of Glenns Ferry.
Back home, we plotted our timeframe for our last day of walking for this trip. We would leave at 7:30 a.m.
