August 9

Did I mention it’s been warm the past few days? Yesterday as we climb long hills in the truck pulling the Airstream the temperature gauge would shoot up indicating we were close to overheating. The outside temperature read as high as 108 according to the truck digital readout. On each long climb I turned the heater on full blast in the truck with all the windows open and the engine temperature would cool.

We plan on meeting Marsha’s brother and sister in law near Ketchum, Idaho late Friday so we have roughly 700 miles to cover in two days. Well, if we planned on a direct route it is maybe only 400 miles, but why do the direct route when there are things to see. Our route today includes much of what I covered on my bicycle back in 1975 including Rattlesnake Grade.

We have a few passes to climb this morning which I am not overly concern about since the temperatures in the early morning were close to 65 degrees. No issue for the truck when it comes to overheating. What does concern is our afternoon travels since the temperatures are expected to be warmer than yesterday. This forecast proved correct with our high for the day according to the truck at 111 degrees.

Why my concern with Rattlesnake Grade? Let me bring you back to 1975. I’m on my fully loaded touring bicycle and I cross the bridge over the Snake River between Lewiston, ID and Clarkston, WA. Not sure which way I want to head from there but on the map I see a road heading south to Enterprise, OR eighty miles away. I even laughed to myself when I noticed a squiggle on the map where the road traveled, a printing error or something. Anyway I head towards Enterprise. It’s late September so the temperature is ideal for cycling. The road south from Clarkston climbs for a few miles then more or less levels off in rolling terrain with miles and miles of wheat. It was a great ride with almost no traffic. This was not a well traveled road. Then I crested Rattlesnake Pass and the road started down. It was ten miles of switchbacks down a canyon wall to the bottom. It is a side canyon off Hells Canyon the deepest Canyon in the United States. Yes, deeper than the Grand Canyon. I camped along the river and started off to Enterprise early the next morning. Well what goes down must come up and the road climbed for ten miles up the canyon wall. It was one of the high points of my trip.

Chief Joseph Canyon

The road was so amazing I wanted Marsha to see it. It was about 2 pm when we started down the switchbacks with the outside temperature over 100 degrees. My concern was the long climb up the grade pulling the trailer with the high temperatures. I was not sure if we would need to climb for a mile then wait for the truck engine to cool down. Well we started the climb with the heater on full blast. The engine remained cool enough to not worry about it. The only drawback was the limited visibility due to smoke in the air from forest fires. C’est la vie.

Looking north down into part of Rattlesnake Grade. You can see part of the road,

In Clarkston we resupplied and headed into Idaho. We are now parked at sweet campground along the Little Salmon River. It’s one of the nicest of the entire trip. Nearby is a staging area for fighting one of the forest fires. Helicopters overhead shuttled huge water containers to battle the fire. Apparently the nearby fire is getting under control unlike the huge files down in California.