Last week the hiking trip to Yellowstone didn't work out, so we ended up going to Stanley for the day!! As I wrote in my last blog, I had really wanted to see Stanley and it was way better than expected. It is 2 1/2 hours there on a really curvy road, but we made it with no one getting car sick or killed. The population of Stanley is 100, but Redfish lake is right next to the town and set right below the Sawtooth mountains, so the area gets a lot of tourists in the summer. We went on a hike to Marshall Lake. After seeing it, like A of A, I think it deserves a better name than that. It was this small perfectly clear little pristine lake with a waterfall flowing into it off of one of the jagged Sawtooth mountains. We had to hike about 5 miles back to it. Gorgeous hike. Part of it was in the forest and then a good section of it was in some high meadows that had a lot of wildflowers. I'll try to post pictures on the next one. We started out at 6000 something elevation and had an increase of 1500 feet (took us to 8000 something feet) and then down to the lake 300 feet. My feet were tired by the end. It's a rare day when I hike 10 miles, but it was totally worth it.
Then on Saturday I went rafting with the group that was going camping. My friend Gina came, so that made the day even more enjoyable especially because it turned out to be a wild day. The directions sent out were totally wrong because they had come from google, so we were 2 hours late. Then the campsite was not visible from the dirt road because you had to hike down a steep enbankment 15-20 yards to get to the camp site by the river. We were about to give up on finding it (at this point I was pretty mad because we'd driven almost 2 hours to get up to the area), but decided to drive back down the main road one last time and when we did a couple of the guys had come out to stand by the road to look for us. I was glad that our drive wasn't a waste. Only 6 of us ended up going rafting. Last time, I thought it wasn't that rough, but this time was way harder. I was in the front the whole time and the rapids were more continuous. 3 times we almost fell out or flipped. I don't know how we didn't, except that there were a lot of prayers. It was really good that we didn't fall in because none of us had helmets! All of the helmets were sold out. After we stopped, the guys told us that they had seen a sign earlier that rafting on that section of the river could be dangerous, with rock walls on both sides and wasn't for the "faint-hearted". Great. When we stopped for lunch we found out that part of the raft was partially deflated. Apparently the plug had been hit with an oar and loosened. We were nowhere near the road, and it wasn't too bad, so we kept going. We missed the first area we were supposed to get off, but got off at a beach area were there were some hot springs. The Chinese couple who was with us went over immediately and laid down in them. I think they were kind of chilled from the icy river water. After hanging out there for awhile it was time to take the raft to the car, so we tried to carry it, mostly inflated back the the car on a trail that was like 2 ft wide. We deflated the raft and carried it and the equipment up to the car. And I do mean up. It was quite a hike back to where the car was. I'm glad I didn't have to carry the raft. When we got back to the campground some more people had come. Gina and I headed back home via Idaho City (old capitol and almost ghost town) where we stopped for some ice cream. I heard yesterday that after we left that there was a rattlesnake in the campground. One of the guys decapitated it with a shovel and then they ate it for dinner. While kind of cool, that affirmed the decision not the stay the night.
That covers the recent excitement here. Pray that I'll find an apartment!