This is NOT about the famous ice cream known as Rocky Road – a concoction of chocolate ice cream, fudge swirls, marshmallows, and walnuts. I am sure that they must make it the same in Idaho as elsewhere.
While exploring Hiway 13 from Kooskia to Grangeville, we decided to check out Hiway 14 even if we would have to return on the same highway as it just wanders off into the wilderness, turning into a dirt/gravel road. We never did find the end of the paved road, turning around at a NEW, still dripping pitch LODGE which unfortunately is CLOSED on Monday and Tuesday for want of employees willing to work 46 miles from nowhere.
The south fork of the Clearwater River follows the highway from Milepost 11 where the road peels off from Hiway 13. OR rather the highway follows the river; with signs at regular intervals saying “NO SHOULDER” DUH, the river is right next to the roadway and driftwood – tall trees complete with ROOTS lay atop the rocks in the river often ten to twenty feet above the water level in mid July!!
What a lovely area and on a Tuesday nearly deserted. No rafters (we didn’t even see any rafting companies but they could easily bus their customers and the rafts into the area.) Unlike the Payette River closer to Boise where in just an hours drive we saw FOUR SEPARATE companies offering this exciting recreational opportunity! There were a dozen USFS campgrounds and several picnic grounds in the 46 miles and we counted more than a half dozen streams and creeks feeding into the Clearwater along the way.
What made this the ROCKY ROAD you ask? THE BOULDERS many the size of the old chest type freezers, and even some the size of TINY HOUSES or 35 foot travel trailers!!. The dings in the guard rails from crashing boulders, not to mention the WATCH FOR ROCKS signs were a clear indication that gravity WORKS!! The landslides on the far side of the river and the fenced areas next to the road were numerous! We discussed the reason for the many pot holes, often in a row stretching 10 to 15 feet; a falling boulder would create an earthquake all by itself, causing damage to the crystalline structure of the asphalt as well as fracturing the road base UNDER the asphalt. So if there was one pothole there would be a whole line of them. Tom was much better, when he was the down river driver, at swerving around these places of road damage than I was on the way up river! RVers are often called “white liners” because of their propensity of hugging the white line side of the highways. Today we were classic white liners, except when avoiding the white line cracks in the asphalt, then we were YELLOW LINERS, if possible, to straddle the line of potholes!!
So on the upriver stretch Tom took photos of the river rapids and “smooth as glass” quiet sections, and on the downriver trek I tried to get photos of the rock formations. We came to a dead stop at HANGOVER ROCK where the rock jutted out over the downhill section of the road a full cars width and the sign proclaimed the clearance as 14 feet 5 inches!! After dodging the potholes for 46 miles Tom found the first wide spot he could on Highway 13 and declared a “driver change!”
We even had a “small world” experience when we asked the young owner of the newly built LODGE at Elk City where he was from. “Born and raised in Southwestern Colorado,” he said.
“OH,” I commented, “Durango?”
“Yes, yes I was!” he exclaimed.
“We were raised in Denver,” said I. “But I was born in Nebraska and Tom was born in San Diego.”
“My grandparents were born in San Diego and Denver Colorado!” said the surprised young man!
They had been open seven days a week last summer, but he couldn’t find enough employees to do that this year, and yes, the traffic was down from last year. Price of gasoline and everything else has had that effect. We have had NO PROBLEM getting places to park the rig so we can check out the area in just the pickup.
