Colter - Desert Trail Journal - 2012

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Chinook Salmon

Across the Snake River

I'll make this brief because my iPhone evaporated several emails I'd been working on for an hour. This made me somewhat disappointed. : )

Yesterday I got a good breakfast in Dayton, then bought groceries and a big sub sandwich and hit the road. The wheat fields were a lush green on rolling hills. A sign described how Lewis and Clark had followed a major Indian trail through the area.

Two whitetail deer, a doe and spotted fawn, crossed the quiet gravel road ahead of me. I sat down in the shade and watched the fawn playing, running and leaping and spinning. He could bound and flag his tail much like an adult even as small as he was. It was delightful.

Talked to a rancher that stopped. He uses a helicopter as needed to find any lost stray cattle after a roundup. When I asked about a wheat operation I'd seen with a row of new combines and several new quad track tractors he said "yeah, they'll be broke in five years."

A few skeeters last night along with a heavy dew. Made it down to Little Goose Dam by about 9. A paradise for thru-hikers: running water, trash cans, bathrooms, vending machines. There was a huge lock that must raise and lower barges 50' or more. I got a kick out of the fish ladder and the viewing window where from below fish go filing past, silvery shad, bass, pike minnow and Chinook Salmon. Awesome! Watched it for two hours. Too bad it wasn't pouring rain outside!

When I called the guard so I could cross the dam he said pedestrians aren't allowed! It would be a 20 mile walk to the alternate crossing. But he'd hiked the Appalachian Trail and found me a ride across. Nice!

On the other side I sat at a shady picnic table and ate lunch while drying everything out and writing a much more clever and amusing journal entry of staggering brilliance. That and others evaporated later.

A big mule deer buck is bedded 200 yds away. We have an understanding: we each are pretending we don't see the other.

It's warm and humid this afternoon but it's been a good day.

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Entry 89 of 102
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