As usual, I saw many unexpected things; a rocky cliff with clear evidence of a hundred foot high waterfall, during the wet season anyway. A mountain blue bird, Idaho's state bird. A giant wall tent and accompanying campsite of a group of elk hunters from Louisiana (they've been making the trek for the last 15 years) complete with a freezer and generators so they can pack their elk out the civilized way, wrapped up and frozen. I told them about a line of super insulated freezers used by off grid homes that do the job with a modest sized solar panel, no gen set required. Plus all the usual great scenery, and lack of anyone else except for the occasional camp site of hunters. At one area, I saw a steel door, open, in a steel frame that was grouted into the solid rock cliff face. It was not an old mine, but looked relatively recent. Going inside, I saw a poured concrete floor, flat and level, and an area about 10' by 15'. That was it, nothing else, I now have my bug out area, when it's needed. I need to ask a local rancher what the deal is on it, again, it wasn't mining related but appeared to be an attempt to make a hole in the wall hideout, it for sure would be a good place to get out of the rain (or fallout) anyway.
At one point I landed at the strip in Leadore for a late breakfast, not sure if there was a functioning cafe there anymore. Like May and Howe in the next valley over, I have seen them come and go over the 30+ years I've been flying the area. But, then the hostess greeted me at the cafe door and said I could sit anywhere, the waitress took my order, and the cook put just the right amount of onions (a lot) in my cheese omelet, and then the cashier took my money (real reasonable), I realized my fears of the joint being closed were premature. Of course, all these different job descriptions were filled by the same person, the cafe's only staff. I told her I was getting tired just watching her, as the place had a pretty good crowd of hunters and she really had to work to keep everybody happy. I took all this into account when I figured out what I should tip of course, and then threw in a bit extra considering she was also about half way there, "having a bun in the oven." She was the toughest person there near as I could tell.
At one point I was at about 7500', flying a dirt road UP and eventually realized I was on the backside of Borah. Out of all the years I've flown this area, I had never stumbled into this particular canyon (a very large canyon) and the snow on the summits of Borah and it's big neighbors combined with the crystal blue sky and the dead calm winds, morphed into one of those "holy shit, it doesn't get any better then this." moments. I had the thought that it all looked like a digitally enhanced movie set, it was that perfect. The eMontague bike performed flawlessly, I recharged it (it's small frame mount battery anyway, the larger aux battery had plenty of juice) while flying to the next LZ, 1 hour of flight giving about 5 miles of steep hill climbing, even then I only exhausted it to about 50% capacity. I ran out of trail before I ran out of juice, as I always ride UP and they eventually, sometimes quickly, peter out into nothing but a straight up cliff more or less.
I flew 10.3 hours in two days, and after careful figuring using measured amounts of gas (regular mogas, though E0, out of my bulk tank) while refueling, came up with a average burn of 2.93 GPH. This is way better then it should be
, I got something going on with the mods on the Rotax, the Big Bore kit, the new 1" diameter carb intake crossover tube, and the Prince prop, something unexpected and frankly hard to believe. I think other 912 fliers may chime in on this but damn, in the past (pre mods) when I was also careful about figuring fuel consumption, it would have been 3.9- to 4.2 or so GPH. NOT complaining!
