In the spirit of our host's recent suggestion of creating trip reports as individual topics, I've decided to go out on a limb (for me) and figure out how to share my 2015 Idaho trip. Call me inspired, thanks to Zzz for getting me out of my shell and providing the venue. I've been reluctant to post for several reasons. One, I'm really slow at this type of thing and two....there are some seriously talented photographers on this board that frankly make my pictures look terrible. I would say "amateur"...but that does not even fit because in the Artist/Art/Photography world there are exceptionally gifted people that have that adjective covered. You get the idea.
This trip is from this past third week of September. This was a bit of a reunion of sorts. Long story, but some friends of mine used to be regulars at Reno every year until the crash. While it wasn't our unanimous intention to be the "new Reno"...I hope it to be something that becomes a regular trip. Between work, deployments, family, etc it's hard to herd all the cats but we made it happen.
I started my trip leaving Houston. The two other groups came from the DFW area and Oregon. Over two days we converged on Johnson Creek. The weather that week was pretty nasty, in the 30's at night and raining but our intrepid lead from Oregon blazed the trail to J.C. Suffering the rainy/frosty/icy solitude at J.C. with the caretakers closing up shop and shutting down the water/electricity.
From the South we linked up in North Texas and headed direct to Akron, Colorado. From Akron we blasted straight to Afton, Wyoming for the night. First thing we headed direct to J.C. dodging weather most of the way and making it to JC just in time to be socked in for 3 days. No flying for the first two days, and god forbid no heated shower building (!), but we survived on thousands of dollars of REI equipment and a couple of trips to yellow pine. On Friday we finally got some good weather and headed down to Boise to pick up our friend's (very patient) significant other (and key member of the gang) who had been waiting out the weather in a hotel. Good thing she's an airline pilot and has no aversion to hotel life.
After the weather lifted, we spent another few days enjoying the best of Idaho. We hit Indian, Cabin, Thomas and sulfur creek. All the planes did well and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We'll be back.
In the hangar in Houston
All my junk for 10 days. Don't judge. I'm solo with 1500 useful.
Rocks on the way from Afton to J.C.
Weather
2 ship arrived
The line up
Weather finally cleared to Boise
North view out of Big Creek Lodge
Thomas Creek
