Dave rides his bike to school

Above: The Clearwater River.

 

 Above: This is where the Lochsa and Selway Rivers combine into the Clearwater River.

Tuesday, 6/20 9pm
Location: Lowell, ID

Coordinates:
46.1438 N
115.5961 W

Today’s mileage: about 65 
Tomorrow’s destination: Powell Junction Ranger Station

The scenery today was incredible.  I spent most of the day riding through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.  As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much of a difference between being in the reservation and not being in the reservation.  Indian reservations are independent nations, with their own laws, aren’t they?  I assumed that traveling through a reservation would feel like traveling through another country, but pretty much it just feels like traveling through a different county.  There are signs when you enter and exit.  Besides that, the road is the same.

I stopped in Lowell, Idaho.  I’m not sure if Lowell is technically a town or not.  According to the welcoming sign, 23 people live there now (the 24 is scratched out).  There is a gas station, a café/motel, and an RV park.  However, the memorable feature of Lowell doesn’t involve the buildings or people.  Instead, what’s cool about Lowell is that Lowell sits on the side of the river where the Lochsa and Selway rivers conjoin to create the Clearwater river.  All three river as really beautiful, and it’s really neat to see the two river coming together into one larger river. 

Plus, Lowell is on the edge of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, which is the largest wilderness area in the continental U.S.  It’s bigger than Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc.  I don’t remember how many acres comprise the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, but it’s enormous.  The best part is, vehicles are prohibited.  You can’t even ride a bicycle into Selway-Bitterroot.   As a result, it’s almost untouched, unlike the National Parks.  Aside from a very brave hikers, very few people ever enter Selway-Bitterroot.  I’d love to come back here someday and hike around for a few days in there.  That’d be an incredible experience.

 

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.