Silver City, ID

Summer 2006

The trip went really well. Alan was the first to arrive at the meeting point. There is a "new" , to me, gas station built at the intersection now.

We arrived next and Ross from Payette joined us shortly thereafter. We studied some maps and waited until about 8:10 before setting off, just in case there would be any others show up. We decided to try the old highway. It was a nice drive. My wife saw some antelope. The rest of us missed them.

The little 4wd trail that I found on the map was not an option as it was posted, so we continued down the Cow Creek Rd.

We made a little run up a road north of the new Delmar mine to check some possible camping spots. I recognized the road, since it has this little cave along side the road.

The Mormon Crickets were in pretty significant numbers along this stretch.

That road ended with posted private property, so we headed toward Silver City. It was decided to head up to the top near the antennas on War Eagle Rd. We arrived on top and due to an approaching thunderstorm decided it would be better to camp at a slightly lower site.

Alan's Ozi showed a trail that made a loop around, so he took the lead for this trail.

It went past a covered mine shaft that was very deep. A rock was tossed and took probably more than 10 seconds to hit bottom. We continued on and did loop around to the main road. From here we split up to find a nice place to camp. I got lucky and found a pretty good place.

We really timed things about right. The camp fire coals were ready for cooking dinner. Dinner finished , we sipped hot cider and then mother nature gave us a light show. Wonderful lightning all around. There was an intermission while we waited out the pea sized hail storm, followed by a bit of rain. The kids and mom watched a dvd movie. Ross took photos of the lightning from his Range Rover. Alan and I stood in the rain and visited while we watched the lightning show. Everything settled down and dried out before bed time.

The evening was comfortable. Not too cool, not too warm. Pretty much T-shirt and shorts weather the whole time.

Morning arrived to light some wonderful views.

We cooked our brown bag breakfast. I only burned one bag , and it still turned out great.

From here we ventured down and in the direction of home. The road out yielded several opportunities for Geocaching. The day before we attempted one long lost cache and were unable to find it. Today we were successful in all attempts. The first was found by Laurie, Alan made a good find on the second, Ross' son Mathew scored the third, and I recovered the last for the day.

On the way to the New York Skyline cache, I saw the form of King Kong sitting there. Facing right, his right arm to his head and left leg crossed in front.

After finding that cache we gathered for a group shot.

The road out was worse than our choice of roads in.

You could definitely see that this years runoff had done a number on the road. minor repairs had been made, in order for it to be passable.

We ended our trip at a gas station south of Nampa. Wished all safe travels and thanks for the adventure.

Our family really enjoyed the trip. It was short , but of the highest quality. Thank you all for the recharge

EDIT: I nearly forgot. We gathered a garbage bag of trash left by others. Each place we visited, we gathered any trash we found in our travels. This is not unusual. However our last find was a little more than the "usual" junk. An engine discarded. Beside the road on the way out. I did not have room for it and neither did Alan, but Ross stepped up and offered to make space in his truck. The three of us lifted it into the back of the Range Rover and Ross will deliver it to a salvage yard for proper disposal. Thank You!