Chief Joseph Days. Bro Country Music.

Northwest Return Travelog #12
Joseph, OR - Sat, 31 Jul 2021. 3:30pm.

On our way back to our hotel in Clarkston we stopped in Joseph, Oregon to see Chief Joseph Days... or at least what's left of it. "Chief Joseph Days" is a week long western fair "Always the last week of July" as signs in Joseph proclaim. Well, today's the last day of July, so yeah... we're seeing the tail end of it.

There was more going on this morning when we passed through town on our way to the Wallowa Lake Tram. Streets were blocked off, and people were assembling for a show. There had been a big parade earlier in the day or earlier in the week. That we could tell because... well, literally because of the sheer amount of horse shit on the main road. By this afternoon at least that mess had been cleaned up.

We chose not to stop for the fair this morning as we wanted to make sure we'd have enough time for our hike. We didn't want to be on the mountain past 2pm as the weather forecast warned of afternoon thunderstorms. Already thunderstorms are looking likely, so that was a good call. Though at 2:30 when we got back to town the show was already winding down. It looks like there had been a big street fair with lots of vendors. Now only a dozen or 15 are still here, and the proprietors look wrecked. We parked to tour what's left of the show for a while.

Chief Joseph

Chief Joseph was a leader of the Nez Perce people who once made this area, around Wallowa Lake, their home. He was the tribe's chief when it came into conflict with white settlers in the 1870s. Joseph negotiated a treaty with the US government for his people to remain on their land, but in 1877 the US reneged. The military came to escort them off, and war was declared.

The Nez Perce fought a war that became one for military history books. Though the band numbered fewer than 800 they waged a fighting retreat of over 1,000 miles as they sought refuge first in Montana and then in Canada. The US Army stopped them short of Canada. Joseph surrendered, negotiating terms for his people to move to a reservation in Idaho. The US government promptly reneged on that, too, and sent them to a military prison in Oklahoma where most died from disease.

Joseph survived and became a statesman, advocating for native peoples to Congress in Washington, DC. Military leaders respected him for his military prowess. Civilian leaders respected him for his intelligent philosophy. But they all continued making promises and then breaking them. Not the most shining chapter in US history.

Here in the town named for Chief Joseph there's not a heck of a lot about him. The statue in the picture has a few quotes from him on plaques at its base. Most of what I've written here is my distant knowledge from US history classes years ago bolstered by a quick visit to Wikipedia. The week long fair bears his name but aside from that seems to be an ordinary county fair, western US style. Little we saw at the fair was related to the Nez Perce or Chief Joseph except in name.

"Bro Country" Music

As for the street fair.... I think I was most impressed by the country-western singer working hard all afternoon in a long-sleeve shirt and denim jeans. It was hot! And at least while we were there he had pretty much zero audience. I didn't particularly like his songs— they were "bro country", like a song about all the ways a dog is better than a woman— though I admire his vocal talent. And his hard work in the summer heat.

I walked up to thank the musician as he and his crew were shutting down for the day. I know entertainers live for the audience; that's why I wanted to show my appreciation. He was grateful. He shook my hand enthusiastically as his manager came over and insisted I take a card.

I carefully didn't say that I liked his songs. I complimented him on his voice, his playing, and him busting his butt in the heat. He was playing for 2 or 3 semi-interested people at a time. I've seen less talented musicians perform for crowds of 22,000. But I'm not going to buy an album of songs about how a dog is better than a woman because it doesn't fuss if you put your boots on the table.

Another Night, Another Morning in the Heat, Smoke, and Gloom

Northwest Return Travelog #13
Clarkston, WA - Sun, 1 Aug 2021. 9am.

We got back to Clarkston after 5 yesterday afternoon. It turns out we left Chief Joseph Days in Joseph, OR just in time. We felt a few sprinkles of rain as we walked backed to our car. Before we were 5 miles away it started raining harder. I'm glad we decided to come back here for dinner rather than eat on an outdoors patio there.

Look Ma, No Mask!

Speaking of "here" for dinner, restaurants in this area are becoming an increasingly dicey proposition. Nobody cares about masks. We haven't seen a single other person in this city wear a mask in public. That includes people working in businesses with big signs in the window that all staff wear masks for the health and safety of the public. And this isn't even a low-risk area. In fact, it's one of (many) highest risk hot spots per CDC a last week. Well, it's easy to see why with the foolishness of the population.

It reminds me of a meme I saw online a few days ago. "You can't fix stupid" says the caption at the top. Beneath that is a Coronavirus virion saying, "I can."

We tried finding a restaurant in Clarkston or Lewiston that offers outdoors dining. There weren't any. Why should they? Everyone knows the pandemic is over. 🙄

The Great Awful Outdoors

Even if outdoors dining were available it would be hard to use right now. The temps when we were hiking atop Mt. Howard today were only in the low 80s. Down the mountain in Joseph they were mid-90s. Here in Clarkston, where the elevation is only about 720' above sea level, it hit a high of 110 F (43.3° C) this afternoon. That's not to say we wouldn't eat outside, though. We ate dinner outdoors in Moscow yesterday. We asked the waitress to bring us water and leave the pitcher.

In addition to the brutally hot temperatures there's also terrible air quality here. Smoke from wildfires blankets the region. We skipped going out to the pool last night because we felt like gagging every time we went outdoors. Instead we stayed holed up in our room with the AC running. It does a great job of filtering the crud out of the air as well as cooling it. Every time we go back outdoors and inhale some of that "fresh" air I feel vaguely like I might puke.

Well, we're just about ready to head out for today's adventure. The temps are a little cooler; only about 100 as the forecast high! The air is still gross, though, and in addition to the smoke there are also normal clouds. It's hard to tell which is which. There are chances of rain in the forecast, too. I regret not coming out here four weeks ago when it was "only" record heat we'd have had to deal with!

Palouse Falls. Anchor Activities.

Northwest Return Travelog #14
Palouse Falls State Park, WA - Sun, 1 Aug 2021. 1pm.

I generally plan trips around "anchor" activities. I find one or two things I really want to do. They form the basis of the trip; they anchor it place. Then I plan other activities around them. Sometimes I trust that I'll find other activities once I get there. For example, we've enjoyed hking Bassi Falls in California several times. It's not a full day activity, though, so each time we go we combine it with other activities in the area. The first time we went we weren't even sure what was in the area; we merely trusted that there'd be other fun things to do there. (There were.)

For this trip Palouse Falls in remote western Washington was our first anchor. "What's it near?" we asked, looking to combine it with at least one anchor to make the long trip worthwhile. Nothing, it turns out. Then I spotted an awesome loop hike of waterfalls in Idaho— Elk Creek Falls— and figured out we could stay in Lewiston/Clarkston halfway between them. Together those anchored the trip. With a location locked in I searched for other activities nearby and quickly found the Wallowa Lake Tramway to the top of Mt. Howard as another awesome activity. Then I found an awesome (if misnamed) hike called Oregon Butte in Washington. Four awesome activities in 4 days = awesome trip.

So, what's so awesome about Palouse Falls? Let me start with 1,000 words worth in the form of a picture:



Palouse Falls drops 200 feet over a cliff into a deep canyon. It has been designated the Official State Waterfall of Washington. That's quite something considering the many amazing falls on the western side of the Cascade Mountains.

The geology of this area is interesting. Signs near the main lookout points (atop the plateau in the upper right of the picture above) explain it. First, layers of basalt rock up to thousands of feet thick were created by volcanic action. Plate tectonics pushed these layers of rock upward. During the Ice Age large glaciers formed atop these rocks. When glaciers melted or moved they unleashed massive floods. Rivers sometimes multiple miles wide carved channels across the rock. That's how the huge canyons of the Snake River, the Columbia Gorge, and others were created. That's how these relatively calm rivers flow at the bottom of absolutely massive gorges.



Palouse River isn't even that big of a river, BTW. It's no Snake River and certainly no Columbia River. In fact this gorge is a natural accident. The Palouse River used to flow to the west of here. During one of those Ice Age floods it overflowed its course and carved a new route through a fissure in the basalt. The flood carved the fissure fast enough that it became the new route. That fissure is now this canyon.

Coming back around to the topic of anchor activities... I mentioned it here not only to explain my general approach to trip planning and how I conceived this particular trip but also to set up two additional points. One point is that sometimes an activity, even an anchor activity, fizzles. Palouse Falls is kind of a fizzle today because of the combination of weather (it's cloudy all day and starting to rain now) plus heavy smoke in the air. I had hoped to get amazing pictures of the falls and maybe even hike/scramble all the way down to the bottom of the gorge. Neither are in the cards today.

The second point is that sometimes a planned activity is a total loss. Our plans to hike Oregon Butte this weekend went up in smoke. Literally. As in, there's a fire burning there right now. 😳 Because things like that happen— not just massive wildfires but even simpler things like seasonal closures, construction (which thwarted our honeymoon trip years ago!), or protected species of birds nesting (which closed off one of our anchor activities at Acadia National Park two months ago)— it's critical to be flexible with alternatives. For that it helps to have a list of runners-up. We had planned to spend today at Oregon Butte. With it being a no-go we moved up our visit to Palouse Falls to today instead of tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll visit a flower garden in Spokane before we fly home. That's one of our "runner up" activity ideas. Now it's been promoted.