A Week in the Idaho Desert

Last week I drove down to southern Idaho to recon water cache locations in the desert and to do some long-range shooting. The trip was planned to last a full week, but was cut short due to...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ever since I first discovered the red dotted line of the Idaho Centennial Trail on the maps in the DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer that I bought on one of our first trips to the state, I have planned to someday hike the trail.  Now, ten years later, I am finally able to backpack again and am in the planning stages for the hike, which I hope to complete before I turn 65 next year.

The trail starts at the Nevada border, leads through some of the wildest and most remote areas of Idaho, and ends at a waterfall just a couple of miles south of the Canadian border, approximately 900 miles to the north. The trail splits into alternate routes in two places, one through wilderness for backpackers, the other skirting the wilderness for mountain bikers and other alternate forms of transportation.  Hence the discrepancy between descriptions of its length; 1300 miles includes all the alternative routes.

Idaho Centennial Trail

The first 120 miles or so are through desert country where water sources are at best very hard to access, and at worst completely non-existent.  All the reliable guidance I've read on the trail indicates that you need to cache water along the way in advance.  Last week I took my first-ever camping trip down to the area in order to gain some familiarity with the terrain and environment, validate some of what I'd read about where water might be available, and to recon potential water cache locations. 

I had never hiked or camped in a desert environment before, but am pretty well-equipped for Jeep camping and had no concerns, other than ensuring that I had enough water and fuel.  Knowing that I would be traveling and camping on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land that would offer wide-open, unrestricted vistas, I also decided to spend a few days somewhere practicing long-distance shooting, something else I have not had very many chances to do in the past.

The trip was mostly a success, and I learned a lot on both subjects. Although I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do, I have a long list of "lessons learned" to help with the next trip to that environment.

I loaded up the Jeep with everything I thought I'd need, and headed out on Sunday morning, 22 May.  My plan was to drive south on US-95 to State Highway 55, take that through McCall and Cascade, then I-84 east to US-20, which would take me east to the southern tip of the Boise National Forest where I planned to spend the first night out someplace.  I picked this as the starting point for my recon south on the ICT because the trail information that I had read so far said that water is generally available once you get north of Highway 20.  South of there is a different story, and that would be the section of trail I'd be exploring starting the second day.

Loaded to the gunwales (or whatever Jeeps have). The invisible base layer in front of all this camping stuff was shooting equipment, including several cans of ammunition that I secured with cargo straps to keep it from crushing me like a bug if I got into a collision on the highway.

I originally got this bumper intending to use it for fuel cans, but for this trip water cans seemed more important.  When I got home, I ordered a couple of additional racks for the Jeep to hold two more cans, so I can  take both extra fuel and water without using up my limited inside cargo space.

The first day's drive was beautiful and relaxing. I arrived in the area well before dark, drove around for awhile figuring out which dirt roads were which, and catching tantalizing glimpses of the Sawtooth Mountains off to the north. I ended up camping for the night in a pretty cool area called "Castle Rocks". This was a landmark along the Oregon Trail, and there were some historical markers explaining their significance.  

It was a beautiful clear night, so I didn't bother to set up the Slumberjack "Roadhouse" tarp that I bought recently for this type of camping.  I've used it a couple of times already and like it a lot, and it would get quite a workout later in the week.  Even when I do set it up, I sleep outside under the stars whenever possible.

My campsite at dusk, with my cot set up under the open sky.

The view to my west at sunset.  Plenty of water on this section of trail.

The sun came up right between two standing rocks. It felt like the scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", lol!

Monday, 23 May

The next day after making breakfast and packing up, I set off southwards along the route of the trail.  It follows dirt roads and Jeep trails for much of this southern portion, with a few sections through town or along paved roads.  For guidance, I had my Garmin GPS with the gpx file of the trail, and the Idaho Atlas and Gazetteer.  This has fairly detailed topographic maps of the state at a 1:210,000 scale, which is less detail than I prefer for hiking, but very good for the type of travel I was doing.

I was pleased to see that there was plenty of water around the Castle Rocks area, mostly in pools easily reachable from the trail. There was even a spot where the beavers had made a dam right by the trail. This comports with the IDFG ICT website information that water is generally available north of Highway 20. As I drove from there south along the trail, I continued making observations and generally getting a feel for where I’m likely to need to cache water next year.

On the map, the town of Hammett looks like many other small towns in Idaho. I had planned to get gas there before entering the long stretch of remote desert area where I knew there were no towns, services, or even very many remote ranches. I didn't see a gas station anywhere in town, though, so I stopped to ask someone where I could get gas. The first couple of people I met gave me blank looks, and one of them said "No habla". And that turned out to be the story with everyone I met in that town - nobody spoke English (or would admit it to a gringo). Finally a guy coming out of a little cantina/grocery store spoke English. He stuck his head back inside, babbled for a moment in Spanish, and then told me to head east to Glenn's Ferry where there was a gas station. Later, I also found one in Bruneau, where the people I met were Americans and spoke English. As much as I hate the idea that these people come to our country and don't even bother to learn the language, I suppose I'll need to put a Spanish phrasebook app on my phone, just in case I need something in that area.

The last really good water source I saw was the Snake River, which the trail crosses west of Hammett. Beyond there, everything was as dry as a bone (although there was green grass and wildflowers, I saw no water anywhere).

The very first ICT marker I had ever seen.  I hope to see many more!

I followed the actual trail as far as the intersection with Clover Three Creek Road. From there, I stopped following the exact route and just drove south on that road all the way to Three Creek Road, and from there to the trailhead on the Nevada border (about 70 miles or so). When I go out to actually cache my water, I will follow the actual route as closely as possible, but I learned enough about the area to know what I’m in for, and didn’t feel the need to go the whole route this time.

I was quite surprised at the nature of this cache that I saw along the way.

 

My plan is to go some distance off the trail, drop a GPS pin and place some sort of marker that I would recognize, and then bury and camouflage the cache. In The Complete Walker, Colin Fletcher discussed using glass bottles, metal cans, or otherwise protecting the water from rodents or other denizens of the desert, as well as burying and camouflaging the cache. He was an experienced desert hiker (which I am not), so if he worried about rodents, it makes me wonder as well. Nobody that I have talked to has ever had trouble with rodents here, but I still think I’d prefer my water to be cool rather than boiling in the sun. So mine will be buried, probably in the original plastic jugs from the store.

The ICT trailhead.  The orange post is marked "NV", and the fence is along the Idaho/Nevada border.

Once I got to the beginning point of the ICT on the Idaho/Nevada border, I had accomplished the original purpose of my trip to recon water cache requirements. Now it was time to find a place to go where I could accomplish my second objective, long range shooting. As it turned out, the trailhead was a perfect place for this. It was wide open, deserted for miles in every direction, and offered a mesa about a mile to the north that provided a safe backdrop/impact area. So I set up camp and planned to stay there for the rest of the week.

Tuesday, 24 May

The night was clear and cold, with brilliant stars. I was surprised that the military Modular Sleep System was not warm enough for comfort. I think I am done using that system. From now on I will use my 1970's vintage Eddie Bauer "Kara Koram" down bag combined with the MSS Gore-Tex bivy bag when I Jeep camp, regardless of the season. The MSS synthetic bag (actually 2 bags) is bulky to pack and not very good at keeping out drafts.  The only downside of the older down bag is the shell material (ripstop nylon) which has zero moisture resistance, and the MSS bivy will take care of that.

I've developed a pretty good camp routine for this style of camping. The tailgate shelf that I installed in the Jeep is perfect for my dual-burner Coleman stove. I use a heavy-duty plastic tote as a food box, and bought a new cooler (a Cordova, made in Idaho) which is excellent as a cooler as well as an additional kitchen work surface. Morning coffee is made in an aluminum camp percolator (a very old friend), and breakfast of sausage and eggs is followed by buttered toast with jam on the camp stove toaster (another very old friend). The entire outfit (kitchen, table, chair, and cot) fit underneath the Roadhouse tarp, and I've stayed perfectly dry and comfortable there through all-night rain a couple of times now. But when the weather and space permit, it's nice to be able to move the cot and the chair out from under the tarp, and sit and sleep under the open sky.

My campsite at end of day.

The view south, next morning after breakfast.

I set up my shooting range and firing line after breakfast. I had brought along two target stands, some backers for paper targets, an 8" steel gong and and a 12" x 18" steel silhouette target. My plan was to do a little pistol shooting, but mostly rifle shooting. I wanted to confirm the 200-yard zeros on the two rifles I had brought along, and then move the targets further and further away, establishing the appropriate scope settings and come-ups for the different types of ammunition I'd brought along. These were rifles I hadn't shot for awhile, because I'm so enamored with the M1 Garand and almost always take that one when I go to the range. I thought it was time to give these some exercise, so what I took along on this trip was:

Rifles:

    M1A National Match with Leupold Mark 6 3-18X scope, TMR reticle.

    Ruger SR762 with Leupold Mark 6 1-6X scope, TMR reticle.

Ammunition:

    7.62 NATO M80 Ball (147 gr. FMJ-BT bullet), WRA-63

    PMC Bronze .308/7.62 NATO w/ 147 gr. FMJ-BT (civilian M80 equivalent)

    7.62 NATO M852 Match (Sierra 168 gr. HPBT), LC-91

The firing line, from the east facing west.  My firing line and equipment line are pretty much the same place - a luxury of being alone.

The view downrange, facing north. The mesa in the distance is my impact area.  The binoculars next to the tripod do double duty.  They are my laser rangefinding tool for confirming the distance when I set up the target, and also there so I can scan downrange and make sure it's as empty as it looks.  

All set with my iStrelok ballistic charts and reticle diagrams, my Appleseed DOPE (Data On Personal Equipment) book, and my old standby rifle notebook, volume 2.

iStrelok is a ballistics program (available for several platforms) that helps predict the performance of your rifle/ammunition combination using user inputs.  This is the input page, where you enter the specific information.  You can also select your specific scope reticle from a large library.

The program produces this table which tells you the corrections to use at different distances based on bullet drop due to gravity.  I had my iPad along, but did not try out the windage adjustment capability.  I had already produced these charts in advance, and printed them on card stock for the trip. I ran these again at home for the altitude at the trailhead (6,000 feet) to see how much difference it makes.  At shorter distances, not much, but at longer distances it is more (at 800 yards, the difference was ~0.2 mil, or a 6" difference in point of impact). 

Perhaps the coolest feature of the program.  Given your specific inputs, it will show you the range values for the various stadia lines.  For example:  Here, with a 200 yard zero, the crosshairs are at 200 yards.  The first stadia line would be the holdover for 273 yards, the second for 332 yards, etc.  Once you determine the range to the target, you can extrapolate between these known values to correct for bullet drop.  This allows for rapid target engagement without dialing the elevation correction into the scope.

While preparing for this trip, I decided that in addition to the standard 7.62 NATO M80 ball ammunition (WRA-63) and commercial equivalent (PMC Bronze) that I normally shoot, it was time to break into the case of M852 Match ammunition that my dad and I bought from the CMP back in the early 2000’s. At that time you were allowed to buy one can. Since we went there together and bought them at the same time, they let us buy a full unopened case of two cans. This ammunition has a very good reputation, but is long-gone from the market - you just don't see it anymore.

Opening the case for the first time was interesting. As soon as I broke the seal and peeled back the wire-wrapped wood, I was enveloped with a smell familiar to anyone who grew up hanging out in Army surplus stores. It’s a very distinctive musty odor peculiar to military equipment that’s been in storage. When I cracked open the first can, there was no odor at all inside, which is a good thing as it means the ammo is fine.

This ammunition is loaded with the 168 gr. Sierra MatchKing bullet. Because it is (technically) a hollowpoint, it was initially approved for match use only, but was later approved for combat use by snipers until the advent of the improved M118 LR round with the 175 gr. bullet. The 168’s go subsonic at about 800-1000 yards or so, which was why they switched to 175’s. 168’s were fine for the standard 600 yard matches, but not as reliably accurate for 1,000 yards or more.

Breaking the seal on this case of ammo was a big deal to me.

First time I've seen the boxes.   Match ammunition was specially-produced for enhanced accuracy and precision.  The cases are also desirable for reloading because the primers are not crimped, eliminating a tedious step in case preparation. 

The headstamp "LC-91 Match" means that this is Match-grade ammunition, manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition plant in 1991.  I was lucky to get this when it was still available.

Since this was the first time I would be shooting 7.62mm at anything longer than 400 yards, I was looking forward to comparing the performance of the two types of ammunition.

I started out shooting M80 ball at 200 yards, just to confirm the zero on the rifle. I decided to shoot one rifle at a time, starting with the M1A, rather than switch back and forth. Although I had a laser rangefinder to confirm the exact distances, I had been pleased to discover (confirm!) that my pace count was still accurate: 30 paces per 25 yards, 120 paces per 100 yards, etc. When I had paced off 240 paces and checked with the rangefinder, it said 199 yards. :)

Although I had started with the paper silhouette target, this turned out not to be optimal, for several reasons. First of all, I only had 4 ft. stakes for the cardboard backers, which meant that the very top of the target was at most 4 ft. off the ground. Between undulations in the terrain and the sagebrush, I could not see the target at the 200 yard distance until I had spent a significant amount of time clearing a firing lane, walking downrange and clearing sagebrush, checking the target view, walking down again to clear some more, etc. (Imagine a bazillion sagebrush plants as far as the eye can see, and I'm trying to remember "that one, with the three branches and the little sprig off to the left..."), which looked different through the scope due to foreshortening, as well as different as I walked downrange. But I got it done.  

A second reason was that I did not bring a specialized shooting table, but was using my camp table for double duty as a shooting bench. It had seemed fine at home, but in reality it turned out to be too low for comfortable extended shooting sessions, and not really strong enough to lean on for stability. And because it was so low, it also made it harder to clear a firing lane. I never did get a firing lane that I could use from the mat at 200 yards - that was just a bridge too far. But I could see that the farther out I got, the more the land sloped up and away toward the mesa in the distance, and I was confident that as I got further out I'd be able to shoot from the mat as well as the table.  

Another factor was that I had just changed the stock on the M1A back to the factory glass-bedded stock from an Archangel polymer stock, and had been told that it would take up to about 80 rounds for the rifle to "settle in". So I had expected to shoot for awhile before my groups began to tighten up, even under perfect conditions.

But by far the most significant factor was the wind. It was very windy, blowing steadily for long periods, then gusting significantly for awhile, going calm for awhile, and then starting over. I had expected wind, but not this extreme. Because I knew I'd be dealing with wind, I had brought along my copy of MSG Jim Owens' booklet "Reading the Wind and Coaching Techniques". I had read it a few years ago (and even had a chance to spend a couple hours chatting with MSG Owens on the equipment line at Camp Perry one year), but had never had much opportunity to really work on my skills estimating the wind and adjusting for windage. This would be my chance.

Reading the Wind and Coaching Techniques

(Aside: the book shown and described in this link has been significantly enhanced from the spiral-bound 1996-edition booklet I bought at Camp Perry many years ago, particularly the wind charts included with it. I just ordered the revised edition.)

I had brought along both paper silhouette targets and the steel targets. I shot the paper target at 200 yards, but found that it was so windy, I could not develop any kind of decent group. I had assembled and read my references, and spent most of the day watching my little wind indicators (bandolier straps fastened to my target and my scope stand, the dust and grass blowing, and clumps of grass that I picked up and dropped), practicing estimating the wind speed and value, and then converting between minutes of angle and mils, since my scope reticle is in mils. Lots of math and scribbling in my notebook to come up with a windage adjustment to take a shot. And of course the wind changes, lol! I did this for quite awhile, walking downrange to check results and paste up my target. Finally I felt like I had done a pretty good job figuring it out, as my last score was respectable (49/50 on the Appleseed KD silhouette), even though it wasn't any kind of a group.  

This was the last time I shot a paper target out there, so it came home with the last string still unpasted.

Because I could not see the hits at all through my scope, I decided that as I moved the target downrange, I was going to switch to the steel silhouette. That way I could get feedback on every shot (both visually as well as audibly via the satisfying "thunk"), and my trips downrange would just be to repaint the target periodically or to move it further downrange. I loaded up the steel silhouette in my backpack, hiked downrange to the target, set it up, and returned to the firing line. By this time it was almost too late to shoot anymore, but I went ahead and tried it with ten shots from the bench anyway. My first two shots were on the left edge of the steel. I adjusted windage, and hit dead center three times. I also hit four out of the next five, so I felt like I was getting the hang of it. I decided to try ten shots from the sitting position on the mat. I did my best, but just could not get into a stable position from which I could see the target. I hit the steel a few times, but bad enough that I didn't even record it in my notebook, lol. By then I was just tired and it was time for dinner.

I had brought a long an inexpensive table-top charcoal grill and my dutch oven, and decided this would be the night to use them. The menu was New York Strip, Idaho potatoes, and a peach dump cake.

Preparing the charcoal.  It was so windy that I had to set the grill up "inside" to shield it.

The ingredients before....

And after.   It tasted as good as it looked.

The ingredients for peach dump cake.  The can of Sprite was a first-time addition (from a recipe I read online) to my tried-and-true recipe of one box of yellow cake mix, 2 cans of peaches, a little cinnamon, and several pads of butter (missing from the photo).  Spoiler alert:  *don't* put in the soda.

Dump cake is just what it sounds like - you dump in the cake mix, then the two cans of peaches, and top it with butter and a little cinnamon.  I use disposable aluminum pie tins to help minimize cleanup of the dutch oven.

You can place a dutch oven directly into the embers of a fire, but of course there was no wood anywhere in sight out here.  The pioneers collected dried buffalo chips for fuel as they walked along beside their wagons. My campsite had plenty of cow chips that I could have used for fuel, but a charcoal grill is much easier and more controllable.  

The meal was a fine ending to a fine day, even though the dump cake did not turn out (notice there is no "after" photo). The traditional recipe (minus soda) bakes perfectly in 45 minutes.  The soda added too much moisture, and even twice the baking time still left it a soggy mess.  It was a deliciously sweet soggy mess, but I'll stick to the tried-and-true recipe from now on!  A cast-iron dutch oven is a great addition to a camping kitchen.  There are many books of recipes (and of course also online, caveat emptor.).  I can't imagine a vehicle-based camping trip without at least one dump cake, batch of drop biscuits, or some other traditional dutch oven camp recipe.  Try it!

Wednesday 25 May

It had been another beautiful clear night. I slept in my down vest, which was comfortable at first, then became too warm towards morning. I experienced an interesting disorientation when I awoke on my cot in the early-morning light. Because the horizon was pretty flat all around with no trees or anything, I had the illusion that the horizon was a low ceiling, and I actually ducked as I started to sit up on my cot half asleep.

Having been camped out since Sunday with a fair amount of blowing dust, I decided this would be a bath day. After breakfast I heated water and had a thoroughly enjoyable wash, drying off my birthday suit in the late-morning sunshine. My only companions were occasional curious pronghorns and a herd of horses off in the distance who never came closer to me than half a mile or so. It's a curiously liberating feeling to be au naturel in such a wide-open setting, accentuating the sense of being a part of the natural world.

Although the wind had died down around 1100, it came back with a vengeance around 1400, just as I was getting ready to shoot after lunch. I had moved the steel silhouette to 300 yards, and decided it would be an afternoon of reading the wind and ringing steel. 

My target line at 300 yards. Since I was camping in a stationary location, I had decided my exercise would be the hikes back and forth to the target.  I carried the steel silhouette and portable stand in the backpack, along with a few other things (e.g. Camelbak, snakebite kit, spray paint, and notebooks). 

The view back south toward my firing line and campsite.  It was funny how 300 yards seemed so much farther out here in the open than it does in the narrow valley of our rifle range in Coeur d'Alene.

I adjusted my elevation and windage and scored a first-round hit, which was very satisfying. I fired one shot at a time, recording the wind (my estimate of it), my adjustments, and the results. Although I hit 9/10 shots, they were all over the target. I alternated between making actual windage adjustments on my scope, and just holding off into the wind using the stadia lines for guidance.  

300 yards doesn't seem like much on a controlled, sheltered rifle range, but the wind adds an interesting challenge.  This is a so-called "hostage target" used to practice hitting the bad guy (red circle) without hitting the hostage (large silhouette).  I don't use it this way at longer ranges - I am happy to be able to hit the target at all, lol.

All of this took a lot of time, although I was becoming more adept at converting to mils. My mind is just not calibrated to the metric system, so mentally I am still using "inches-minutes-clicks", with the added step of converting minutes to mils before I count the clicks. This is not really the best way to do it, but I'm just not that used to thinking in mils yet. When I got home I read up on it in more detail, and will try to use IMC as "inches-mils-clicks" without the intervening step of MOA. Knowing that 1 mil = 3.6 inches per 100 yards should help a great deal. That fact was not yet burned into my brain, so I did a lot of unnecessary math.

Wiki Article on mils

Leupold TMR Manual

As an aside, the Appleseed standard is a 4 MOA target at whatever distance. Because the silhouette is 12" wide and 18" tall, at 300 yards it was 4 MOA wide and 6 MOA high. I continued to play around at 300 yards with the M1A and M80 ball, trying out different scope magnifications to see what felt best. The last thing I did before calling it a day (for shooting) was to fire ten shots from the mat in a sitting position (still uncomfortable, but at least I could see the target). I got 5/10 hits on steel just holding into the wind, which I felt pretty good about. It gives new meaning to the term "finger in the wind estimate", lol.

Thursday 26 May

Another beautiful clear night and spectacular sunrise promised a good day ahead.  I watched from my sleeping bag taking photos as the day slowly dawned, trying to guess the exact spot and then the exact moment when the sun would finally peek over the horizon. It was very peaceful.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the pre-dawn light evoked memories of early mornings at Camp Perry, walking out to Viale Range in the dark to set up for the day's match.

It's a bit chilly, with a light breeze and birds singing.

Hard to tell just exactly where the sun will be.

Very warm and comfortable inside my sleeping bag. I could just stay here awhile longer...

Savor every moment.

The sun has cleared the horizon.  Time to get up and  put on the coffee.

After breakfast, I hiked downrange to repaint the target and move it to 400 yards. This would present a 3 MOA wide by 4.5 MOA high target. Once I got back to the firing line, I determined that I could finally see the target from both the table and the mat, so from this distance out to as much farther as I could get, I'd be able to shoot from the mat with the sling, which is what I really wanted to practice.

The wind really picked up, but I took my time at the bench, confirming my come-up for the range and then practicing holding off for the wind. As an individual shooter, without a spotter/coach to watch the wind and call out adjustments, I think that dialing in windage corrections is just too time-consuming and cumbersome. I think that in conditions like this where the wind is changing constantly, it makes much more sense to just determine the correction and then hold off into the wind. With this reticle, that is very easy (assuming that you've dialed in the correct elevation adjustment). It would be more challenging to try to both hold over for range and hold off for wind. There are other specialized reticles that enable this, but not this one.

I took one shot at a time from the bench, carefully estimating the wind, taking the shot, and recording the results. I was also practicing one of the techniques in MSG Owens book, trying to understand the pattern of the wind over time, waiting for times when it would either die down or at least settle down into a steady direction and velocity instead of gusting.

This became increasingly challenging, as the wind was very extreme. I had to run off after my sleeping bag, sleeping pads, and chair several times when the wind sent them flying off over the desert. The tarp over the Jeep was flapping so severely that I thought it was going to tear itself apart at any minute. Things got worse as the day went on. I saw areas of rain showers off in the distance to the east and the south, and could tell that new weather was blowing in.

Finally, by about 1700, I could see ominous thunderheads over the mountains to the south, from which direction the wind was now blowing. I decided that it was probably not wise to stay out there so exposed, particularly with only the tarp for shelter. I was impressed with how strong the tarp was, but even if it was able to withstand the wind, it would not be adequate shelter in a raging storm. I had been planning to stay and shoot for two more days, driving home on Sunday, but this was too extreme. So I made the reluctant decision to pack up and leave.

I pulled away about 1830 or so, driving the two miles to the paved road leading east to U.S. Highway 93. I took a couple photos on the way out, showing the storm rapidly coming up behind me from the south. It reminded me of the final scene in "The Terminator" when Sarah Connor was driving her Jeep into the mountains with a storm coming.

There's a storm coming...

Within about a half hour, while I was driving east towards US 93, the storm came upon me full force, with the rain being driven sideways and the gusts of wind rocking the Jeep to the point where I wondered if I'd get blown off the road. The areas I passed through looked very interesting, but sightseeing would have to wait for another time. I needed to find someplace to spend the night, as it was impractical and probably unsafe for me to try to drive all the way back to Coeur d'Alene in one leg (my ETA would be 0430, according to my GPS).

I stopped for gas and consulted the maps, looking for the closest place where I could be pretty confident of finding a place to drive into a National Forest and camp. I needed to get up north of Boise for that, so I took US-93 to I-84, I-84 to Idaho 55, and 55 north towards McCall, the same way I'd come down. The first road I had selected off the map turned out to be closed. The second one I chose, further north near a place called "Smith's Ferry" turned out to be a good choice. The spot I had picked off the map was already occupied by several vehicles and a couple of families who were just setting up camp (It's after midnight! Who does that? ;) )

I turned around and went down a little side-track I had seen on the way in, and it turned out to be a perfect campsite for me. It was a dead-end spur, around a corner and out of site. I backed the Jeep in, set up camp, and sat down with a drink to relax a bit. I finally got to sleep about 0330 or so.

Friday 27 May

There was a light rain most of the night but nothing at all like the storm that had followed me most of the way on my drive the night before. It was a beautiful sunny morning, though, and I took my time getting up and getting breakfast. But once I'd eaten, I packed up to drive the rest of the way home without much delay. The spot turned out to have a peek-a-boo view of some mountains, and the steady roar of a mountain stream was audible from just below me, down a very steep, wooded slope.

Not bad for choosing the spot from a map and driving there in the dark. 

Driving out of the forest, I was treated to a brief glimpse of a mountain lion darting across an open area. I'd never seen one in the flesh before, and was impressed with how quickly it moved. I had to laugh as I got down to the bottom and pulled out onto the highway. Turns out I had been camped by "Cougar Mountain", and passed "Cougar Mountain Lodge" as I turned back onto the highway.

It was a beautiful drive home, although once again bad weather seemed to be chasing me. A lot of people were already traveling for Memorial Day, but it wasn't too congested yet. The two-lane highways through the mountains can take forever to get through when they are full of people towing campers and boats.  But I made it home without incident and in plenty of time for a relaxing evening and some unanticipated time at home.

So the trip was a partial success. I absolutely accomplished my primary mission of reconning water conditions and potential cache locations. My plan for hiking seems less ambitious than many other people seem to do. Ten miles a day is enough for me, so I will be putting out more water caches than people who are walking 15-20(+) miles per day.  

My secondary mission to get in some long-range shooting was only partially successful. I certainly got in some good shooting practice, but it was all at 400 yards or less, which I can do here at home. The big difference was the wind. My local range (and most ranges I have ever been on) is largely sheltered from the effects of wind. So in the spirit of making lemons from lemonade, I turned it into an exercise in reading the wind. I felt very good about this, but wished I could have stayed the extra two days to get out to 600 or 800 yards, and actually use the M852 Match ammunition an well as shoot the Ruger. Next time!

As usual, I had a long list of "lessons learned" from this trip, which I sorted into the categories of "camping" and "shooting". There were a lot of little detail items, but the bigger ones were:

Camping:

1) It was so dry that I used a lot more water than I thought I would, and I wasn't even backpacking. I will probably cache more water than I actually need, but better safe than sorry. I also plan to take along saline nasal spray (Ayr) and some single-use vials of eyedrops ("Refresh"), items that I carried in my shirt pocket all the time when I was deployed in Kuwait and Qatar.

2) The Slumberjack Roadhouse Tarp is stronger than I gave it credit for, and held up well. But it would not provide adequate shelter set up the way it comes configured. I believe it would have been able to hold up to a storm if the pole was shorter and it was set up to come closer to the ground on the sides. I used to do this with my tarp when backpacking - high and airy when the weather is nicer, low and snug when it's not. The poles it comes with are shock-corded together, but if I cut that cord then I could use fewer sections and set up the tarp lower to the ground where it might shed the wind better.

3) Take extra fuel as well as extra water. I have already ordered additional racks to carry two more cans. My next trip will probably be with two fuel cans and two water cans. I wasn't in danger of running out on this trip, but when driving around caching water I will use more fuel, and there's no reason to have to drive miles out of the way to fill up.

4) The half-brim Tilley Airflow hat that I bought for backpacking doesn't really provide adequate shade for the sides of my face. I may have to wear the full-brim Tilley, and just put up with the back of the brim bumping into my backpack from time to time.

5) Everything takes longer than you think it will.

Shooting:

1) Bring a dedicated shooting table for this kind of outing. Switching back and forth takes too much time and the camp table is inadequate anyway.

2) Be prepared to deal with wind. An effective wind flag downrange by the target would have been helpful.

3) I need much more practice using the mil scale in my TMR reticle for estimating range, elevation holdover, and windage adjustments. 

4) Take longer/higher target backer supports to ensure the targets are visible over the sagebrush.

5) Everything takes longer than you think it will.

Mood: Happy

Music: Silence