Day #6: Salmon Idaho to Vernal Utah
I was the first motorcyclist to leave the next morning from an overly full parking lot. It was 6:45 a.m., and you couldn’t fit even one more bike anywhere on the normally empty lot. Some late arrivals were now parked on the apron just across the road.
After two cups of coffee and a biscuit in the hotel’s complimentary breakfast area, I said goodbye to Gene at the front desk and was on my way. I had plenty of gas to make Mud Lake and decided I would stop at the ranger station there and see if Marie was still working the desk. Marie had been a wealth of information over the last twenty years and had saved me countless hours of waiting in road construction delays by suggesting alternative routes.
The ride on Rt#28 along the Western edge of the Beaverhead Mountains was both beautiful and isolated, and I had been riding it alone. I counted only five cars during the entire length of its 121 miles. I was once again amazed at what life had granted me to see, as I looked out toward Scott Peak (11,393 ft.) far off to the East.
I was not quite running on fumes but in need of gas as I pulled into Mud Lake. I had my second mid-morning breakfast, an egg-salad sandwich and coffee, as I filled the bikes tank. Another meal that I pulled straight out of the cold chest at the gas station before turning left on highway Rt.#33 toward Rexburg and Driggs. If I had to, I knew I could live forever on what these cold chests had inside. Some of my fondest memories had been while sharing a sandwich and a story with a fellow traveler who was also stopped for gas and some food. Those accidental meetings were no accident and when the wind was at your back and your heart was open, your spirit could refill with all that was new.
After going through the beautiful Swan Valley and over Teton Pass to Jackson, I parked the bike and stopped for a real lunch. The Eastern side of the Tetons has always been their most beautiful profile to me, and today did nothing to change that perception. The view of Grand Teton as I passed through Victor and Driggs was as majestic as any time in my memory. The Swan Valley held proudly, in its rolling hills and Eastern perspective, what in many ways Jackson, because of overdevelopment, had lost looking West.
The ride over Teton Pass was more crowded than I expected. At almost 8500 feet, it was deceptive in the impression it gave as you climbed to the top. Although not high by Rocky Mountain standards, the view from its summit rivaled all but the mighty Glacier and Galena for majesty of landscape. It was late on a Monday morning, and there was a constant stream of cars and trucks headed both East and West. It was another reminder of why I often bypassed Jackson even with its immense beauty. It had become yet another example of what money tried to buy, and then control, when it reached beyond its borders. After another stop for gas, and a quick lunch at the Pearl Street Deli, I planned to be on my way.
Town was crowded as always with another day’s allotment of the two million people who would enter Yellowstone through the South entrance this year. The boardwalk surrounding the square in the center of town was full, as the patrons pushed and shoved to get their mountain souvenirs. They searched in desperation for something that they could take home, while at the same time leaving nothing of themselves behind. So much of store-bought travel was like that with only the stain of trespassing footsteps to mark the places where they thought they had been.
A Pity, Really
The tuna at The Pearl Street Deli was as good as I had remembered, and it was not quite 3:00 pm when I remounted the bike and headed south on Rt. #89 toward Hoback Junction. Thank God my travels today would take me East at the split where Rt.#89 went West and Rt.#191 headed to the southeast. There had been road construction all the way from Jackson, and it would continue on Rt.#89 for at least another twenty miles. I enthusiastically headed the other way on Rt.#191.
Once I veered left on Rt. #191, the road opened up, and I was again traveling alone. My thoughts reached out to the Flaming Gorge basin and the road along its Western edge. This was a new road for me, as before I had always stayed on Rt.#191 along its Eastern shore. Today, I took a short ride West on interstate #80 before getting on Rt.#530, which connected Green River with Manila. Many times, I had heard of the beauty of this road, but once there, nothing could have prepared me for the things that I saw.
Where the eastern route was straight, and cut right through the canyon, the western side was a continuous series of turns dropping over two thousand feet, as it wound through one of the most beautiful gorges I had ever seen. If you can only do it once, take the western route. Just say a quick prayer of thanks for safe travel as you look across its depths. It will remain in the memory of that day and what in your mind it will always be.
Where two state routes converged, #43 & #44, Manila was the seat of Daggett County Utah and the gateway to Kings Peak, the highest mountain in the state at 13,528 ft. As much as people raved and boasted about the canyons further South, I had always believed that northeastern Utah’s canyons were special and unique. The Uinta Mountains never left me unchanged as they disappeared into the Wasatch.
Through their power, my mind and soul came together in the union of all they taught me. For that I have been thankful knowing that these mountains bestowed blessings only when all homage had been paid. I looked to the West, as I reconnected with Rt.#191 and headed toward the old Utah town of Vernal where I would stop for the night.
It was a sportsman’s paradise and one of the only towns of its size in the country without a railroad. Not founded by Mormons, like most of the state, it had regional air service to Denver but not Salt Lake. The implied meaning here was that Salt Lake was not the center of the universe, and intention would always trump direction and bend it to its will. The Mormons were not going to control this remote Utah town, as it looked toward Denver and the east for what it could not find looking west.
Vernal was another of those hidden jewels attached to my charm bracelet of the West. It was a place that I could live happily in and would be proud to do so. Maybe in this life —but most probably not. Either way, I had vicariously left big parts of myself there over the years, and it now sheltered and claimed those things as its own.
Vicarious, Being The Lasting Attribute Of All Important Travel
The sun was drifting behind the Ouray Indian Reservation to my West, as I pulled into town for the night. Peaceful and quiet on a Monday evening, Vernal was not in a hurry to do what you expected but brought out more of what was expected in you. The town had within it a great symmetry of purpose and a grace in its quiet undertaking of the things that made life worthwhile — and your place in it secure.
I remembered a friend of mine, Walt Mullen, who told me years ago that he could get lost in the northern hills of Vernal and stay forever. Walt was a bear hunter, but he was just as happy when he had nothing to show after a week in the high-country. He truly understood the magic that existed along these trails and ancient beachheads where the dinosaurs once roamed.
He told me he still felt their presence when he was alone with himself in the mountains while at the same time maintaining his connection to everything else. Inside its landscape, with the power to change all that you were before, thoughts weighed heavier in the Uinta Mountains. With every message you cried out into the canyons and rivers, the echo’s they sent back were ominous and large.
I thought about Walt, as I sat outside my motel room in Vernal reading Mari Sandoz’s, seminal work, ‘Crazy Horse — Strange Man of The Oglala.’ I wondered if Crazy Horse had ever been this far west. I like to think that maybe he and the great Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perce, had ‘counseled’ here, trying to preserve a way of life, that in our attempted destruction, we never understood.
After dinner, I fell asleep thinking about what it would take to get my wife Kathryn to relocate here. I knew she would fall in love with this town once she got a chance to know it. As I woke up, I realized again that to get a true city girl to leave her friends and family, just to live out a lifelong wish of her husband, would again be realized only in my dreams. She understood my dreams, and she loved me for them — but she had dreams of her own.
It’s funny how two people, so much in love, could have entirely different dreams. After 37 years of marriage, our understanding of who we were as a couple only increased with the respect and independence that we allowed each other. Kathy truly understood my feelings for the West.
Understood yes, but her feelings for the things that were important in her life were hers and hers alone. I tried to respect that, as we lived in a shared appreciation of what we had accomplished together. I thought about her constantly and wished that she were here with me tonight like she had been so many times before.
Kathryn Loved The West — But Only To Visit
