Good and Bad

[Dave]

Yesterday to beat the heat we went for a drive. The AC in the car works great. We went up past the little town of Halfway into the Wallowa mountains. To the Hell's Canyon over look. Up at 7,000 feet it was a cool 88 degrees which beats 100+ at home. Drove down to Oxbow on the Snake River. Ate and then headed home. A nice Sunday drive. Just outside Baker the car suddenly shut down. It didn't completely die but the best it would do was 5 MPH. From where we were I could see Grumpies Auto repair. Don't fail me now. So at 5 MPH we made our way to the shop which was about 3 miles away. While most people would have been cussing that the car broke down. We were thanking God that it did it where it did. We were able to nurse it to the shop door. Back up on the Hell's Canyon rim where we had been not long before we were almost 100 miles from the shop with no cell service. A picture looking down into Hell's Canyon from 7,000 feet. The river which you can't see in the bottom is at 1,200 feet.
They say the Seven Devil's mountains on the Idaho side go from over 9,000 feet nearly veertical all the way to the river.

 

[Chevy]

Good attitude to have. What was wrong with the car?

 

[Dave]

Good attitude to have. What was wrong with the car?

Don't know. It is at the shop in the back of a long line so it will be a day or three (most popular shop in Baker City).

 

[504RP]

Pretty scenery !!! Your lucky to live in and around country like that.

20 years ago I packed 12 miles into a wilderness area like that on horse and mules. Stayed for 2 weeks. Was 40 miles from the nearest two to the trail head where i left the truck and trailer.

Was determined to kill an elk with my bow and had took a months vacation for the trip. Had a few friends that would have went with me but could only get off work for 2 weeks. Told them I was going to be there until I killed an elk or until season ended. ( meaning it might be longer than a two week trip.)

So i ended up going myself. Looked into getting a satellite phone in case of an emergency. It was unreal at what that was going to cost and can't remember the cost now.

In mountains like that cell phones don't get reception in most areas. I never found an area period that i could get reception.

Looking back now, actually i knew pretty quickly after i started packing in thoes mountains I was taking a pretty big risk doing what i was doing.
2 weeks latter when i got back to the trail head I had a tire on the horse trailer that had parcel separated and had to put the spare on that was next to flat itself. Although I had checked before leaving and did add some air to it before i left home.

Was worried about making it to the nearest town that had a tire shop 80 miles away.

 

[D2Cat]

And I thought you were one of those guys who knew how to analyze a risk/reward situation!

 

[504RP]

And I thought you were one of those guys who knew how to analyze a risk/reward situation!

I sure wanted to kill an Elk pretty bad back then !!! Lol !
At the time I thought the risk would be worth it.

I was 40 years old and thought I was bullet proof back then !!!

 

[farmerjan]

Yep, lucky that it happened where it did. Have had a couple of those "lucky" times with tires going soft/nearly flat....
Scenery out there is quite spectacular....