Hiking around Patterson, Idaho

Since our bodies were still on Eastern Daylight time, we awoke early and enjoyed the beautiful morning at the Whittington’s Idaho home. We did a couple of quick German lessons until we heard Mark stirring. We were amazed that Whittingtons have a very fast fiber broadband service even in the remote location where they live. It was great having fast internet especially since our AT&T based cell phones have no signal throughout much of the area.

Entrance to Whittington property

Mark made bacon and flapjacks with pecans and blueberries for breakfast that were quite good and filling for the busy day ahead. After Cindy awoke, we walked around Whittingtons' property and nearby BLM land on trails along irrigation ditches and paths worn by cattle. Idaho is an open range state and Much BLM land is leased to ranchers for grazing cattle. The sagebrush on the unirrigated high desert cannot support the number of cattle per acre that eastern grazing can, but with proper management, cattle seem to do well here. On our drive in last night on Pahsimeroi Road, we were delayed by a large herd of cattle moving from one range to another across the narrow two lane road. This is a frequent occurrence in open range country.

Remains of Patterson gold mines

Once back from our morning walk, we drove south to what was once the town of Patterson. Little remains of the once booming mining town other than deteriorating buildings and a dirt road. We walked around the Ida Mine where tungsten was mined as well as gold and silver.

Hiking around Idaho

From Patterson we drove to nearby Big Creek where we hiked the North Fork then had a picnic of our usual Ritz Crackers with squeeze Jif peanut butter. After all of the walking, it was pretty tasty. A fat ground squirrel joined us for lunch and made off with some of the crackers and a few of the almonds that Mark brought.

Koi and goldfish in Barney Hot Springs

We drove on the narrow roads to Barney Hot Springs where warm water flows into a pond filled with introduced goldfish and koi. We enjoyed watching the fish following us as we walked around the pond, obviously accustomed to receiving handouts from passing visitors. We crushed a few of the Ritz crackers and fed them as we took a few snapshots.

On our drive we saw several herds of pronghorns in the irrigated fields browsing on the lush growth of alfalfa. Pronghorns and other game such as mule deer, whitetail deer and elk are subject to depredation permits allowing landowners to shoot grazing animals within a mile of any cultivated crop. The herds of pronghorns here in the Summit springs area were understandably skittish.

When we returned to the Whittingtons' home, we saw that a pallet was delivered with the closet organization system that Cindy had ordered for their bedroom. There were probably two dozen boxes of all sizes from 18 inches to seven feet long. Because they contained boards for the racks and drawers they were dense and awkward to carry. We carried all of the boxes into their bedroom, hoping to get it all assembled on Saturday.

Photo from realtor listing

After getting the boxes all inside, we noticed a large number of cluster flies in the house, especially around the bank of windows on the northeast side of the house. Cindy vacuumed the flies as quickly as she could, but there hundreds of them. As soon as she thought that she had them all, another group would show up. This went on until well after dark.