Base Camp

I'm in Idaho!

I'll be honest, I never thought I'd ever have a reason to come to Idaho.  But my oh my is it beautiful here.

I'm working as a counselor at Mountain Adventure Tours, a kids camp started up by my friend Mat.

Here's a photo if Mat, looking über-Manly.

Mat has 12 acres of property in the heart of the Big Lost Valley - mountains, rivers, and a plethora of sky surround the land.  It is known as Base Camp.  Base Camp is made up of two parts:  The Upper Property (Base Camp) and the Lower Property (Graceland).

The properties are outfitted with 4 Mongolian style Yurts, a broken down trailer that we are trying to get rid of, a tiny office, and an old whore house or cat house from the early 1900s.  We're not sure which.

Mat, his dog Squirrel, myself, and our friend Spencer (who is the perfect cross between Matthew McConaughey and a cowboy) spent 3 days at Base Camp last week prepping it for the arrival of campers next month.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Squirrel"][/caption]

It was truly "Man Camp" as the 3 days consisted of stereotypical "Man's Work".  We laid concrete for the wood fire hot tub, mowed [what little] lawn there was while sucking down half a mountain of dust, chopped firewood, fixed and rigged up a large deck to serve as an outdoor dining platform, and we cleared out log jams in the river to return the river's path to it's natural flow.

[caption id="attachment_1202" align="aligncenter" width="900" caption="Log Jam: Before"][/caption]

My favourite activity was clearing the log jam, because it meant we had to spend hours at a time in the bitter cold (yet surprisingly refreshing) water of the Big Lost River, painstakingly removing pieces of this natural dam that even a family of Beavers would envy.  I must admit, it looked an impossible task at the start.  The dam was 25 feet across, 15 feet wide, and 4 feet deep, to the bottom of the river.  We spent an entire evening in the water.  At the end of the day, we were soaking wet, chilled to the bone and eaten alive by mosquitoes, but we had defeated the log monster, and the Big Lost was flowing like new.

[caption id="attachment_1203" align="aligncenter" width="900" caption="Log Jam: After"][/caption]

Until it got to the next dam.

That one we may actually have to use dynamite to clear.

Here are some more photos from Base Camp.  I'm sure there will be many more as the summer unfolds...

Starry skies to cap off the nite

With the Milky Way Galaxy burning up bright

-JoeySee