Upper Coffee Pot

In Rexburg (pop. 25,484), in northeastern Idaho, I spent a portion of the morning in the library, then walked along the main street, bought bread at a bakery…. I can quickly become attached to these attractive middle-sized towns. And why keep driving anyway. But in the afternoon I did go on.

I took a lonely open road north past a set of blonde sand dunes—a magnet for ATV riders—and then out into the wide sage…. The paved but unlined road was the sort that’s usually gravel, in the west, stretching away from the U.S. and state highways, from towns, and serving only a scattering of ranches….

On the fifty mile detour I did come upon one town, Kilgore, a collection of four or five houses and an old general store with a tin roof. The store appeared as if it hadn’t changed much in the last fifty years and probably longer…. Inside the walls were decorated with dozens of deer and elk horns, and on the wall by the door was a collection of photographs of hunters with their kills. Like the town, the store was quiet and still, and at first I didn’t notice a tiny ancient woman standing motionless behind the counter. I had seen no other cars on the road in, no other cars in the town, and it seemed to me that customers must be few, especially on a Monday. The woman didn’t move while I wandered around the store but stared straight ahead. She did respond briefly to my initial surprised greeting, and then to an inane comment I made about it being a “great store.” She said, “thank you.”

In a back corner of the store was a small bar and a pool table, but both were dusty and looked like they hadn’t been used in a while. Large standing coolers were scattered about, with narrow aisles between, and the store was full of dark corners…. I wanted to inspect rather than shop, but the woman made me nervous. I asked about ice, and she pointed at a white freezer, one more commonly seen in a home basement, and I bought a bag before stepping back out into the sunshine.

Beyond Kilgore the road was indeed gravel, over foothills and down a long, golden valley fringed with dark green conifers. Cows were scattered about, and I saw two elk as well but no other people. But that was about to change.

The Kilgore road eventually brought me back to U.S 20 at a place called Island Park, which is not a town, as the map indicates, but a collection of tourist amenities. Motels and “lodges” and cafes and various guiding and rental businesses devoted to recreation. Highway 20 serves as a southern and western conduit for Yellowstone, and the long approach corridor is busy with travelers and with commercial enterprises devoted to catching them along the way….

There are also a number of Forest Service campgrounds, and I headed for one a few miles off the highway, to have a hike. I thought I might also camp, but Upper Coffee Pot Campground’s fifteen sites, spread along Henry’s Fork, were all taken by large RVs or large trailers pulled by large pick-ups. Often other people get in my way, but I suppose there wouldn’t be such things as National Forest campgrounds if I was the only one drawn to them….

Anyway, I mostly wanted the hike…. The trail wound downstream along the bank of the river, through green forest thicker and with more undergrowth than I was used to; there was even moss on some of the rocks. As if to emphasize the role of water, it began to rain just after I set off. Not hard, though, and only for a half hour. It pleasantly cooled off the hot afternoon (temps in the 90s in the Yellowstone region this week, contributing to a “very high” fire danger).

The air was redolent with the fragrance of spruce, and I felt a pang of longing. For the first time since I  came off the trail two weeks ago I missed it….

I put one foot down after another, in the wet dust, on slippery rocks, and strode along down the quiet river….A kingfisher darted downstream, calling out… Later a pair of terns circled over the water and one plunged into the river with a sloppy splash and came up with a small fish in its beak…. A muskrat dove from a log, frantic to elude me though I had no intention of giving chase…. Three great blue herons also responded to my presence by fleeing…. Sorry.

Two women passed, returning to the campground, and they wore bear bells on their boots. Till that moment I had forgotten about bears, but now I realized that I had come into grizzly country for the first time. The joy of the hike diminished thereafter, but didn’t disappear.  I began to whistle and sing as I went along, more loudly at the overgrown stretches….

Most people don’t go far from the campground, but if they do they probably are carrying a fishing pole. Henry’s Fork, like all the streams in the region, gets lots of attention from anglers. Two miles down, the wide, slowish river narrowed and transformed into Coffee Pot Rapids, a beautiful half mile stretch of falling and tossing and sliding pale green water. Here the anglers concentrate their attentions…. When one such man (with large tattoos of trout covering one calf) passed me walking fast, I was happy to know someone was in front of me running interference, in case any bears should make an appearance….

After an hour on the trail I reached the bottom of the rapids and sat on a rock beside the stream.  I concentrated my efforts on watching the water, admiring its color and movement. I attended to the ferns along the bank, to the tall spruces, and noted that the rapids had broken off and carried away any portion of a tree that fell across the river. I spotted a frog, and another kingfisher sped by…. Despite the possibility of a bear, it was good to be outside in the mountains again.