Anyone who has come to our area or has bought a new property knows that this area is steeped in history. I’m going to share a few stories from a friend of the Brokerage. His name is Ben and he has many stories that you may be interested in especially if you like to get out and explore! I’ll be sharing these stories in the next few blogs. Enjoy!
Story 1:
Two or three times a year, I take a horseback trip back into the Selway-BitterRoot Wilderness near my home in Kooskia Idaho. I usually con one of my horse owning friends into taking me along or sometimes I lay out some green, and hire one of our local Outfitters. About an hour’s drive will get us to a trailhead along the Lochsa or Selway Rivers. Another hour or so, after unloading the stock and getting them all cargoed up, we’re on the trail heading for a high mountain lake. Sometimes we will camp at one particular lake and others, we will move to another lake each day to fish, swim, eat too much and lay around camp and swap lies. There is no better way to spend an afternoon and evening than to be way back in the Selway-BitterRoot Wilderness watching the sun slide down over the ridge and then the moon climbing up into a star-studded sky. “Boy’s, throw another log on the fire and top off my glass of forty rod, I feel another story coming on…..”
– Ben
Story 2:
My dad was always going to strike it rich by finding a gold or mineral mine. He never did find it but we sure had a lot of fun looking. Later on in life, since he had given me the bug, I spent some time placer mining on the Southfork of the Clearwater River near my home in Kooskia, Idaho. I used a 4 inch floating suction dredge which I consider the best small scale mining tool ever invented. Basically it vacuums up the gravel of the creek or river bottom, runs the material over a series of riffles set in a sluice box, and quickly classifies the pay dirt down to a much smaller volume which is easily panned out with a gold pan. I’ve never been so excited as when I was doing a clean-up and the bottom of my pan started turning yellow! One day my partner cleaned up over 11 ounces. Not a bad day’s work-or rather play.
– Ben
