What a windy night. The snag by our tents creaked and groaned through the night, and the wind whipped the rain fly mercilessly. I dozed off and on, but no good sleep. After being the last one up yesterday, I told everyone that if they're all up and moving around, they should wake me. So this morning, while it was still pitch black, I saw headlamps moving around. It felt like 3am. I was not sleeping, but still hoping to drift off again. Instead, the headlamps get closer and I hear "Jeeessssica...everyone's up." Sigh. Not only was everyone up, they had their tents all packed up. Did I mention that it was still fully dark out? I broke down quick and threw my gear into the truck. The rangers made me a mug of that green tea I talked about yesterday, and we hung out around the trucks until it started to get light. One of the trucks was running very low on fuel, so we'd decided to swing up to Jordan Valley to get gas, and as long as we were going to be there, we'd stop for breakfast at JV Diner. They have a handwritten menu, it was awesome. Food was good, though every item was drenched in butter. After fueling up, we popped into the coffee shop, Rock House. I had been feeling ill, possibly from the tea-induced jitters, but the fat-filled breakfast helped, and the mocha made everything right.

We drove back south to the North Fork Campground area. The idea had been to put on dry pants and hike into the canyon a ways. However, the guys needed to get back to the office before close today and it's a long haul back to Boise from here. We were lamenting the shortness of this expedition, and started making plans for future possibilities to get deeper into the wilderness and waterways. So instead of hiking down the river, we walked along the shore to the west, through an area of Wild and Scenic River designation. The vegetation was very dense, much bushwacking to get to the river's edge. It's great fun, makes you feel you've earned the photos you manage to capture: the harder it is to get to a spot, the better it must be. I poked in and out along the river, hunting for the right composition of rocks, plants, water, and getting rather wet and muddy. I could have happily spent all day here, but eventually we reassembled and hiked our way back to the trucks.

We drove back along Mud Flat Road to the duty station, unloaded the trucks, and discussed possibilities. Shari and I were welcome to stay at the station for a couple days, though with the now heavy rain, hiking for photography wasn't really going to happen, at least not very successfully. Since we're able to come back at some point in the future, we decided to follow the guys out. I had tickets to a fundraiser at home for the next day, and this chance to make it back in time was a good thing. I followed all the way back to Boise, then headed to the Boise Art Museum. Next was a drive around town, the state capitol building, and a stop at Boise Fry Company for some purple french fries. I eventually headed back to Ranger Worthington's house to spend the night again. His family is great and I really enjoy them. Their dog is pretty awesome, too.

Our campsite.

Driving toward Jordan Valley.

Driving south from Jordan Valley.

The Owyhee North Fork River.

A little further downstream.

Looking back upstream as the rain picks up again.

Following the cattle's trails to save some of the effort of getting in to the river. Cattle are shorter than I am, so there was a lot of crouching and pushing branches from my face in the otherwise nicely cleared paths.

Thistle: invasive species.

Further down the Owyhee North Fork.

Some of the brush. See the river? Me neither. Time to bushwhack.

Rain on the Owyhee North Fork.

There were a bunch of these water bugs in this area. They were completely still if I was, as soon as I'd move, they flitted all about.

Closer to finding the composition I'd want to paint.

Cattle path through the willows.

More Owyhee North Fork. Too many photos, I know, but it's a very small fraction of what I took.

Looking back upstream.

I hike up and out of the thickest brush to walk back, enjoying the myriad grasses. I love grasses.

One of my favorite grass species: crested wheatgrass (I think)

Still more vegetation.

Driving out from Mud Flat Springs.

Boise!

A very special drawing I was given by Ranger Worthington's 6 year old the first night I stayed with them. This masterpiece was no speedy endeavor. It was carefully labored over as we discussed color. Love it!

I was the last body up this morning, at about 7:45. I'm a night owl, but luckily I'm also fairly low maintenance in the morning (just need coffee), and I'm quick at packing up my gear. We received a disturbing weather report from dispatch this morning, calling for "rivers of moisture." Not sure what this might entail, and knowing that the roads here become impassable when wet, we decided it would be safest to pack up and plan to move to a lower campsite tonight where the roads are graveled.

We drove east until we were north and a bit west of the Nip and Tuck Creek drainage system. After parking the trucks and getting packed up for the trail, we set off into the wilderness. It promptly began to drizzle, and we had intermittent rain throughout the day. It was nothing miserable, but we had to take care with the camera gear. The benefit of rain is that colors tend to be more vivid and when one is photographing down in the canyons, it helps to have an overcast sky instead of strong shadows.

We hiked through one drainage, crossed over to another, and followed it down, winding with the terrain, scrambling over rocks, exploring boulders, hoodoos, junipers, a stand of fir trees, immense willows, tiny fish, colorful lichen, and so much more. It was a good day of hiking, with many long stops for photography.

Watching the time, we decided that if we climbed up and out of the drainage we would have a significantly shorter hike back to the trucks following a ridge line, and this would allow us to stay out longer, and explore further. Somewhere in the late afternoon we made the call to scramble up and out, then spent a couple hours hiking back along the ridge, enjoying some fantastic views and other discoveries (more details in the photo captions below). One of the rangers described this area as being classic North Fork Wilderness, saying it has an Alice in Wonderland quality with the strange forms in rocks, boulders, trees, something of a magical forest. There are areas of open, sloping land with strange protruding forms of rock and gnarled juniper trees. Then there is dense riparian vegetation that requires some serious bushwhacking. I love it all.

As we hiked along, Ranger Steenhoven, who had been tracking our route via GPS, asked us all to guess how far we'd hiked. I threw out 5.873 miles. Then he made it a contest and I second guessed myself, thinking maybe we had hiked farther than it felt. In the end I stuck with my first answer, and I was very close: we'd hiked 5.9 miles. What did I win? A few packets of a tea that has gained quite a reputation the last couple days. The description on the package is...well, grandiose. "Fine fresh-tasting, spring-harvested green teas from China. Linger in the pure, steam-fired broth of this first-flush green tea, thinking clear, peaceful thoughts. Like watching mist rise off a thermal spring, hidden behind a wooded glen and only accessible by trampoline." This is a spring harvested tea made from green tips from China. The day I had some, it made me jittery like I've never experienced. We also had some pretty great conversations about all that's wrong with the world, and we may have devised solutions to all the problems. Credit was given to the tea for inspiring such quality philosophizing.

Back at the trucks we drove out to where the roads converge by a map/sign, and headed a little ways down the road to Nickel Creek to find a campsite. The light was quickly disappearing as we pitched tents. The wind picked up some and we heard a loud creaking, leading us to discover a large, dead tree in the stand we had set up beneath. We did some shifting to make sure it wouldn't hit any of us if it came down in the night.

Dinner was cooked in the dark, and we were pleased to discover that we were again being treated to a warm night. Despite the cloud cover, the moon's light was very bright, and conducive to another night hike. I was not sleepy, and Ranger Worthington was game to hike some more. We put on another couple miles before heading back for some sleep.

Sunrise.

Driving east to start our hike.

A stop on the way for some cool trees.

Yes, there will be many, many images of junipers here. There are so many, and they are all so fantastic to look at.

Teeny tiny bonsai juniper.

One ranger said "Hey, that might be an Elk on the next ridge!" I took this photo and zoomed in to discover it's just yet another cow. This area has been heavily grazed for many decades, and some areas have been heavily impacted. More on that another time.

The brush encroaches on the road such that driving along is like going through a car wash, except instead of soft brushes cleaning the car, it's bushes and large tree limbs scraping down the sides and across the roof.

It's a good and bumpy road as well. Roads likes this always lead to the best places to visit.

Rangers E.E. Worthington and C. Steenhoven posing with the gate and sign they put in to mark the wilderness entrance.

A first viewpoint.

Rangers stick together.

Trees, boulders, lichen. What's not to love?

Closeup of the fantastic abstract shapes and colors.

A shot to try to show the size of these willows.

Liking the lichen...

Examining the deep, extensive root systems of grasses.

A natural arch.

The creek bed is mostly dry.

Photographer Shari Hart setting up a shot.

Another cool tree.

Love the aspen and rocks along the drainage.

Mosses abound along with the lichen.

Scrambling along, always waiting on the pokey artists who are busy arting with cameras.

A little meadow down below.

There are some really cool hoodoos in this area.

Plenty of dense brush down here. And no trails save those made by elk and cows.

There were small fish in this creek, a few inches long.

An elk wallow.

A split in the game trail.

Paths like this work fine for cows and elk. Lots of ducking and bush whacking required for us humans.

See that blue thing? It's the nemesis of the rangers: a mylar balloon. They have an extensive collection of mylar balloons that they have picked up out here, they are hung in their storage facility.