25th May - Salmon, Idaho

As you travel south you notice changes. The pine forests are thinning out. Farmers' fields start to emerge. The landscape softens whilst the backdrop of the snow capped peaks of the Rockies remains. Montana has beautiful sweeping scenery but is somehow less impactful having witnessed the scale of the Canadian Rockies. I guess you have a different perspective if you're traveling north. 

Bigfork was having their biggest event of the year. Its a holiday weekend and kayakers from all over have hit town for their annual jamboree. Bigfork has one of the early hydro-electro plants meaning the river is artificially narrowed to power the turbines and as a happy consequence a fast flowing white water channel is created. After watching many a bearded teenage capsize, I headed up river to avoid the crowds. Good merganser country (hooded that is).

In the moring, I was heading back into Idaho and Indian country (the road passes through a reserve). That means more tee pees, buffalo (or is it bison) & gun shops. It also means twisty roads. My squared off back tyre tells the sad tale of too many long, straight roads. Idaho has hairpin bends and I'm happy. It also has big flowing rivers - this is the Salmon.

  
The town of Salmon, Idaho is a one street, cowpoke town where there's a shop that repairs stetsons and chaps. It does have a fine micro brewery (Bertram's run by a south African) where I talked shite about IPAs (they had to brew them strong so they would survive transit to India) for a number of hours. By the river, I also found it has great moths (not sure what they are but they're as big as your hand).