Latest Update: July 5, 2001 by Ben Marcus

22:00 MT WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 2001 A SIDE STREET IN HAILEY, IDAHO

TRIP METER: 56726
ODOMETER 2649

MONEY
Gas in Ketchum $21.50
Cat food, water, lemonade in Ketchum: $4.90
Oatmeal, coffee and Internet time: $25.69
Laundry at Grumpy's $ 9.00
Gas at Texaco in Ketchum $36.23
Two-day license, flies. $32.55
Gray's sporting journal $ 7.37 Cokes at Sawtooth Bar: $ 4.00
Gnarly hot dog and cheese fries at RJ's $ 7.00
Cash in Hailey $ 60.00

Ever go to a public place or event suffering from a bit of "the wind" and worry that you're embarrassing yourself by stinking up the place and everyone knows it's you? That's one thing you don't have to worry about when you're standing back-stage near the chutes and gate at a for-real rodeo in Idaho.

What you do have to worry about is getting kicked by a horse, or gored by a jumping bull, or sneered at by a cowboy who just failed or knocked into oblivion by a gate swung shut by the wind.

I was at the Hailey Fourth of July Rodeo an hour or so ago, and it was the real deal. I found a place to park up on a hill and walked down to where all the horses and cowboys and cowgirls wait there turn for the barrel riding and the team roping. I got there just in time for the last barrel ride, and then watched a bit of bull riding and team roping.

It smelled good and earthy back there among all the cowboys and cowgirls and old-timers, everybody in cowboy hats and a lot of people in red, white and blue riding clothes or horse blankets. I did have a bit of the wind, but it just blended in real sweet,+ like the oboes in Ravel's Bolero.

This was a for-real rodeo, all you had to do was look around at all the faces and you knew you were somewhere rural. You can tell a cowboy by the way he wears his hat. If he's a real cowboy, you don't notice he's wearing a hat. When I came back to Ketchum I saw a bunch of cowboy wannabes and they looked ridiculous. You noticed the hat.

I wasn't wearing a hat but I still looked completely out of place and got a few sideways glances as I took photos leaning on the gate that let all the horses in and out of the ring.

I watched a couple of cowboys eat shit in the bull riding, and saw a couple of cowboys successfully rope the horns and both hind legs in the team roping. It was fun back there, having horses snorting on me and bumping heads with me like Ike, and looking at the surprising number of pretty girls and listening to all the conversation.

A couple of times during the bull riding a loose bull would come for the gate at flank speed. I wanted to get a photo but I didn't want to get in the way and have some cowboy get gored, so I bailed out.

There were some really fine horses all around, most of them hobbled with some kind of nose gear that keeps their heads down for the team roping, I think.

I took a whole bunch of photos, holding my camera up over people's heads and hoping I got the shot. It was a bit like taking a photo of a jumping fish. My digital camera is a little too slow to get the good action, but I think I got a couple of good photos.

The announcer was pretty funny and everyone seemed to be having a good time, except for the cowboys who went ass over elbows into the dust and then got rumbled by a pissed-off bull.

The rodeo went on for about an hour or so, then the wind kicked up and it was over as the sun was going down. As everyone was clearing out, the wind caught one of the gates and swung it shut at about 100 MPH. A little kid jumped out of the way and I yelled "Heads up!" but it slammed into the other gate and just about killed one cowboy. Knocked him on his ass and it could have killed him, it was that heavy and going that fast.

Speaking of the wind, it came up in the evening and I'm wondering what effect that is going to have on the fireworks show I am waiting for on a side street near the school in Hailey. I've heard that the Hailey fireworks are pretty legendary, even though they aren't sponsored by Bruce Willis any more.

Ike just jumped out of the car, got an earful of the fireworks and a nose full of local dog and jumped back in. I went down the street with my "Air Raid" firework that I bought near Last Chance and offered it to some local people. "It's your neighborhood. I'd probably burn it up." A kid lit it off and it got some response from the neighborhood: 25 fireballs with report. Now they have my bandolier of firecrackers but the main fireworks have started. They're loud.

I just made a joke. Where do horses live? In the neigh-borhood. HAHAHAHAHA. Sorry. Altitude.

This reminds me of Santa Cruz back in the 70s, when a guy would come from Wyoming with $10,000 of the best fireworks every year and go nuts on the beach. That was so much fun, and so was scavenging on the beach early the next morning: wallets, Frisbees, hash pipes, money, drunks who we would roll for all their money, and sometimes beat them almost to death. Those were the death. Kidding. Sorry. Altitude.

Today I ran around Ketchum, cleaning things and taking care of things. First thing in the morning I went to the Newslink CafÚ and sat there for three hours, pitching articles to various fishing magazines. I had organic oatmeal and coffee and was there for a long time. I like that place. I told the owners about the local smoked salmon, and I'm going to bring them some tomorrow.

After the Newslink CafÚ I did laundry and took the van to the carwash and just tried to tidy up. The dust is all off the outside, now it's the inside I have to worry about. This is a very dusty part of the world.

I got an Idaho fishing license good for two more days, because by the 6th I'll probably be in Montana, and on my way north, I hope.

I'm running out of dough and I'm wondering when it will all run out, and where. I have to get a rabies shot for Ike to get him across the Canadian border, but things will all work out in time.

In the afternoon I fished a little hole by the side of the road on Warm Springs and toyed with some little trout. I caught one that was hooked deep and it took me so long to get the hook out that I did the fish in. I worked for 15 minutes to try to revive it, but it didn't work. It floated belly up with its gills still working, but it died. I took it back to camp thinking Ike might want it, but he wasn't interested.

After taking a shower and shampoo at camp I grabbed Ike and we headed toward Hailey. I was looking for a garbage dump and went by the Hailey airport, counting 21 small jets parked on either side of the runway. It's weird to see all those fancy planes in such an out of the way part of Idaho. I took some photos on both sides, and introduced Ike to a lonely lady in the ticket booth. She told me to take care of Ike, there are coyotes and foxes and hawks that will eat kitty cats. On the local radio there are an unusual number of reports of missing cats and dogs. Hmmmm.

Coming back through Bellevue I got pulled over by a cop for speeding. All the time Jeff was with me he was telling me to slow down and take the speed limits seriously. The cop got me going 41 in a 25 MPH zone through town, but my Homer sticker saved me. I have a sticker on the back of my van that says,

"Homer, Alaska, a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem."

The cop was a good old boy and he liked that and he had family visiting from Anchorage so he decided not to give me a ticket. That was nice of him.

After that I watched the rodeo for a while, and now I'm listening to Steely Dan and watching the fireworks.

After this I'll head back to Ketchum and maybe go get a drink and a bit to eat, then hit the sack. It's going to be time to go tomorrow. I want to go by the salmon place and order some more, and get a sampler for the Newslink CafÚ, because I think they should sell sandwiches there.

Then I'll head back up that same road to Challis. Ike has a fan there, and I want to fish The Place I Cannot Name, one of Jeff Galbraith's and Yvon Chouinard's favorite secret spots.

So aloha to Idaho after tomorrow, but I really like this place. I've always said, "You want to find the best places, look for the rich folks."

Fireworks are over. The neighbors gave me back my string of 1000 firecrackers. Maybe I'll do them off in Ketchum.

This is my vow. One of these years I'm coming back here with about $20,000 and I'm going to buy out one of those fireworks stands and put on a show.

On the ranch.

My ranch.

The Wavy I.

Wavy for that other life. I for Ike.

This is my vow.

11:08 MT THURSDAY, JULY 5, 2001 THE NEWSLINK CAF°, KETCHUM, IDAHO

MONEY
Smoked salmon gift pack: $30 Granola, coffee, OJ: $ 9

I'm developing skills up here, a kind of cross-cultural, Field and Stream thing. Woke up this morning ready to pack up and git, but I wanted to fish first. I was tying a big loop in my leader when Ike bolted from the car, like a little doggie out of the chute, or a rainbow trout making a run. I was half asleep but knew I couldn't let him go because he might disappear all day and screw up the schedule.

Chasing him doesn't work so I had to do something to catch him. I had my fly rod in hand with a big loop in the end of it, so I did this kind of looping cast-a cross between fly-casting and team roping-put the line under Ike's back feet and doubled him up. The take-down wasn't too hard. He's just a cat. A stupid cat.

Or maybe I just dreamed that, I don't know. Woke up at nine feeling a little queasy from the horrendous Polish sausage with sauerkraut and cheese fries I ate after midnight last night. I went to the Sawtooth Inn when I got back to Hailey and watched the sports highlights. I saw a baseball player get brushed-back by a pitch and do the oddest thing. He side-kicked the catcher in the chest good and hard, and then charged the mound. And after that it was on for young and old.

They were doing a big profile on Seattle Mariners star Ochiro, and that gave me an idea. It's always bothered me that the "World Series" doesn't include much of the world. I'm wondering what would happen if some Japanese and American money got behind an All Japanese major league baseball team that played in Honolulu. You could build a reasonably-sized stadium that would hold maybe 15,000 people, but would be all-pro otherwise. The real revenue would come from broadcasting the games all over Japan and the rest of Asia. I wonder if Japan could field a team that would be competitive on the major league level, and I wonder if the travel hassles of going from the mainland to Hawaii would make it impossible to run a team there. I know that the Japanese broadcast rights would pay for the team.

And think about the bench-clearing brawls. They'd look like a scene out of Enter the Dragon. Full-on martial arts fights over brush backs. Works for hockey.

And if that worked, you could do the same thing in Cuba or the Dominican Republic, an all-Latin Major League Baseball team. I could see Ted Turner getting behind the Cuba thing.

Just a thought. Ochiro (Ichiro?) is a great baseball player, and I wonder how many more like him there are over there.

When I was watching a Mariners game with Jeff Galbraith, we saw Ichiro (Ochiro?) and I said, "That was the kind of guy flying Zeros into Pearl Harbor." And Jeff touched his finger to his nose.

So I watched TV and drank Cokes and had that horrendous midnight snack, then went home. Saw another fox while driving back, but Ike made it through the night.

Now it's the 5th of July and I'm in the Newslink CafÚ. The Van is packed and it's all ready to go, although I have to return to the campsite to get some clothes that are drying.

This morning I went to the smokehouse and ordered another gift pack for someone I work with, and Lucy Hickey gave me one packet of each: Trout and salmon, peppered and plain.

I gave one packet to the people at the Newslink CafÚ, but the rest is all for me.

Checking e-mail, I got a couple of semi-nibbles on my Yvon Chouinard pitch.

Here's the original pitch, with the responses from the editors and my replies, as always, in bold.

Steve Probasco
Editor in Chief-Northwest Fly Fishing

July 4, 2001

Mr. Probasco

I wonder if you would be interested in an interview with dedicated fly-fisherman and committed conservationist Yvon Chouinard?

A week ago while passing through Last Chance, Idaho I bumped into Yvon at a special meeting for Patagonia specialty fly-fishing retailers. Yvon gave a speech that I wish I had taped, because he told some good stories about Patagonia's effort to dedicate one per cent of its profits to conservation efforts.

He told a story about being confronted on the Bulkley River by a burly, bearded guy in a lumberjack shirt. Yvon thought he was going to get his ass kicked. Instead, he teamed up with this guy to save hundreds of acres of native British Columbia coast.

I know there might be a bit of a conflict because Yvon owns a sportswear company and is an advertiser, but he really did have good things to say.

As for me, last October I bought a 1999 Ford E 150 Econoline van, put a bed frame in it and took off from Tiburon, CA for points north. I drove all through Oregon, Washington, B.C. the Yukon and Alaska for four months, fishing everywhere. I supported myself by writing for a surfing website called swell.com and doing whatever freelance I could for The Surfer's Journal and Surfing Magazine (I was an editor at SURFER Magazine for 10 years, but hated Southern California. I like rivers that actually have water in them, and even fish.)

Right now I am in Sun Valley, Idaho, about to fish Silver Creek if it doesn't rain. I fished the Big Hole with friends a few weeks ago, and am in love with Montana, which has lots of rivers with lots of water and lots of fish.

To finance all this nomadism I'm trying to find stories as I go along, that is why I am pitching the Yvon Chouinard story/interview to you.

Please let me know if you are interested, and I will contact Yvon. He was advising me on a surfing/fishing trip to Kamchatka that fell through, because Reeve Aleutian no longer flies there from Anchorage, and I don't want to go the other way on AeroFright.

Hoping we can work together.

Thank you.

Ben Marcus

TheBenM@AOL.com
360-582-0061 (Mom's phone in Sequim, WA)

That was the original pitch. Here's the response from the editor of Gray's Sporting Journal.

In a message dated 7/4/2001 7:07:49 PM Mountain Daylight Time, fivewght@compuserve.com writes:

<< Thanks for the note. Sounds like an interesting guy. Elisabeth will send you our writer's guidelines. Once we see an ms we will make a decision.

THANK YOU.

Takes about 12 weeks. Don't play too much on Patagonia's one-percent checkoff. That is common in the industry and some fly fishing companies, like Orvis, do much more.

OKAY. BUT I STILL THINK HE'S AN INTERESTING GUY. HE FISHES A LOT AND HAS MORE THAN A FEW GOOD STORIES. AND HE ALSO HAS THE MEANS TO MAKE POSITIVE CHANGES WHERE THEY NEED TO BE MADE. NO BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO CONSULT, HE JUST DOES IT. PUTS HIS MONEY WHERE HIS LINE IS, I GUESS YOU COULD SAY.

I'LL CONTACT HIM AND SEE IF HE IS INTERESTED.

I'M LEAVING SUN VALLEY TODAY AND HEADING UP THROUGH MONTANA AND B.C. TO ALASKA. GOING TO VISIT A FRIEND IN YAKUTAT AND THEN DO A SURF/FISH TRIP FROM SEWARD UP TO MONTAGU AND HINCHINBROOK ISLANDS

I'LL SEND STORIES AS THEY HAPPEN. THE FIRST I'M GOING TO WRITE IS ABOUT THE LITTLE MONTANA HILLBILLY KID SNAGGING THAT BIG BROWN TROUT FROM UNDER MY NOSE ON THE BIG HOLE.

PHOTO IS ATTACHED. LITTLE BRAT. I BEAT HIM UP AND TOOK HIS FISH.

THANK YOU.

Here's the second response from American Angler.

In a message dated 7/5/2001 7:42:56 AM Mountain Daylight Time, AmericanAngler@nc.rr.com writes:

<< Ben,

The Chouinard story isn't really what I'm looking for.

OKAY. I THOUGHT HE WAS INTERESTING, THOUGH. HE HAD GOOD THINGS TO SAY.

American Angler is basically a how-to, where-to magazine.

I WILL SEND YOU THE STORY OF THE KID NAILING THAT NINE-POUND BROWN RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE ON THE BIG HOLE. IT WILL BE INSTRUCTIONAL AND FUNNY AND AN ODE TO THE WESTERN WONDERS OF MONTANA. THAT PLACE IS PRETTY AWESOME, AND I'VE SEEN A LOT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS.

If you've got some ideas for these kinds of stories, I'd definitely like to hear them. I'm always looking for new writers. If you haven't already, pick up an issue of AA and go through it to get a sense of what kinds of things we publish.

I'VE BEEN READING LOTS OF FISHING MAGAZINES, INCLUDING YOURS. I LIKE TO WRITE AND I LIKE FISHING AND I'M GOING TO SPEND THE SUMMER DRIVING THROUGH PRIME TERRITORY: IDAHO, MONTANA, B.C., YUKON AND ALASKA. I HAVE A DIGITAL CAMERA BUT I DON'T KNOW IF THE PHOTOS WILL PRINT IN A MAGAZINE.

I'm jealous of your present lifestyle. As a former editor yourself, I'm sure you know that most of my time is spent editing and writing stories about fishing, rather than actually doing it.

YES, I REMEMBER THAT. AND THAT IS WHY I SLUGGED AN AD SALESMEN AND GOT CANNED. BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

YOU CAN READ MY DAILY JOURNAL ON SACKLUNCH, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. I'M TRAVELLING WITH A CAT NAMED IKE, SO I'M CALLING IT "TRAVELS WITH IKE." LEAVING SUN VALLEY TODAY FOR THE LOST RIVER, THEN UP THROUGH MONTANA.

I'VE ATTACHED THAT MONTANA HILLBILLY KID WITH THE BROWN TROUT. I BEAT HIM UP AND TOOK HIS FISH.

I'LL BE IN TOUCH. THANK YOU.

Phil Monahan
Editor
American Angler
714 9th St. #G8
Durham, NC 27705
919-286-7178
americanangler@nc.rr.com

So those were decent nibbles, now all I have to do is talk Yvon into it. If anyone out there knows his e-mail address, let me know.

Time to get out of here. Ike is probably burning up in the car. I want to go jump in the creek one more time, get my clothes and go fish the place I Am Not Allowed To Name. Kind of a secret spot, you know.

Wow, just saw Arnold Schwarzenegger walking down the street. That guy is PHYSICALLY FIT. Walks like Cro Magnon, a little bit. Missed the photo. Darn.

My mom just sent me this story. I'll be heading through Stanley in about an hour. No hitch-hikers this time. Damn hippies.

July 5, 2001

Forest Officials Address Unusual Uses of Land

By DOUGLAS JEHL Agence France-Presse Drug enforcement officers filling bags with marijuana in the Angeles Forest in California in 1998. Officers found more than 900 plants. Forest Service Choice Is Praised by Conservation and Timber Forces (April 13, 2001) Expanded Coverage In Depth: Criminal Justice

TANLEY, Idaho, July 3 ª\ By statute, and by roadside proclamation, the national forests, that vast empire of public lands that stretch across one-twelfth of the United States, are lands of "many uses," including logging, ranching, hunting, skiing and camping.

But time has stretched that definition to the limit. By virtue of their openness to one and all, the forests are more and more the home to the unusual, the criminal and the bizarre, with mushroom-gathering profiteers and methamphetamine makers among others competing with logging companies and recreationists for a share of the woods.

One group that falls into the category of an unusual yet also longtime user of the forests is the Rainbow Family, a nonorganized organization that for the last three decades has held an annual Fourth of July gathering in a national forest, to the ever rising frustration of the Forest Service, which oversees the lands.

This year thousands of hippies from around the country descended on Boise National Forest, 100 miles northeast of Boise, to celebrate peace, love and marijuana, not necessarily in that order.

"This is kind of our declaration of independence," Chaz Choate, 25, adorned with a nose-ring and of no fixed address, said this morning in an alpine meadow, 50 miles from the nearest town.

The participants claim a right to "peaceably assemble" and act as they please on public land. But the Forest Service, which has established a task force to police what the agency regards as an illegal event, is increasingly determined to enforce the law, even in the middle of nowhere. It typically spends a half- million dollars trying to make sure that the so-called Rainbow Gathering does not get out of hand.

"People have lots of different reasons for going to the woods," said Bill Wasley, the agency's law enforcement chief, whose 600 officers are spread out, on average at one every 600 square miles of national forest land, coast to coast.

These law officers face growing challenges, including narcotics smuggling across international borders and the theft of forest products, including timber and mushrooms, as well as the run-of-the-mill incidents of public drunkenness and campground brawls, said Heidi Valetkevich, a spokeswoman.

Mr. Wasley said he was fairly certain that the national forests had become the largest domestic source of marijuana cultivation and an ever more popular hiding place for methamphetamine production.

In the last year, the forest service has seen its crime statistics skyrocket, particularly in terms of seizures of marijuana (more than 700,000 plants in 2000) and of methamphetamine labs and dumps (nearly 500 sites discovered).

So sprawling are the Forest Service lands that the writer James Conaway, in a 1987 book by this name, described them as part of "The Kingdom in the Country," populated by an odd collection of wranglers, shepherds, bureaucrats and other inhabitants of "the land nobody owns." They account for 40 percent of Idaho alone; across the country they span 192 million acres and are visited every year by an estimated 292 million people.

But as an annual preoccupation, Forest Service law enforcement officials say nothing exceeds the challenge posed by the Rainbow group and the thousands of people who turn up every year in one state or another, without permission and all but unannounced, in the hope of finding in the forest a place where the rules do not apply.

Already this year, 19 people have been arrested, 23 served with warrants, and more than 500 issued citations, many for drug-related offenses, some for nudity, but many more for simply showing up, and thus taking part in a gathering that the Forest Service has declared violates its rule that no more than 75 people can congregate on forest lands without a permit. The agency has stopped short, however, of demanding that the visitors leave.

This year for the first time, the group has submitted several requests for a permit, but these have been turned down, with Forest Service officials saying the gathering could harm streams used as spawning grounds for endangered salmon.

The conflict over the request appears to have put a damper on turnout, which had soared to 23,000 by the time the gathering peaked last year, at a national forest in Montana but seems likely this year not to exceed 15,000.

The gathering has brought considerable hostility from nearby communities, who see the congregants as interlopers on land that is not equipped to handle so many visitors.

"With all these free spirits up there, saying `peace and love, brother,' it makes it really hard," said Jim Little, a livestock owner who has had to postpone plans to turn out 375 pairs of cows and calves, under a Forest Service grazing permit, into the very meadow that the visitors have transformed into a parking lot.

Environmentalists would say that the cows would do as much damage to the ecosystem as a hippie gathering. But Idaho's Republican politicians, who want the lands more open to multiple uses like grazing and logging, draw the line at the Rainbow Gathering.

Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, has pressed the Forest Service to deny the group a permit, and the Republican governor, Dirk Kempthorne, has declared an emergency, allowing the National Guard to be deployed, if necessary, to assist in the operation.

The Forest Service has said that the gathering is being held in a particularly unfortunate site.

"This is possibly one of the most sensitive watersheds in the state of Idaho," said Sharon Sweeney, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service task force, known as a National Incident Command Team, which this year has set up its operations in the tiny town of Lowman, 70 miles from Boise. "I guess they just didn't do their homework."

Forest Service officers have marked areas off-limits, in hopes of keeping people and their pets out of the streams that mark the end of the salmon's journey hundreds of miles from the Pacific to their spawning grounds.

But this morning, at the end of a dirt road 20 miles from the nearest paved highway, people who had traveled far to escape real-world problems were aghast to find their journey ending at a Forest Service roadblock, where the lucky were escaping not with tickets but bright orange fliers warning that they could be arrested.

"It bothers me that our tax money is being spent on stuff like this," said Larry Fein, an itinerant psychiatric nurse who worked most recently in Carbondale, Ill., has attended 13 national Rainbow gatherings since 1987, and was advising those who received citations to consult the group's legal team.

"I like getting out in the woods," Mr. Fein said, his long, braided hair flopping against his tie-dyed shirt. "And I feel very strongly that what we're doing here, on public land, is our religious and constitutional right."