Roaming in Lowman

Given my many years of experience in Lowman, having been born on Grimes Creek just downstream from Summit Flat below Pilot Peak, several people have asked for some enlightenment to shorten their learning curve for finding fun favorites nearby. I don’t have to worry about going to heaven because I have already been there, enjoying countless weeks, months and years with my beautiful Saint Bernard’s, hiking, motorcycle riding and mountain bike riding, not to mention stream trout fishing and prospecting.

Motorcycles Are First at Bat

This is a typical scene from Tyree Mtn south of Jackson Peak on the Graham Guard Station Road.  Buds are Ross Fontes left and Chuck Rempe’s center…good riders and well equipped for back country riding. My bike (XL 350 4 stroke) on right with Stihl MS 170 on front for tree cutting and trail maintenance.

 

To take this ride from the Lowman Church Area at the mouth of Eightmile Creek, one crosses the Ten Ax Bridge, turns right past the dump for 100 yards and then left to the Jackson Peak Trail Head, on up to Jackson Peak thru about 8 switchbacks of moderate challenge and then down the southside to the Graham Guard Station Road to the North Fork of the Boise River area.  There is a small grass airstrip there and other trails heading to Swanholm Peak and on to Atlanta or Trinity Mtn.  Trails upriver from Atlanta are in the wilderness and not open to motorcycles.

A few words about riding alone and maintenance equipment. I always carried spare drive chain connector links and maybe a couple links of chain. Throttle, clutch and brake cable connectors are a good idea and some high strength quick setting glue along with small vice-grips and a multi-purpose screw driver and hex socket pack. Keep in mind that if you are riding fairly far back in the woods, the wind can come up and blow down a tree on the trail you just rode up, so a chainsaw is a good idea. I also carried a Pulaski with a short handle that would fit in my back pack with a gallon of spare gas.

If one has a home or main base in Lowman, it is always nice to take off in the hot afternoon and buzz up to 9000 feet where it is cool, breezy and a major view. Nice to take a six pack of something and something else to add to it if the trail back down is fairly easy riding. The trail up Wapiti Creek to Wolf Mtn Ridge provides a really good view of the northern Sawtooth’s and the wilderness above Grandjean, particularly Baron Creek. The view more westerly towards Zumwalt, Eightmile Mtn and Red Mtn Lookout is good.  I was the lookout on Red Mtn in 1961. Most of the bad weather comes from the west around Jackson Peak view, so if you see a storm coming, best head back.  It might get to Lowman sooner than you think.

Longer rides require riding some portion on the Hiway like down to Miller Creek, up over Miller Mtn and along the Kirkham Ridge trail to the head of Eightmile Creek and on to Bull Trout Lake.  You can come back from Bull Trout along Hiway 21.  This ride may require extra gas. Sort of the opposite route, is to leave Lowman, head to Banner Summit and over Fir Creek Summit into Bear Valley and on up to Horse Creek Summit, down Clear Creek to the Hiway 21/17 Junction. This ride for sure takes extra gas.

The picture below is of a dead salmon that had finished spawning in Bear Valley Creek.  These bodies attract birds of prey and provide movie material. There is an early run in June and a later run in late July. Elk Creek around the Elk Creek Guard Station is a major spawning ground.  One can put a raft in at the crossing a few miles west of the guard station and float down thru some areas not easily accessible on foot from the road. This is also really good canoe waters.

A major ride, perhaps camping overnight, is to head over Banner Summit down to the turnoff to Marsh Creek, up over Vanity Summit and down to Seafoam Guard Station. Several avenues open up for rides up Rapid River to Sheep Mtn where there are some patented mining claims and people living nearby; a really nice ride up Seafoam Creek to the Seafoam Lakes.  Just one fording of Seafoam Creek, usually about a foot-deep maximum except in early spring. This area is primarily back road riding and the trails are normally closed to motorcycles.

Another ride I enjoy because of my mining interests, is up Archie Creek after crossing the Jordan Bridge at MP 79 and on towards Banner Mine just over Banner Ridge.  There are some old mining cars and other mining equipment like a big jaw crusher just hanging out in the back roads. The creek running down towards Crooked River is Banner Creek and has numerous beaver dams and associated wildlife along it. Trails over there are generally open to motorcycles.  That is also another access to the road to Graham Guard Station and the North Fork of the Boise River.

Image below is the upper Seafoam Lake.  There are some old mining digs in the area.

It is a good idea to purchase all the USGS Quad Maps adjacent to Lowman.  Miller Mtn East and West, Eightmile Mtn, Jackson Peak, Zumwalt, Grandjean, Tenmile, Seafoam, Sheep Mtn.  The trails are particularly precisely marked because the trails were usually built by the CCC in the early 1930s and via emails with USGS I found out the trails were traced using newly developed aerial photography in later 1930s.  Trails like Eightmile Creek cross back and forth many times and is not that much fun to ride.  Since the USFS doesn’t want to maintain the trail, it hasn’t shown it to be closed to motorcycles but I wouldn’t recommend riding it.  There are some really dangerous sections.  It is a much better hiking trail, covered later below.

Beautiful Hikes Above Grandjean

There are several day hikes I have enjoyed starting from the Grandjean Trail Head at Trail Creek. Trail Creek has a bridge, so early spring hikes work good for a couple miles.  If you are hiking before July, it is easy to ford a creek in the morning and then find it too high to come back across by 2pm. The runoff from the high peaks doesn’t really get going until the afternoon sun gets to it.

Baron Creek Hikes

In the early spring, one can get into Grandjean Campground about Mid-May even though there may be some snow partially blocking the road and trails. Usually one can get around them. Sacajawea Hot springs are really big with dozens of pools people have engineered over the years.  Since the SF Payette varies in flow rates, the cold water floods the pools in early summer and only the highest pools are comfy.  The hot water is about 168 F so it has to be blended with cold to make it work.  It is easy to find yourself cooking on one side, freezing on the other. Below is a picture of Haus enjoying the warm water on his underside.

The road is to the right of the picture up about 100 feet from the water level.  The parking is a bit tight and if you have a nice rig, you may want to yield more space between your car and the bank than you think needed. The un-written rule is that if there are children present in your immediate area, one should wear clothes over the lower private parts. If you walk up to a pool where only adults are soaking and they are nude, one should ask if you can join. Beautiful young people are seldom rejected. Older men should bring beer or other enticements.

Baron Creek Overnighters

It is about 1.25 mile up the SF Payette main trail to the fork to the left and then up Baron Creek.  It is another 2.5 mile up to the crossing of the North Fork of Baron Creek which usually has major foot traffic coming from Iron Creek over at Stanley, up past the huge Sawtooth Lake and then down the North Fork of Baron Creek. There is only one crossing coming down the NF Baron and it is usually easily waded.

Here is the NF Baron in low water.  You can’t depend on having logs to cross since high water regularly takes them out. A fairly experienced female hiker drowned in this creek because she didn’t take her pack off and was washed down and got caught under a log. One needs to carry your pack in your hands for better balance and so you can throw the pack across or abort the pack instead of drowning.

From the NF crossing, it is about six miles on up the main Baron Creek to Baron Falls which are well worth the hike. It drops about 150 feet and the creek is about 30 feet wide. People like to leave their hiking gear on the trail and take off thru the woods to shower in the falls.  However, one should note all the pieces of wood lying around the bottom and sometimes small logs splattered around.  Those came over the falls and might provide a major headache if you meet up with one.

The image below was taken in early July and you can see the snow at the bottom of the falls.  That means the water is still a bit chilly.

There are some huge rocks sitting on other rocks that look like they would be fun to sit under.  Again, one should keep in mind Baron Creek was a really hot spot after the March 31, 2020 earthquake of 6.5 mag in Beaver Creek and there were upwards of 500 aftershocks centered in Baron Creek.  The major hiking cliff above Lower Baron Lake (Baron spire or Old Smoothie) was totally destroyed during one 4.5 mag aftershock centered near it. Image below was taken before it fell. There is a movie online of it actually rumbling down towards the lake.

Hiking Buds

The image below is of Baron Peak viewed from about 1 mile below the North Fork crossing and only 2.5 miles from Grandjean Campground. It was pure heaven to have this sister and brother (left to right, Ami and Haus) combination.  Beautiful creatures.

Mr. Haus below never had much problem in deep swift water.  This is Eightmile Creek up about 2 miles from the end of the road in spring runoff.  He was really comfy in water and snow.

Big Meadows on SF Payette Above Baron Creek

The Big Meadows is a lazy winding stretch of the SF Payette lasting about 5 miles. The dogs and I have loved swimming in it and chasing fish and watching the wildlife, particular eagles, hawks and Goshawks. One wants to be a bit watchful in nesting times because these birds are very territorial and don’t mind buzzing your bonnet a few times.

Baron Creek can have really treacherous high water at times even up to August 1^st. They built a $50k footbridge decades ago and then blasted it out because it was in the wilderness. The Wilderness starts at the downstream side of Baron Creek and follows the ridge between Baron Creek and Trail Creek and is called the Continental Trail up over the top to Stanley Lake.  Trail Creek is not wilderness. The image below is Upper Meadows looking up towards Elk Lake Area.

Trail Creek (right at Grandjean Campground) has two interesting day hikes. One is up Silver Creek which comes in from the north (left going up) just after finishing the steep, switchback trail about 1 mile.  It is a blind entry and looks like a small draw but one can tell from the amount of water that the main Silver Creek comes in from the right in a hidden right turn. One has to leave the Trail Creek Main Trail and go down to the creek and find a fording. There are then game trails up the right side if one stays 150 feet or so above the water of Silver Creek.

This creek is named after the Cooper Mine which is a major silver deposit up Silver Creek on the right-hand side about 2 miles at 7700 feet elevation (Grandjean Campground is near 6000 feet). It is much easier to find the cabin and mine with a gps unit (lat: 44.165825 Lon:-115.122758).  If you don’t have that, there are fairly steep rapids, almost a waterfall, in Silver Creek about where a draw is coming down from the mine.

The hike from the creek up to the mine is covered with silver amethyst-like quartz crystals.  It is a rock hound happy hunting ground. The image below is of Doc and Jami, our second brother and sister saints at the cabin when they were teenage puppies. Both looked much better when they got older.

The second hike up Trail Creek desperately needs to be explored.  There is a huge cavern up there that is probably accessible with at least some safety ropes.  I doubt it has been explored.  The trail used to go up the north side of the creek and the cavern is dead above and not easily visible.  Now the trail crosses to the south side, and at one point the hiker is looking right into the cavern, as in the image below.

The trees marked in red are probably over 100 feet in height. One can see the bottom of the cavern could be a bit tricky to climb, but then there is a deeper and smaller part on top (probably still 12 feet high).

The cavern doesn’t show up that easily on Google Earth because of the scan angle, so I marked the location in the trail (Continental Trail up Trail Creek to Stanley Lake) just past the second crossing )and just before the next crossing on switchbacks where the hiker is looking right up at the cave as shown above. The gps is in the yellow marker block. (copy and resize to read it more easily)

This route is the shortest distance from Lowman Area to the Stanley Area and most of the Shoshone-Lemhi Indians used this route regularly in order to get to Marsh Creek for the early Salmon run. After the salmon run, they moved on to the Lemhi River Area where Lewis and Clark met up with Sacajawea’s brother who helped them avoid the River of No Return and find the Flathead Indians around Missoula who provided them horses in trade.

Short Hike from the Church

Just across Eightmile Creek mouth at the Hiway 21, one can hike up to the top of the first peak just east of Eightmile.  On that ridge there are three knolls (the second one is quite small) and the third one has a mining stope about 15 feet deep in solid quartz rock. This was dug by early miners and some visible gold specimens were taken out in the early 1930s from the quartz vein that is there.

Now days this little hole (5 ft diameter) is used by cougar for a den. No other wild animal can leap up out of the hole except a big cat and the hole has a little flat area where they can get out of the weather and enjoy a little warmth from the ground.  I see their tracks bounding down the open hill in February about 30 feet to the leap.  Nothing else makes that kind of track.

Another great short hike is to head up the Jackson Peak Trail about a mile or two and one has a great view of the valley around the church area. It makes a very good panoramic movie of the seven peaks and country up Eightmile Creek towards Red Mtn Lookout.

The trail up Eightmile Creek has not been maintained for years since I got a bit older. But you can find where I have cut out logs and blazed a few trees.  Ribbons degrade and fall off so most of them are probably gone. Again, the USGS map shows the trail quite precisely. The good fishing starts about 3 miles up, just past the beaver dam that wasn’t used when I was last there.

Whitewater Excursions

When I was about 14, I had a huge earthmover innertube that dad had wired in a board plugging the center hole and I used a pole to steer and float down the SF Payette from Little Tenmile Creek campground to an area near the road below Kettle Creek. One must be careful not to poke the steering pole between two rocks which can grab the pole and leave you without a steering pole. My apologies for the fuzzy image.

I have in more recent years floated on a smaller truck innertube which puts you down into the cold water. But enough rum and diet Pepsi and one can endure.  However, I have at times remained shivering for about a week or so. Probably this is not a good idea for a solo experience.

Now days there are several rafting companies which provide professional rafting service over a major stretch of the river. The area above Warm Springs Creek is hard to access and doesn’t really have much in the way of whitewater excitement. But starting just aa little above Warm Springs Creek, there are good rapids and some fairly intense whitewater just below the Warm Springs Guard Station.

The area just below the Jordan Bridge near MP 79 is pretty rough and should only be attempted by an experienced rafter. Of course, the area below Pine Flat Hot Spring called “The Big Falls” has claimed the lives of several very experienced whitewater men. One needs to take the portage. The water comes down over the falls and blasts perpendicular into a huge stone abutment which can pin even the most experienced whitewater person against the stone.

Wild Berries

There are some pretty good huckleberry patches near to the mouth of Eightmile Creek. There are some up Eightmile about 2 miles but not really worth the hike. Just across the first bridge over the SF Payette River about MP 87 on the right there is a pretty big patch that normally has berries.

Up at Wapiti Creek leaving from the Wapiti Trailhead, about a mile up the trail there is a good patch.  The huge flat area on the south side of the river downstream of Wapiti Creek has patches in lots of places.  One just has to drive around say on a 4-wheeler and find them.  A small chainsaw is good to cut out winter fell trees.

Banner Ridge at the head of Archie Creek near Banner Mine Area has a lot of patches. Again a 4-wheeler or something to scout around with is a good idea the first year you try to pick.

A little further away on Grimes Creek in the Summit Flat Area is another good place to find huckleberries. Down the USFS road approaching the CUMO Project is a particularly good area for huckleberries.

Choke cherries are all over the place on the south slopes and there is usually a big crop about every 5-7 years.  If the frost gets the blossoms or it is too cold for pollenating bugs, there may not be many on a given year. These are dreadfully (chokingly) sour but my dad always said if you put enough sugar on anything, it will  taste good.  He liked the sweetened juice on his morning pancakes.  It makes very good jelly.  However, the robins like them too so one needs to pick around the first week of September before the robins are heading out. When they are almost blackish red, a brave soul can eat them without sugar.

There are tons of elderberries and they are about the easiest thing around to pick.  People make good wine from them.  They grow in the moderate areas not as dry as choke cherries but not as moist as huckleberries.

Senior Activities

The natural hot spring water in the pool at Sawtooth Lodge is enjoyed by long term natives who like a clean environment to swim and sip some drinks in the sunshine. Season passes have been available at times to make the cost much lower.

A guy named Allred has run a pack outfit up at Sawtooth Lodge for decades.  He might be getting a bit old and hanging it up but somebody will take it over. The outfitter normally takes a large pack train into Baron Lakes to drop off hay for the horsemen association out of Emmett, I think. Since the packer is going in anyway, that is a less expensive time to rent your own horse and take in the view the easy way.  If there is downfall in the trail, he cuts it out.  It is also a safer time for in-experienced horsemen like kids and super-seniors.

Hot Spring Heaven

There are about a half dozen hot springs in the Lowman Area, some along roads and others along the trails. The Sacajawea Hot Spring about ½ mile downstream from Sawtooth Lodge has already been mentioned.

Warm Springs Creek Bonneville Hot Springs

Just up Hiway 21 from the Lowman Church about six miles just after the second Hiway 21 major bridge over the SF Payette River, one can find the well-marked USFS road with green gate taking off to the left going up. There is a huge campground with campsite charges for overnight and parking. The gate is closed in winter but many people park down at the airport turnoff and walk along the Hiway and then up the campground road about 1 mile.

The bath house is rough lumber and the tub similar but the hot water has dissolved the slivers so it will take two people somewhat comfy.  One must find the cold-water pipe to adjust the temp if too hot.

One can see below that there has been some major engineering to make some big pools.  The main Warm Springs Creek runs hidden behind the island of brush on center and right. The cold water for the pools comes down on the left and must be adjusted way back at the creek to keep the pool comfy. The large pool can hold dozens of people. There is a camp host in summer who tries to regulate the amount of clothing people wear.  Good judgement about sharing all your skin with children will keep you out of jail.

 

Other Hot Springs

The USFS has made a wreck of the Kirkham and Pine Flat hot springs.  There are large campgrounds with fees and sometimes no host so the gate is locked and people must park on the Hiway and walk down. The Kirkham Hot Spring is a bit dangerous for young people and the very old folks.  There is no hand-rail, even though mandated by OSHA, to protect people from tripping and rolling down into severe rapids some times in the spring and not that good in the summer. This is not a place for the physically impaired, particularly those suffering a weakness in balance.

Trail Access Hot Springs

There is a small hot spring on Deadman Canyon coming down into Warm Springs from Bull Trout Lake. There is another about a mile upstream from the end of the road on Tenmile Creek. There are others you probably would have a hard time finding even if I provided directions. Motorcycle riders will find them if they slow down a bit and keep their nose alert for the telltale Sulphur smell.

Hunting and Fishing

The hunting regulations issued by the Idaho Fish and Game pretty well advertise the hunting opportunities.  I haven’t hunted since I was a young man and feel what I get from Albertson’s and other stores suit me best. Usually the elk hang up high until the first 16 inches of snow happens unless they are passing thru from say the Boise River drainage south of Jackson Peak heading to Kirkham Ridge Trail high ridge area north of the SF Payette River drainage.

Fishing out of the SF Payette River used to be out of this world in the 1950s and early 1960s. But the USFS and Idaho Fish and Game got together in about 1954 and aerial sprayed with DDT, having built the Warm Springs Airport for that exact purpose. The DDT washed down and collected in streams and sand bars and made it impossible for the water bugs to survive.  This killed off the winter food supply for fish and the smaller fish couldn’t make it thru the winter and gradually all died off wherever they sprayed.

When I was younger in the 1960s, there were trout flies everywhere in the first weeks of June and millions of hellgrammites in the river and larger creeks. We used to go down to the river in winter with a screen and bar and turn over rocks with the bar and the water bugs would float down and catch on the screen.  In a few minutes you had enough natural bait in winter to catch a ton of whitefish, usually 12-16 inches in length. In early 1960s they dropped the daily limit from 30 to 15 and then it nearly disappeared to what it is now.

Now the Fish and Game Hatchery folks seek job security by only providing sterile fish for stocking the SF Payette River and perhaps other rivers.  When these fish are caught or die of old age, they are gone.  The Lowman Fish Ponds are a poor substitute for “fun fishing”. Proof of all this is provided by areas where they did not spray that are still good fishing but too high up and generally inaccessible to most folks. Younger people ought to formulate a plan and get the water bugs restocked and non-sterile fish stocked even if the Lowman Ponds become a local fish hatchery. The county dump operator could feed the fish and have large ones available for the river in 2 years.  Fish we caught out of the ponds a decade ago and put in private pools and fed with fish flavored dry cat food, grew amazingly fast to 18-inch giants, about as big as this trout species gets under any circumstance.  In the old days, my dad bragged about catching 24-30-inch trout out of the SF Payette River just upstream of the Warm Springs Guard Station where the river is slow and very deep.

There has been a lot of goshawks and other aerial fishing birds develop in the last decades, so the fish are now pretty spooky.  One needs to carefully, quietly approach a stream hole (say below a water buried log) and look for the “hole boss” who may be downstream of the log just watching over his kingdom.  If he sees any movement, you might as well go to another hole and return to that hole on the way out.

My dad and I always fly fished with a long leader and two No.8 hooks.  A royal coachman on the end and a queen of the water about 18 inches up from the end on a 9-inch branch leader so that it danced along the top of the water like a wounded bug. This antagonized the bigger fish and enticed them to give chase.  We always pulled the hooks out away from them on the first two times the fish gave chase so on the third try he was no longer just hungry, but wanted to kill the thing invading his kingdom.

Starting about in early July there are lots of grasshoppers that can be caught easily and they make great bait.  I usually got positioned at a hole and just threw in one grasshopper on the water not on a hook.  That usually brought up the smaller “renegade” fish about 8 inches long, soon to be followed by the hole boss who wanted to take a nip out of his rudder. That let you know what was in the hole and where they were hanging out so as not to awaken them with movement.

Rock Hounding….er…Prospecting?

The Lowman Area has numerous quartz veins that sometimes have nifty crystals. To do the official prospecting routine, one slowly hikes up creeks like Eightmile and Tenmile looking for a fairly large piece of quartz.  If found, you know it came down the creek.  How far, is anyone’s guess.  But as you walk up the main creek you look for a place where there seems to be more quartz and then it suddenly disappears.  That means it came down a draw in that area.  One then starts a hike up the nearest draw and if nothing is found shortly, try a neighboring draw.

While my dad and I probably have been looking for hundreds of hikes over the decades, that doesn’t mean that a specimen rock isn’t still out there.  You are not looking for a mine to develop, just a nifty specimen to put on your coffee table.

There is a place back in the Sawtooth’s above Elk Lake at Smith Falls just east of Benedict Creek and called “The Devil’s Den” that many people have found outstanding specimen. (Lat: 43.968129 Lon: -115.041294) Sometimes huge rocks have rolled down the hill and unfound specimens can sometimes be found on top of the large stone.  This may require finding a small, limby tree and make yourself a ladder with your hatchet. The large stone should have some mineralization showing on the sides before engaging the larger project of getting on top.

There is a nifty smooth huge bedrock section in Benedict Creek just before it enters the SF Payette River above Smith Falls.  Hikers like to slide down it like an entertainment park slide.

Homesteading in Lowman

There are more “square miles of private land” in the McCall/Cascade Area than there are “acres in Lowman”.  In the early 1920s, surveyors were making a living finding and surveying plots for developing homesteads. In order to obtain the homestead, one must “develop the property” which in those days meant bringing irrigation water from nearby creeks out onto otherwise arid, punky granite soil and creating pastures for hay and grain. In those days most people made a living in the woods using horses and having grazing animals.

The USFS tried to compete with the homesteading and essentially tried to shut it down by providing leased forest land at Wapiti Creek, Bear Creek, Kettle Creek and Helen-Dee Creek (named by a miner after his two daughters, Helen and Dee). When I was the USFS Lowman Headquarters Guard, that is what the signs said.

So we ended up with about 1300 acres of private land in a few homesteads.  Two at Lowman where the Southfork Lodge and the old Lowman Inn was at Clear Creek. There was one or two at the current Haven Lodge Area and one small one on the south side of the river accessed thru the Kirkham Hot Spring Bridge.

Archie creek had 160 acres still only about half developed and Five Mile Creek still has most of the 160 acres in that homestead, original made famous by Jack Foster and his sawmill powered by a hydro-electric plant. There were two at Fence Creek made famous by Hoopie Jackson log cabin now owned by descendants of Ray Theis just upstream from MP 80.

There were three homesteads at and above the Sourdough.  The Sourdough homestead was called the “Willis Homestead” and our place was called the “Atkinson Homestead” named for one of the primary surveyors in the area.  I never knew who originally had the Homestead Entry Survey 336 where Elk Run and other properties are now.  It was owned by a lady named Rose Hauck in the 1950s.

Across the river directly was the “Seven Peaks Ranch”, 40 acres with a view of Branson Mtn and the homesteads mentioned above. One can see seven peaks ranging from the west at Miller Mtn to Johnny Barr at Blue Jay Creek. The Ten Ax ranch 160 acres was developed by two brothers Ed and George Casner and Casner Creek is named after them. The owner of the Seven Peaks Ranch had access to large Donkey Engine used cables and the Casner’s built the original cable suspension bridge in the image below. This bridge was strong enough to carry logging trucks, so the USFS built the existing bridge to allow logging over the south side of the river.

The image below is Janet Branson taken by her mother Martha around 1954. Dad used to take all the miners up there in the winter and manually shovel off the snow on the bridge to keep it from breaking down. Now being a structural engineer and remembering the deformation in the planking when crossing with a pickup, I think Lee Winn was right to ford the river with his cattle and truck.

 

 

The Ten Ax had irrigation ditches that came from the east out of Tenmile Creek and out of Richard’s Creek on the west. It also had a fair amount of swamp land on the eastern half of the property.  My dad, myself and Lee Winn used “ditching powder” to drain the swamps in the 1950s. We also helped build the Winn log cabin that is still there.

If one goes up the Tenmile Road to the first bridge that was removed, just upstream 100 feet or so is the ditch originating around the hot spring. Casner’s used hand steel and 4-pound hammers to drill the rock and blast it out for the ditch.  Some of the marks are still there in the stones.

Ever wonder how the Ten Ax got its name? The Casner’s used a No. 10 falling ax to fall a lot of the timber that was where the open pastures are now. Since a crosscut saw usually requires two men, and the brothers worked alone, most of the trees were cut with the No.10 falling ax.  You can find a picture online.

Since the crosscut needs a “bird’s mouth” to make it fall the direction you want, the sawing loses some of its efficiency over an ax.  However, a good axman can cause chips the size of a piece of good pie so the ax does have some advantages.  When my dad and I blasted out most of the stumps for Lee Winn in the 1950s, the trees were cut “ax high” and had an “ax finish” on top. My dad tended to overshoot the dynamite, so some of those stump pieces may still be up in the air somewhere.

Lowman Improvements

In the 1960s Idaho Department of Transportation decided to punch Hiway 21 thru to Stanley and did quite a bit of surveying not only just up Canyon Creek where the Hiway ended up, but also up Trail Creek before the Wilderness existed. My dad did all he could to prevent the Canyon Creek route from going where it went, suggesting they put it where the trail was and avoid most of the big slides. The argument then was that the road would always be summertime use only and so slides were not an issue. Hmmmm….didn’t work out so well, did it? When the Stanley, Challis and Salmon folks got used to having shorter access to Treasure Valley, they wanted it open.

We just about had to go to court to get the last six miles paved from Eightmile Creek down to the Jordan Bridge but finally got it done in the early 1970s.  It made all the difference in the world to the people who lived here and those who traveled from Boise to Stanley and on to Challis.

Idaho Power came in about 1965 and was being encouraged by the Rural Electric Code to put in power to Lowman. When the dingo dudes at Hanging Valley, Wapiti Creek and Sawtooth Lodge refused to take the power, Idaho Power wanted to pull out entirely .  It was a major battle but we won power to where it is now.

A guy named Kermit Wiggins came to Lowman in 1980 looking for places where he could install a microwave transmitter to provide phones to Lowman from Cambridge, Idaho. Fortunately, he ran into Ron Loux who had been on Jackson Peak and knew one could see the radar tracker on Snowbank Mtn, well positioned between Cambridge and Lowman. He found that I had property that could see Jackson Peak so he bought 2.3 acres where the phone company is now. He has done well for us, providing internet service before Garden Valley had it. The microwave shot just barely clears Lightning Creek Ridge so it can have problems in stormy weather, particularly in the winter.

Kermit Wiggins family has continued to serve Lowman well.  We have much better dsl service than Garden Valley. We had cell phone service for a while but perhaps there was community resistance to cell phone towers….something happened.  We should look into it and overcome the resistance and get the cell phone service up to where it should be.  Maybe a petition would be in order.

The next big step for us was six-day mail.  Prior to our petitioning the Regional USPO in Spokane, we only had mail twice a week, delivered only to the Southfork Lodge.  Later with the 1996 flooding, we got mailboxes at our driveway where they are now but still only two days a week. Both the Garden Valley and Boise offices resisted the six-day mail, but the Spokane office found it grossly unfair that Lowman with some 200 households had only two-day mail and Atlanta, Idaho had daily mail for about 35 households. There was only one person who refused to sign the petition.

In 1979 there was only seasonal USFS operations. In order to get the Lowman Schoolhouse activated and bus service for older kids to Garden Valley, it seemed necessary to keep the USFS open year around.  They had the only younger people employed that generally had education age children. Probably there are people now who would like to have me jump in the lake and pull the water in behind me for getting USFS open year around. 😊

The cemetery at the Lowman Church has been a success so far but has a bit of a problem that probably should be resolved. While Bob Haven was pastor, I agreed to give him property for what he thought he needed for a cemetery.  But he moved away and Ian Gee, on my release, let Bruce Lund use his bulldozer to wide out the flattened area where it is now.

But in order to tidy things up and make it all legal, a lot line adjustment filed with Boise County needed to be completed. With Ian being a lawyer, it never occurred to me that it would get set aside. When I sold the property to Sid Ballard, he agreed to leave things stand until the church could file and pay for the lot line adjustment fee, if any, from Boise County. Now that the property has sold again, the church should make some effort to clear things up. I doubt it is that big of issue.  I don’t know if the new buyer even knows the history, but I see no reason for it to be unresolvable.

Probably a few words should be said on behalf of Cliff Rosenbalm who bought the church property from my dad and I in 1964.  He, like Sid Ballard, wanted to have a place near Eightmile Creek where he liked to ride horses, fish and hunt, sometimes clear back to Eightmile Lakes near Red Mtn.  He knew I had been on Red Mtn and he and I cleared trail when I came back from U of Idaho in the summertime and later after I returned from an engineering assignment in California.

Cliff had access to used cables and fenced the property with cables which he simply wrapped around some trees.  That tended to kill off the trees but lasted long enough until his health forced him to let go.  He donated the building and property to the newly forming Lowman Community Church organization and I believe a guy named Joe Holien was the original pastor.

It seems a little unchristian to me that people like Cliff who donated land and a building; Bob Haven for building the new church; and minor players like Hove for maintenance and Ross Fontes for rock work and backhoe work, never seemed to acquire any scribed appreciation for their contribution to the development of the church. In the beginning the church leadership seemed to emphasize dress code and church music more than any church doctrine. Cliff had stipulated, though he Jewish, that the church be non-denominational and that a clear delineation of beliefs be maintained. I doubt that has been fulfilled.

Now that I am not getting around as well, it is time for somebody else to pick up the slack and look after the well-being of Lowman and the elderly people. The Lowman Merc is a very welcome addition to everyone and probably some type of senior citizen organization needs to be formed and programmed with the State of Idaho.

Happy hunting for heaven and beyond.

Jim Branson, Retired Professional Engineering Manager, specializing in Computer Expert Control Programs at metal smelters.