Wednesday June 23 Ketchum and Stanley

The hotel was full of early risers, so by 6 am showers were going on and off. The internet worked for a short while and I managed to post a message to inform that I was still alive and well before it crashed again. I was fed up, made myself a coffee and started riding in 38 F.

Riding in that temperature early morning gets very cold.

Here is what I did:

First, I put on long pants under my riding pants. That gives an additionalair layer to insulate the cold. It is even better to use leggings to seal the gap between the boots and pants leg, but I did not have them. The boots are heavy buffalo leather, waterproof and insulated to avoid your feet getting wet or cold. I grease them with mink oil.

The gloves are waterproof synthetic, which insulates better than leather and overlap the cuffs of the jackets, to make a good seal.

Under the helmet I wear a fleece balaclava pulled down over the collar of my sweater and sealed by the collar of the jacket. My hands stay warm on the heated grip and my legs are warmed by the hot air vents of the bike’s engine. In this outfit, I can ride in really cold weather when needed.

It worked very well when I rode over the Teton Pass into Idaho. The three Tetons stood out against a blue sky and I finally learned the history of this peculiar name.

This is not in the brochures, but I found it on in a Visitors Center in Idaho.

Originally, the three mountains were called the Pilot Mountains, but in the time this part of the US still belonged to France, French fur trappers, probably starved for female company, began to see the landscape in a peculiar way and named the mountains “ les Trois Tetons” which of course translates as “ the three (huge) breasts”. I wonder if the guy who adopted the name into English knew he was doing!

The landscape in Idaho was unlike I had expected. I had always thought that Idaho was flat (it is not!) and only grows potatoes (it does but only in a small part of the country, on rich volcanic soil, which is why those potatoes are so good).

Actually the landscape is very diverse. At noon I was riding through a sagebrush landscape in 100 F. I rode to the Craters of the Moon, which is a volcanic landscape of solidified lava (basalt) stretching from Oregon half way across Idaho. It looks very similar to the lava fields in Guatemala, only much bigger.

My plan was to reach Missoula but a ranger in Idaho Falls told me that Ketchum, the place where Hemingway died and lies buried, was not very far.

Being a Hemingway fan, I could not resist and rode the 150 miles to Ketchum. I am glad I did so, because contrary to what I had expected, I found a classy Western mountain resort town, not unlike nice ski resorts in Europe.

Golf courses, ski slopes and beautiful homes are all over!

At the community library I was given a detailed explanation of Hemingway’s life in Ketchum by Sandra, the librarian. The library is a treasure trove of books on Hemingway and even shows a typewriter which may have belonged to Ernest or his wife. And whatever additional question I might have in future, Sandra offered to help me find the answers.

Thank you, Sandra, I really appreciated it!

Unfortunately the Hemingway home is not open for visits, but at least I could visit his gravesite in the Ketchum cemetery.

Sun Valley and Hemingway

Sun Valley was the piece of American landscape that Ernest Hemingway "Papa" loved best of all. It was Hemingway's refuge, where he wrote in the morning and hunted and fished in the afternoons.

The name "Sun Valley" was thought up by a New York PR man who thought the name appropriate for a place that receives 250 days of sunshine a year. This marked the first time a PR agency was guilty of understatement.

Ernest Hemingway's first trip to the Sun Valley area was in 1939. He was one of the many celebrities invited to the new Sun Valley Resort in hopes that fame and publicity would lure tourists. Ernest was given suite #206, where he also stayed on many of his return visits to the area. In this suite he worked on "For Whom the Bells Tolls.” He made many trips to Idaho before establishing residence in the Wood River Valley with his fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway in 1958.

During his years in Idaho he also worked on such novels as "The Dangerous Summer", "A Moveable Feast", "Islands in the Stream" and "The Garden of Eden". He also wrote a short story based on a hunting trip in Sun Valley called "The Shot". In the evenings Hemingway could be found socializing with friends at one of his favorite French restaurants, the Christiania, where he often requested a small table on the southwest side of the dining room. He also spent time at businesses still in operation today such as The Casino, a local tavern; and at star-studded parties that once took place at Trail Creek Cabin, now owned by The Sun Valley Resort Company. His family at one time claimed the MacDonald Cabins (now called the Ketchum Korral) as a local residence.

Decades after Papa Hemingway’s hunting days on Silver Creek (in Picabo, 25 miles south of Sun Valley/Ketchum), his son Jack successfully fought to protect and preserve this natural wildlife refuge. Jack arranged to have the original 479 acres and two miles of stream that make up the pristine reservation sold to the non-profit land-conservation organization, The Nature Conservancy. Today, the Silver Creek Preserve now stands at 8,700 acres and 25 miles of stream, including conservation easements from surrounding neighbors. In addition to the preserve, since 1981 the Nature Conservancy has managed Hemingway’s home in Ketchum. In accordance to Mary Hemingway’s last wishes, the home was willed to the Nature Conservancy and is not open to the public.

In 1961, Hemingway, took his own life in his Ketchum home on the 2nd day of July and is buried in the Ketchum cemetery. Today, many visitors from all over the world, come to Sun Valley to see the beautiful Wood River Valley, which inspired one of the world’s foremost writers. In the Sun Valley Lodge’s hallways pictures of the Hemingway family in Sun Valley and the last letter he wrote before he died are displayed.

In his honor, a memorial with a bronze bust of Ernest Hemingway overlooks Trail Creek for friends, family, and admirers to enjoy. The bust was sculpted by Robert Berks. The memorial was dedicated on July 21, 1966, which would have been Hemingway’s 67th birthday. The plaque reads:

Best of all he loved the fall the leaves yellow on cottonwoods leaves floating on trout streams and above the hills the high blue windless skies …Now he will be a part of them forever.

It was written by Hemingway as a eulogy for a friend, Gene Van Guilder, who was killed in a hunting accident in 1939.

Hemingway lies next to his wife Mary in a small grove of trees, a very simple headstone stating his name and dates of birth and death. I was very moved to stand at the final resting place of one of my favorite writers and heroes.

By now it was late in the afternoon and I rode fast, intending to reach Challis, a small town on the road to Missoula, Montana. But I did not make it. The highway was so beautiful, I had to stop and take pictures. It looked just like Switserland, when riding through the Ticino.

So in the end I stayed in Stanley, in the Mountain Village on the salmon river, as a colleague of Sandra had advised me.

It is a very small town, with a log cabin hotel and saloon, and quite nice. The bar was full of trout fishermen who come here to fish the Salmon river. There is also a lot of rafting on the river.

I did not like the saloon, so I had a clam chowder and a beer of the Snake River Brewery but I forgot the name!

My room was very nice, but what do you know, no internet again. This time I was sure my computer has a problem.

Jean, the Riding Dutchman