NORTH IDAHO ADVENTURES: Won over by wonder

My plan never included staying in North Idaho.

I was just going to stay with my grandparents for a few days while I “figured stuff out.” After a couple days stretched into a couple weeks, though, I realized I was living in North Idaho.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from my new home. The breadth of my knowledge about what this area had to offer the young and itinerant version of myself ended the moment I left Interstate 90.

I tell people, when they ask, that I ended up in Coeur d’Alene by default.

At 20, I was working long hours on a natural gas pipeline on the Oregon Coast, and I thought I was flush with money.

My best friend Grant, while on vacation with his stepdad in Glacier National Park, had met a girl. He called me from some pay phone on the way home. He wanted to go back and see about this girl from Missoula.

He was broke but had a Jeep. I had money, but my 1985 Dodge Ramcharger has just blown its transmission.

I was easy to convince. We were driving east the next day. We hiked around the Bitterroots and Glacier NP until the money that had supplied us with rice and beans for dinner, along with the occasional trip to the KOA in Missoula to wash our clothes, ran out.

I retreated to my grandparents’ home in Post Falls, and within days had a job as a laborer for a home builder in Coeur d’Alene. I truly hadn’t planned on staying in North Idaho. I was just making some quick cash.

When I had earned enough money, I bought a 1985 half-ton Chevy truck, formerly belonging to the Forest Service, but which now was so worn out that when I would stop for gas I ALSO had to buy four or five quarts of oil to last until the next time I fueled up.

Soon I was doing what I’ve always known how, I explored. I would stare at my Forest Service maps, pick a direction and go.

I was surrounded by North Idaho boys at work and I had repeatedly heard them talk about “heading up the Bunco.” I didn’t want to sound like the new guy in town, so I never asked what the heck they were talking about. Then, while returning from an exploratory trip up north, I happened to see a street sign that read “Bunco Road.” That night I pulled out my maps, and with my finger, traced Bunco Road into the mountains. While searching through the big green space on the map, called the Coeur d’Alene National Forest, I noted a spot called “Bernard Overlook.”

The following weekend I was driving my smoldering Chevy up the Bunco Road through a nasty rain storm, seeking the overlook.

At the age of 20 I thought I was an expert at driving forest roads. I had spent much of my teenage years driving and exploring the Gifford Pinchot National Forest with my buddies, so I thought I knew the worst that a mountain road could throw at me. The road to the overlook put me in my place.

Up until then, I had never been on a worse road in my life. I white-knuckled the steering wheel as I drove past steep drop-offs over a road that was less a gravel road and more a road blasted from the sharp bedrock. I considered turning around several times, but curiosity overrode fear.

I’m not sure how those bald tires ever carried that truck to the overlook, but I eventually spotted a sharp cleft in the ridgeline I had been following.

When the rock and trees gave way, I was astounded by what I saw. The rains had passed and were slipping away toward the north. I stood almost 1,600 feet above the lake, above a slope so steep that I sat regarding the crown of the pine trees only 25 feet in front of me.

I watched the storm proceed to the north over a lake deeply entrenched between mountains as I sat on the tailgate of my truck. I completely forgot about the annoying tingling in my hands caused by blood flowing back into the previously pale digits as I gazed out over Lake Pend Oreille.

This was one of several moments that unintentionally conspired to keep me in North Idaho.

Recently, my wife and I have been returning to the overlook and setting up our hammocks in the trees above the steep drop-off to watch the sunset over the lake. Aside from the boats leaving a V wake across the water far below,, we always seem to have the entire world to ourselves.

Life often begins to speed down the trail, carrying so much forward momentum that everything except what’s directly in front of you becomes a blur and one misstep sends you flailing. In our hammocks, perched above the world we’re able to check our downhill speed, contemplate life, ponder our path.

I have come to know the lake in ways I would never have imagined, but the Bernard Overlook still provides the same feelings of awe that it first did 20 years ago.

Should you decide to take a drive to the overlook, make sure your spare tire is inflated, and you have your tire jack. Pay close attention to all the tire shredding rocks in your path.

Bunco Road begins at Silverwood and switchbacks up to the ridgeline. Once you leave the main road heading for Lakeview, the road is rugged, but the destination is worth it.

Take Bunco Road (FR332) nearly to the ridge. Turn left onto the Forest Road 2707 and continue on roughly 4 1/2 miles, though it seems much longer since you’re likely only going 15 mph.

As you pass above the clearcuts, watch the slopes below, I often see elk browsing there.