How Brown is My Valley

This morning I took a walk through the ponderosas that line the shores of Lake Payette here in McCall. The trails were blanketed with just enough snow to provide a delightful soundtrack of crunch, crunch, crunch. Various tracks dotted the white and I tried to determine which were dogs' and which were from foxes, having seen a fox trotting along the side of the main road through town in mid-morning a couple of days ago. I walked to a beach along the lake, the snow giving way to sand. Lake Payette is a beautiful setting for this mountain town. Across the lake from town Brundage Mountain ski resort stands tall, the visible ski runs beginning to collect snow. It's no wonder that McCall has become a resort destination.

Our drive up here from Twin Falls was yet another gorgeous drive. I don't think there's a person out there that wouldn't be sold on the West of this country after driving through it. That being said, the drive from Twin Falls to Boise was about as exciting as watching grass grow, brown grass that is. We did stop at Shoshone Falls on our way out of town, one of the spectacular cascades that gives Twin Falls its name. Nicknamed the Niagra of the west by early visitors, Shoshone Falls spills 212 feet over the rugged cliffs of the Snake River canyon. For such a natural wonder, it takes on such a humble appearance, dwarfed by the surrounding canyon.

After lunch in Boise, where unfortunately the Statehouse was closed for renovation, we headed north. As the road rose before us, we chugged up the foothills and reached the rim of a spectacular valley. It was what I imagined a brown Switzerland to look like. Steep hills bordering a small town with larger mountains standing on the horizon as if a sneak preview of things to come.

We entered the valley and soon began climbing along the Payette River. The riverbed stair-stepping down the valley, the water hurtling violently down at times, nimbly dancing along the rocks at others. We were listening to David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day, a delightful accompaniment to the drive. His humor and misery the literary equivalent of the river's water and stone. Mallory then switched to dime-a-dozen country, which matched perfectly with the golden autumn grass lining the grey river rocks. The match-up ended there however, as the all-American twang seemed to clash with the pines and firs of the looming canyon walls, too claustrophobic for music that demands wide open spaces. It amazes me how landscapes can perfectly compliment music, each landscape providing the right backdrop for only certain artists and genres. I don't know if this is due to my own conditioned preconceptions of the music, i.e. where I was and when it was the first time I heard it, or something inherent about the music itself. Whatever the reason, the connection is strong.

Arriving in town, I struggled to get a sense of the place. As with any small town, there's the Napa auto parts store, the grocery, and the local movie rental shop. But there are also monstrous vacation homes, luxury resorts, plenty of restaurants, and a Sotheby's international realty office. I heard it compared to the Sun Valley of twenty years ago and though I have no idea what that exactly means, I think I get it. You can see that McCall has been existing as a resort town for a long time, but there's a feeling that the seams are about to burst and will soon need some re-stitching. By that time, however, I'll be long gone.