Sometime a couple generations ago my friend Melissa’s family built a cabin outside the fledging town of Grand Jean.  A generation later the cabin was fit with propane powered appliances and remains unelectrical.  This summer Melissa has stayed there proudly as one of the seven or so residents of Grand Jean proper, working in several faculties at the lodge there.  She invited us to stay for a couple days, and we divided our time between campfire jams and soaks in the nearby hotsprings.  There were awesome shooting stars each night, the first one of the week was enormous, and it’s tail hung sizzling forever.  The second day Melissa and Brian were in Stanley on a supply run and ran into the Freepeoples (who played the festival a couple nights prior) and invited them up to the cabin to stay.  They arrived a bit later with great energy, a battery-powered bass amp, and a bag full of percussive toys, and, collectively, a few decades worth of stories about being professional musicians in the Bay area and SoCal.  We jammed around the fire, cooked ears of corns and breasts of chickens over the fire, circled up in the darkness of the driveway and played hand drums while Melissa spun fire– channeling Polynesian ancestry magnificently– and even got to try out a couple new spinning-toys she just got.  Lots of soaking, a couple trips to the lodge for burgers and huckleberry shakes, and a stop at Kirkham Hotsprings on the drive back for one last earth-warmed shower to wash the mountain off us before returning to the city.

by Jesse Shell

Caleb is good at not sleeping.  Caleb is great at making sure others don’t sleep more than a few hours.  It felt like I’d slept for all of 21 minutes, but apparently it was long enough to miss the chance to take a ride in Joel’s light plane.  Luckily Hawk and Will didn’t make that mistake and flew right into the S.Teeth, pulling crazy manuevers like buzzing cars and skidding the plane’s tires on the river; Will even made his first solo landing!  We grubbed pizza and headed to the White Clouds Rafting Co. to float the day stretch of the Salmon River with the other bands that played the festival.  I wasn’t sure what to expect with that many musicians from all across the country at the same place and time without instruments in their hands, but was soon comforted when clothing was shed and crowd surfing ensued on the bus ride to the put-in.  On the water piracy ruled: attacks were carried out with stealth or intimidation to steal another boats beer or whiskey.  We stopped to jump off an old steel bridge momentarily before promptly resuming vicious rounds of paddle-splash fights.  Back in Stanley we devoured a mexican buffet that was provided for the spent paddlers, then we drove down to Grand Jean on the western slopes of the Sawtooths to stay and hotspring at our friend Melissa’s cabin.

by Jesse Shell