Changes

The only constant in life is change. ~Heraclitus

I was away from Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains for 3.5 years. I’m so lucky to be back in the place that, as no other, feels like home.

Yet as much as I feel I’ve returned to familiar ground, I’m continually surprised by how much has changed in that brief span of time.

Growth and increased tourism after pandemic restrictions ended explain most of it. More people. More new construction of homes and businesses, especially commercial storage for boats and RVs belonging to all the part-time residents who rent out their homes to tourists when they’re not using them. The number of year-round residents hasn’t increased as much as tourists taking advantage of the abundance of short-term rentals: 1,012 vacation rentals in a town with a year-round population of approximately 3,847 (within a range of 3,100 per the City of McCall website to 4,296 from the World Population Review report for 2025). Whatever the actual population number, it more than triples during peak seasons and holidays.

Resort towns everywhere struggle with this dynamic. Businesses depend on tourism, but locals with regular jobs get priced out of the housing market because existing and new homes are investments, rented as Airbnbs.

Maybe I had to be away so long to really see it; maybe I wouldn’t be so stunned had I stayed and watched the growth arrive incrementally.

No, that’s not true. I would still be alarmed and annoyed.

For all the decades I lived in the greater Seattle area (from birth in the mid-50s through 2005), I watched fast-paced growth throughout the region. So much growth that ultimately I couldn’t abide living there anymore. The traffic was horrible, more people and vehicles added without commensurate expansion of roads and infrastructure. And constant noise: cars and buses; boats and jet skis; leaf blowers/lawn mowers; close-in neighbors; fire, police and ambulance sirens; crowds in public venues, especially on the limited number of forest trails.

Moving to Idaho’s mountains in 2005 was my escape from all that.

Twenty years on, many of those Seattle headaches, albeit on a smaller scale, have arrived in McCall. As I used to say about Seattle, McCall is being loved to death.

Ah, but here at least I still have my beloved Payette National Forest. I know its trails, its streams, its wildflowers and wildlife, and its quiet places well enough to avoid the ever-increasing hordes of UTVs and their loud engines. I find it ironic that so many people today consider driving UTVs fast in the forest to be “getting out in nature,” maybe because most are open to the weather (no doors), but the engines are so loud (think, gas-powered lawn mower loud) they wear ear protection. They rarely stop except to target shoot, or pee.

As a nation, I fear we’ve forgotten the concept of moving under our own power, at a slow and thoughtful pace, absorbing the awe and wonder of nature. Instead, so many rely on the speed of engines whisking them through a landscape they neither hear nor smell and barely see.

Clearly, I’m getting old and cranky.

A bend in the road is not the end of the road … Unless you fail to make the turn. ~Helen Keller

All these thoughts filled my mind as Chann and I went to the nearby ski resort this morning for a trail run. I’ve recently been able to run again, mostly free of pain thanks to another epidural steroid injection to my wonky sacroiliac joint. Brundage was always my favored place to regularly run trails with my dogs, especially while the wildflowers are blooming, and I’ve been eager to return. I missed peak wildflower bloom this summer, but just being out there with Chann is a balm for my soul. I wished Conall were with us, but our planned route was farther and steeper than his weak knees allow.

One shock I received the first time I went to Brundage this spring, before their lift-assisted mountain biking season opened, was the construction of multi-million dollar homes near the resort’s base. When I left in 2021, they had just started clearing and marking lots, so the large homes did not surprise me as much as their location: right where a FS service road runs up the north side of the resort. The resort map still shows that road as open, but in reality it’s nearly obliterated for the brief span that travels through the new “neighborhood.” That FS road has always been my shortcut to the upper trails.

And even worse, at the base there are now signs saying No dogs on various trails. That’s a tremendous change; they didn’t exist before. The resort website is a little more generous, saying dogs must be on leash at all times and only on certain trails. That makes sense for when the resort is open for mountain biking (Wednesday-Sunday), but what about Monday and Tuesday when it’s closed?

Today (a Monday) was the second time I had taken Chann up there since being back in Idaho, and the second time I felt like a criminal just trying to access the FS service road to some upper trails. It made me sad, even mad, that management’s approach and tone had changed so drastically in the time I was away. Locals always felt welcome to hike and walk with their dogs at the resort, especially on non-operating days. Now, it seemed the resort was being run by dog Nazis.

I kept Chann on leash near the new construction. At one point we cut up through a meadow (a downhill ski route in winter) to avoid the work going on there. Once above the new neighborhood, things looked more like they always had. Chann and I continued up the mountain, me working way harder than in the past because I’m so out of shape. (Chronic pain that keeps one from running much at all for three years will do that to an old-ish person.)

Before long, a resort pickup approached from above us, driving down the service road. I waved and asked the driver to stop.

“Hi!” I said. “Can I ask you some questions?”

“Sure,” the man said. He looked about 40, lean, with a tanned face, brown hair and eyes, and easy on my eyes. He was alone in the pickup.

I briefly explained I’d been away for four years, but before leaving, had spent 15 years running the resort’s trails with my dogs.

“Where did you go?” he asked, interested, which surprised me but also assured me he was friendly and happy to talk. He would not shoo me off the mountain.

“Vermont,” I replied.

“Oh.” He seemed genuinely surprised. I offered my shorthand version of why. “I moved during the pandemic when I didn’t think I could afford to stay here. But I didn’t like Vermont. When my circumstances improved, I came back.” He nodded in understanding.

“Are you the trail boss?” I asked.

He smiled. “Yeah, I’m the trail manager. I’m Carl.”

Perfect. The exact person I wanted to quiz.

“All the signs saying No Dogs are new,” I said. “I get they don’t want dogs on the trails when mountain bikers are paying to ride here, but what about days when the resort isn’t operating? Is it okay for my dog and me to be out here then?”

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” he responded. He smiled wryly, then quickly added, “I won’t kick you off the trails. You’re fine when the resort is closed. I think mostly they want to keep hikers from going uphill on downhill-biking-only trails, and dogs away from the lodge and lower trails.” I knew this wasn’t strictly true, since the resort website notes some of the lower trails as open to hikers with dogs on-leash, even during operating hours, but this wasn’t the time or place to quibble.

“Oh good,” I said, relieved. “This has always been a sort of sacred place for me and my dogs.” I told him I was going to do Grouse Trail. He said that was a good choice, that no one ever goes out there. I nodded and said, “Yes. It’s one reason I like it. That, and there’s usually water running in a small stream all summer, which is good for him,” I added, pointing at Chann.

“In years past,” I offered, “I used to let the trail managers know when I saw a downed tree across a trail.”

His eyes lit up. “That would be great, especially if you can pin the location with GPS coordinates on a Google map. I’m heading over to the other side of the mountain to pick up a crew right now. We heard there was a widowmaker on Grouse.”

I thanked Carl for his time and information. He continued driving slowly down the service road while Chann and continued our climb, me feeling far more at ease than when we started but still huffing from exertion. I can only get stronger by struggling and persevering.

Within a couple minutes we reached the girls’ lower cairn, built after they died in 2013. On my first visit here earlier this summer, I placed some of Finn’s ashes below the stones.

“Hi girls and Finn! I love you. I miss you. I thank you. See you again soon,” I said, offering my usual words of honor. One of the major joys of returning to this forest is being able to visit these memorial cairns, to find them still standing, to talk to my departed dogs. When I moved to Vermont, it broke my heart to think I’d never see the cairns again. Funny, the twists and surprises that come in one’s life journey.

I reflected on how happy I was to meet Carl, to realize he’s carrying on the tradition of the two earlier resort trail managers I knew. They and their crews see a gray-haired woman with a friendly fluffy dog and offer encouragement rather than say, “Don’t.”

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. ~Stephen Hawking

Brundage was a small-town, family-owned resort for decades. I first skied here in the mid-80s, and loved it for not being fancy, like Aspen or Vail. That changed in 2020 when the family sold to a group of eight “Idaho-based families,” forming an LLC. Almost immediately, the atmosphere changed. They made public plans to expand the base facilities and sell lots for homes and condos. I knew the overall vibe would change, but I was still shocked to return this year and see just how much. After people occupy those new homes and builders construct more, it will change even more, adding restrictions to access. Which is troubling to me, because the skiing and mountain biking trails are on FS land, leased to the resort. The only land the resort owns is around the base, where lots are being sold and developed. The FS allows the resort to make rules regarding use, which I understand because the resort is on the line legally for any mishaps, but still. It’s public land, yet the public is slowly being pushed out so the resort owners can maximize profits and restrict use. It’s disheartening to see how far the resort has strayed from its roots in just five years. But… it is what it is.

Maybe it’s a good thing I’m aging. And slowing. Maybe soon I’ll have to stop running altogether and won’t notice the lack of easy access to these summer trails as much as I do now. But surely I’m not the only local who is feeling the pinch, noticing the shift from free access for everyone and their dogs to paying customers and wealthy landowners only, no dogs allowed.

As Chann and I were close to finishing the Grouse loop, he dashed ahead to introduce himself to a couple of hikers and their two dogs. They were the only others we’d seen all morning (except for Carl). The timing was fortuitous. As I drove to the resort this morning, I intended to park north of the resort parking area where there’s a short FS road providing access to the lower portion of the Grouse loop. But there was already a vehicle parked there. Unsure of the length of that service road, or who might have parked there and why, I muttered a “Fuck it” and retreated to the resort’s main lot. Which was, it turned out, a good thing because it allowed me to meet Carl. But I admitted to myself I’ve probably been watching too many old episodes of Dateline when leg pain and/or insomnia keep me awake at night. I let my imagination get the better of me, spooking me away from parking next to an unknown vehicle at the base of an unfamiliar FS road.

The couple were just starting back down that short FS road. I was pretty sure they belonged to the vehicle I’d seen there earlier. They had two Aussies, one of which came flying toward me to say hello, big grin on her face, reminding me of Finn and how fast he could once run as a young dog. Finn loved running these trails. In fact, Chann is the fifth dog I’ve brought running here. First, Maia and Meadow, who gave me the courage to explore, then Finn, and most recently Conall.

I called out a hello to the couple. “Are you guys parked at the bottom of that road?” I asked. They said they were. “How far from here to where you’re parked?” I was curious. I’d been on the road once before, many years ago in an ATV with the resort’s trail boss mapping out a route for the Tails on Trails trail race I put together to raise money for the local animal shelter. My hazy memory was that it was a couple of miles.

“Oh, just minutes,” the woman said. “Not far at all.”

I didn’t press for more info; I can look on a map. But they confirmed that, like me, they just wanted to enjoy the trails with their dogs. “I know!” I said. “I feel like a criminal when I start from the resort parking lot with all the No Dogs signs.” They agreed and said that’s why they parked where they did. I thanked them for the info and resolved that from now on, that’s where I’ll park. I won’t let my imagination scare me into thinking a nefarious person is there just because another car is already parked there.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it. ~W. C. Fields

Adaptation is a strength, and in my experience, the key to happiness. Change happens. I can’t stop it, control it, or even slow it. But I can work around the changes I encounter, adapt, make lemonade from the lemons, and still enjoy the spaces I love and need for as long as my aging body will allow it.

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. ~Dr. Seuss

Feature photo: Chann standing next to the aspen grove where I built the girls’ lower cairn back in 2013. It’s now home to Finn’s ashes as well.