#1: [29-Jan-00]

12-May-2024 -- As before this week it had been nearly 2 months since my last confluence visit, and as I had only one point within several hundred miles of this location, and since I was in the area for the Intermountain GIS conference, one school visit, one university visit, and one community college visit for the purposes of promoting and supporting geotechnologies in education and society, a conference visit seemed like the perfect ending point to this week. My goal was to end the week like I started: At a confluence point. Earlier this week I visited 48° north latitude 117° west longitude. Today, the professional development that I taught for K through 12 teachers came to an end in late afternoon. As it was May and we were at a fairly high latitude, I still had plenty of daylight to try to make the attempt to 47° north 117° west. Such an attempt had the added benefit of getting this geographer to the Palouse region. This is a beautiful and very productive agricultural region and we frequently teach all about it in physical geography courses. I have always wanted to see it, and now was my opportunity. Tomorrow I would leave the region and may never have another chance.

Most confluence points are either easier or harder than I first anticipate; a few prove exactly what I anticipated beforehand. This one proved to be more difficult for several reasons. I left the south Spokane area, climbing out of the trees, and into the Palouse region. It was as beautiful as I imagined. Why was the visit more difficult than I had anticipated? First, the road to the confluence was quite winding, but the main challenge was that I had no internet connection and no maps for quite a bit of time leading up to arriving in the vicinity of the point. I did not bring any paper maps with me, sadly (I can hear my geographer friends chastising me as I write this). I was navigating via dead reckoning for about 20 minutes until my phone reconnected. In the past 20 years, I’ve never had such a long stretch where I had no maps digitally. By the time my maps appeared, I was almost at the Idaho Washington border. Second, my plan was to approach the point from the west and hike along the edge of the field so I would avoid trampling on any plants. This proved to be a good plan, but upon arrival, I could see that slope was much much deeper than I had anticipated, and I had neglected to look at a 3-D map: I had only looked at the 2-D view. Yes, physical geography matters!

But, bracing myself, and gazing upward at the mountain I needed to climb, I crossed a small ditch, got a bit of a wet foot, but pressed on for about five minutes when I realized that I had neglected to bring my phone. I retraced my steps back to the vehicle, and set off once more. The slope was indeed steep, but I knew that the view would be spectacular. And after about 15 minutes I was rewarded with an amazing view as a rounded the knoll. The view was particularly amazing to the east, south, and west. In fact, to the west, I could see the butte not far away that marked the Idaho Washington border. The border was supposed to be along 117 West but it is close, and amazing to realize how close those surveyors came in the 1800s. The only blocked view was the higher ground that was covered in beautiful spruce and pines off to the north. I descended the knoll diagonally and skirted the field to the south. I then followed one of the fairly common vehicle tracks that I had noticed in the area, as I dove into the vicinity of the confluence. I am not quite sure what the purpose of these vehicle traverses was, because they were clearly vehicles that had driven onto the wheat, after it had been planted: Sometime in the last few days. By following one of these tracks, I hoped to avoid trampling on any stalks. The plants were about calf height, but up to my knees in places.

I was going to call it "good enough" as I got closer to 100 m while still on one of the vehicle tracks. But, I had come such a long ways to get here, and thus I set off the last 80 m to zero out the unit. Dear landowner: I wish I could say that no plant was harmed during my walk on your beautiful landscape. But I hoped that I kept it to a minimum and of the nearly hour and a half walk, the last bit was only 80 m or so. I hope that wasn’t causing any more flattening than a moose or a deer walking in that area. I really did my utmost to step gingerly and on the soil rather than on the plants.

It was early evening, late spring, with the temperature around 65° F under modest winds. A few scattered clouds were drifting. The land use here is largely farming; not even very much ranching. The land cover is grasslands turned to fields with evergreens on the higher slopes. The confluence lies on the eastern edge of the Palouse. Just a short distance to the east of these fields, one sees many more trees. You can see how different this site looks in May vs. the winter from the visit logged 24 years ago.

I was able to zero out the unit: The confluence is on about a 20° slope sloping off to the west. The view to the east is therefore a bit occluded. But all in all after 25 years of confluence, seeking and over 400 points, I would have to place the view from here in the top 5% of all of the confluence points I have ever visited around the world. It is just absolutely spectacular with the fields, the rolling hills, the mountains in the distance. I really hated to leave but the sun was getting low after the west and after about 10 minutes on site, I walked out the way I came. I reflected that I have stood on 47° north latitude several times, from Montana to Minnesota. I have also stood on 117° west longitude several times as well, from southern Idaho down to California. I now have a decent number of points in Idaho, although there are many more than I have yet to obtain. I doubt I will visit them all; some require hours or even more than a day to reach some mountainous rugged areas. I took photographs and posted my video here, entitled 47 North 117 West.

I hiked out the way I had come in, without mishap or twisting anything, again skirting field edges to avoid tramping on anything. Then I drove north and then east over the ridge. It probably is shorter to approach the point from the north-northeast; if you go this way, you would need to talk with homeowners with houses up there and secure permission. I then headed north and northeast to Coeur d'Alene. It was a great day and a fantastic hike. Get out and explore!