If you asked me to define Ketchum in one of those Balderdash word games, I’d go with “an old tribal Indian greeting, spoken in a low, hushed tone, and accompanied by a deferential nod of the head: Ketchum”. Darren’s offering: “a new tasty recipe for ketchup, pronounced ketchyum”. Turns out it was neither of these things. Ketchum is actually a ski resort in southern Idaho and our next destination after Butte.
It was in stark contrast to our Saturday en-route stop at Craters of the Moon National Monument. And what is a national monument anyway? The feds say it’s not good enough to be a national park and the state doesn’t claim it? The only problem I have is that when you think of a monument, you think of a building or some kind of man made structure. Whereas this was a designated protected wilderness. Whatever. Craters of the Moon made for an awesome (if very hot and very dry!) hike, with some cool drone footage.
Back to Ketchum. Quite refreshing to be back in a compact (albeit out-of-season) tourist town after Butte. But actually the best thing was that just a few miles out of town, there was a gorgeous valley with awesome boondocking. Free camping for the week with a truly remote feel, and yet just a 15 minute commute to KetchumWorks, the co-working office. A cool converted bank building, with the main conference room housed in the original bank vault.
I’ll take your 6 feet of social distancing and raise you a few hundred feet.
When you’re out in the countryside, it’s only right to accept you’re a part of nature. That the environment you’re in was there long before you, and will still be there long after you leave. And then, in this peaceful natural environment, you start to hear a rustling in the BaseCamp. So faint you even wonder if you imagined it. You doze back off to sleep…
Fast forward to the next day and there was no longer any doubt in our minds. We had a visitor. A field mouse. But not in the field, in our BaseCamp. Ding ding ding, round one: Hamiltons vs The Mouse. We diligently set out the two humane mousetraps before heading off for work, baited with Nutella. That evening: nothing. Mouse droppings, confirming our suspicions, but no mouse.
Ding ding ding, round two. Up the baiting game with pretzel M&Ms. (I was quite proud of my idea. I mean who can resist those! If you haven’t come across them before, they’re about the same size and shape as a maltezer but with a smartie-like coating). We retired to bed. It wasn’t long before I started to have doubts as to whether pretzel M&Ms were really the ideal baiting solution. They attracted our furry friend for sure. But with his first attempts, he accidentally locked the M&M inside the trap and himself outside. Gave Darren a beseeching look. “Let me in. I can’t get at the good stuff.”
After that, he developed a canny way of extracting said pretzel M&M from the trap, still without him getting inside the trap. He careered around the floor chasing it. Then upped his game to play soccer with it. It was maybe at this point he decided it would be more fun to invite some friends.
Ding ding ding, round three. After two sleepless nights, we were starting to become more concerned for our wellbeing than that of the mouse. Or mice. Bring on the big guns: the proper mouse traps. Ones that the mouse runs onto, gets stuck and can’t run off. We still put the humane traps out so if they played the mousetrap lottery wisely, they’d be good. Other mouse deterrents from my research included Irish Spring soap and tumble dryer sheets. We strategically littered the smellies (in the hope the mice would just leave us in peace – fat chance) and the traps (sorry, not sorry) around the BaseCamp.
What a long night it turned out to be. It started with the scurrying, scampering, and scuffling. Then a faint scraping sound as they danced around the traps. Followed by a bit of M&M football (wait what, had I not learned my lesson?). I was actually relieved when one of them was finally able to make some inroads into an M&M, so it was no longer spherical. More to the point, it was now able to fit under a small gap, lost unto mouse obscurity forever.
I may have forgotten to mention that the mouse hotel and freeway were under my side of the bed. So on top of all the mouse activity, those damn smelly soap bars were using their repellent superpowers on me. In between bouts of trying to sleep, my eyes were streaming and my nose was running. Ever been in a car with a newly opened overpowering air freshener that leaves you gasping for breath? …That!
I could go on. But long story short, FIVE mice. In a night. In a small trailer that comfortably fits two people. Come the morning, we were five mice lighter. Our persistence had paid off. We were exhausted but officially mouse-free. (Don’t count your chickens and all that but for now at least, fingers crossed!).
Going once. Twice. Anyone???
So I realized my blog and my photos for the week don’t really line up. It’s difficult to capture mouse action on camera. So instead, here’s what we DO have photos of.
We made the most of our camping spot with some nice early morning hikes and runs, and warm evenings with BBQs and campfires.
We book-ended our week in Ketchum with some local hikes around Sun Valley and Hailey, Idaho. The first one involved a decent climb of 3,500ft up Bald Mountain for great views of the valley below.
Throughout the week, the air got more and more dense, as the smoky air from the California wildfires made its way across to Idaho. By the end of the week for our walk up Carbonate Mountain, Hailey, well you can see the difference for yourself.
Of course there was a brewery! Two actually.
