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s t a n l e y • F a i r f i e l d • S h o sh o n e • P i c a b o
Bike to Work and School brings over 300 participants
Vintage Candy Drop reenacted, Thursday
read about it on PaGe 4
Page 3
Kane reviews Redford’s new box office hit Page 10
Szabo reflects on Nature’s Talk Page 13
M a y 2 5 , 2 0 1 1 • Vo l . 4 • N o . 2 1 • w w w.T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
See a related story on Armory Opening, Page 6
Snowpack limits campground use By KAREN BOSSICK
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hose who tie their camping season to Memorial Day weekend will have to think twice this year. There’s still three to four feet of snow atop Galena Summit. Redfish Lake has snow along the lake bank, although only patches of snow on the flats. And even the Harriman Trail can still be skied in some spots due to lingering snow. Recreationists planning on visiting the Sawtooth National Forest over the Memorial Day weekend will find that there are a limited number of campgrounds available for the holiday, according to SNF Public Affairs Officer Julie Thomas. Due to the lingering snowpack, many roads and trails will be also closed. Visitors to the Sawtooth National Forest are encouraged to bring their own drinking water and be prepared to haul their trash back home. Most of the Forest roads and trails, including Baker Creek Road, remain snow covered, wet and soft. Visitors are asked to avoid driving or riding on muddy roads and trails to avoid damaging the running surface. Even the road into Boundary Creek—the access for Middle Fork of the Salmon River rafters—still sports a couple of feet of snow. The following is a summary of major recreation areas.
Minidoka Ranger District South Hills: Schipper and Steer Basin campgrounds are open depending on water levels in Rock Creek. All dispersed sites in lower Rock Creek Canyon are closed due to flooding; Bear Gulch Campground is open; Porcupine Springs, Diamondfield Jack, Pettit, and Upper and Lower Penstemon are not open due to snow and wet conditions; significant snow remains at higher elevations and on northern slopes; roads are snow-covered and muddy. Sublett: Sublett Campground is open – no fees or water; Mill Flat is open – no fees or water Raft River (Northern Utah): Clear Creek Campground and dispersed campground sites upstream from Clear Creek are open. No fees, no water. One Mile Summit is not open, and trails remain closed. Albion: All developed campgrounds and trailheads are closed due to large snowdrifts. The road to the top of Mt. Harrison is not open beyond the Pomerelle Ski Area. Current road and trail conditions can be obtained by calling the Minidoka Ranger District at 208-678-0430.
Ketchum Ranger District Boundary Campground is open: Full services are available at Boundary Campground and fees will be charged.
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Ralph Harris painted wives and children into the mural to show the personal impact of the National Guard.
Harris adds life to Armory Photos & Story By KAREN BOSSICK
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he paintbrush has proven mightier than the sword for Ralph Harris. Over the years he has created 21 paintings which are on permanent display at the Pentagon, Air Force Academy, Air Force Museum and Air and Space Museum Detail, painting in details that make his paintings as educational as they are beautiful. Now he has yet another mural to his credit—one depicting the evolution of the citizen soldier in this country from the time of the American Revolution to the present-day National Guard The mural, which stretches across the west wall of the National Guard Armory in Hailey, will be unveiled during the Armory’s grand reopening ceremony Saturday. Harris is a fourth-generation Wood River Valley native in a family with a rich history of serving in the armed forces. For instance, his 91-year-old uncle Eusebio Arriaga, the first non-Austrian to teach skiing at Sun Valley, was an Air Force pilot in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Harris grew up illustrating deer and other wildlife around him, despite there being no art classes at school. After graduating from the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles in 1964, he joined the Marine Corps Air Reserve as a photo-journalist and staff artist, painting corrections on a military diorama at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station. He counts a portrait of test pilot Chuck
Yeager among his favorites. “I had not a clue that my life would go that route. I thought I would be another Norman Rockwell-type painting for ‘Ladies Home Journal’ and living in a big city like New York that I detested. But the military gave me a chance to be an illustrator at a time when the illustrator’s art is fading away.” Upon returning to Sun Valley in 1967, Harris became a ski instructor and began illustrating covers and ski technique articles for “Ski” and “Skiing” magazines. He painted portraits of rodeo cowboys like Dean Oliver and Ty Murray for the Snake River Stampede. He painted 11 conservation stamps for the Idaho Fish and Game Department. And he created posters for Ketchum Wagon Days, Jackson Hole’s Old West Days Rendezvous and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area’s 20th, 25th and 30th anniversaries. When the centennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition rolled around, he stepped outside of his paintings to don the pantaloons and army coat of Meriwether Lewis as he reenacted Lewis’ journey in a keelboat through Iowa and took Sun Valley audiences on a Corps of Discovery journey. “It all started when I went to paint a black powder stamp. I went back to the Smithsonian to research and learned that I had to know Lewis and Clark,” Harris recalled. “I became so enthralled I bought Lewis and Clark’s journals. From them I learned how much wildlife was here
before the Europeans moved West. Tens of thousands of bison, antelope--even grizzlies in North Dakota. Oh, what we’ve lost!” Harris outlined the picture of the mural on the Armory wall, using his wife Jacqui’s ’s grandfather as a model for the World War I soldier, with Ace bandages around his legs and a gas mask. Staff Sgt. Ulysses Mittelstadt, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the armory, and his family served as models for the modern-day soldier. Harris used Wood River High School basketball player Juliana Herrera, who plans to head to boot camp following graduation, depicting her with a National Guard basketball in her hand. He also included a representative of the 10th Mountain Division wearing skis and a hoodie since so many 10th Mountain Division soldiers, including his great granduncle Frank Unamuno, learned to ski at Sun Valley. He then invited community members, including cheerleaders and Wood River High School Art Academy students, to paint between the lines in paint-by-number fashion just as he had had onlookers help him with the mural on the side of the Blaine County Historical Museum. Former Hailey Chamber head Jim Spinelli, who has been watching the mural from its inception, said the mural is unlike anything found in any of the other Idaho armories. “I told the kids who are helping with the painting: That mural is going to be up there longer than all of us. So you’re having a part in making history,” he added. tws