STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Leona Rice was 7 when her mother made her promise that she would see a total solar eclipse. She’d seen one and she wanted the same for her daughter.
Rice obeyed well.
She has traveled to the sites of six total solar eclipses, including one in the ABC Islands. And now she’s in Sun Valley for what she’s hoping will be her seventh.
“You’re about to observe a spectacularly jaw dropping experience. There’s only one problem. It’s addicting,” she said. “I even told my family that if they didn’t come with me to this one they were out of my will.”
Rice is an umbraphile—someone who chases the moon’s shadow or umbra on the earth. She’s got a long way to catch up to the chief umbraphiles—those two men have seen 33 total solar eclipses.
But, she says, chasing eclipses has opened the door to all kinds of adventures. Following the first in Maui, which was rained out, she ventured to the Atacama Desert in Peru where the bus was stopped by people who claimed to be government officials, insisting that everyone pony up an additional $100 if they wanted to continue to the viewing position.
In Zambia she saw the eclipse amidst the specter of armed guards in a strife-torn country. And, Leona said, she was fortunate to be on a cruise ship when watching eclipses in the Greek Isles and New Caledonia, as the ships were able to move to a different location when clouds threatened the view.
“I hope to see my next one on Easter Island in 2019,” Rice said.
According to NASA officials, hundreds of thousands of visitors were expected to flock to Idaho to see the 2017 All-American Total Solar Eclipse.
But the gridlock that officials had predicted had not arrived in the Wood River Valley—or even Stanley—by Saturday evening.
Ketchum and Sun Valley were—maybe—as busy as Christmas.
“I expected the highway going through Bellevue to be a parking lot. But I got to Sun Valley faster than I’ve ever done before,” said Twin Falls Times-News photographer Drew Nash, who came up from Twin Falls Sunday afternoon.
Stanley and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area were quieter than anticipated, said Bobbi Filbert, information officer for the SNRA.
That said, the Forest Service did close Iron Creek Road and its trailhead for the popular Sawtooth Lake and other destinations as those areas reached capacity. It will likely remain closed through today—Aug. 21, said Kirk Flannigan, area ranger for the SNRA.
And cars were turned away from Redfish Lake Sunday afternoon because there was no place to park. Filbert said cars would be let in as space became available.
The parking at Petit Lake was full, with 60 cars counted. And trailheads in the East Fork of the Salmon River area were full.
“Campgrounds are full, but there is dispersed camping available at Stanley Lake, and there‘s plenty of room for camping at the south end of the valley,” said Filbert.
The Forest Service has set up free viewing sites at Baker Creek and Silver Creek on the Wood River side of Galena Summit and at Elk Meadows, Valley Road and Cabin Creek on the Salmon river side.
For more information, call the Stanley Ranger Station at 208-774-3000 or the SNRA headquarters at 208-727-5000.
The eclipse has brought a lot of Europeans, Japanese, and people from Australia, New Zealand, even Latvia to Stanley.
They were shaken Friday by a plume of smoke from a fire burning in the Frank Church Wilderness area but it set laid down by Saturday morning. Smoke from a fire near Sisters, Ore., socked in the valley Saturday but was gone Sunday.
The Cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley augmented their original five Porta Potties with 25 more at Festival Meadows in preparation for today’s big Solar Eclipse Viewing Party.
About a dozen RVs have taken up residence in Solartown, a makeshift campground Sun Valley Resort created a River Run.
And nearly a hundred hkers and mountain bikers—from Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah, Nevada and even Alaska—made their way around Chocolate Gulch trail during a two-hour period Sunday afternoon.
While numbers haven’t been astronomical, the visitors have pumped up business in town in a week retailers and restaurateurs normally see business dip as kids head back to school.
If--heaven forbid--Rice doesn’t see the total solar eclipse today, she has enjoyed looking up at Sun Valley’s night sky.
“Looking up at the sky used to be our source of entertainment growing up near Tucson,” she said. “Now, there’s so few places left. But last night I looked at the sky and it was magnificent—I could see the stars, the Milky Way. Now, hopefully, the total solar eclipse.”