Time to Get Real

It was still 12 miles to Ketchum but on rail trail at least. Ketchum is a wealthy ski town-- celebrities have a fourth house in town so they can ski with the stars in the winter. We passed the airport and there were at least a dozen private jets waiting to take off. We found me some sun protection at the bike shop and then I passed out in a park for like two hours while Travis did homework. We found a campsite eight miles outside of town and set me up for a real rest day.

I dozed and rested the next day while Travis radically re-planned our route. We have to be honest-- this route is kicking our butts. We don't have the right bikes, and Idaho is rough country. It is very very steep and very very hot. We had big dreams of riding as much of the 550 mile route as we could in two weeks, but it just wouldn't be fun. So we decided to take our time in the Sawtooth Mountains, ditch our gear and ride single track during the day, and enjoy what we can out here without getting so tired I get sick.

Travis rode single track back into Ketchum to resupply, and enjoyed Idaho's official mountain biking system, which includes downloadable gps files (what?) and mileage and difficulty keys (gasp). He bought some ultralight camping essentials (new binoculars) and wanted to point out that customer service in a rich town is impeccable. We were resupplied with plenty of food and ready to spend the next few days riding in the Sawtooth Mountains.

Short Stay in Hailey

Good news everyone! Still no signs of giardia. Bad news-- I might have made myself sick with exhaustion.

Before reaching Hailey we messaged the only host listed on Warmshowers.org just several hours before arriving, asking if we could camp in his yard. Amazingly, Seth replied and said yes! He even left his door open, and left clean towels in the bathroom. Warm Showers is incredible. People are very trusting and generous, but really I think it's bike tourists are so tired by the time the arrive there's very little energy left to destroy someone's house. I mean what kind of damage could I do???

We set up in Seth's backyard. He and his family really took the food not lawns thing to heart, because the only yard space he had left was a concrete pad. They had the kind of garden Floridians and Southerners in general only dream about-- black soil, no weeds, no bugs. I always start to think, "Man this cute western town might be a nice place to live," but then Travis told me that the last frost was June 10.

Seth offered us some beers, but I was so pooped I had to go to bed. Travis gabbed for another hour or so, he is such a freak and still had energy. He told me later he was kinda into the brutality of the day's ride. I was thinking about it and if I hadn't insisted that we change our route and stop for lunch we just would have kept going in the sun f o r e v e r. WTH TRAVIS. Anyway it was the Fourth of July so there were fireworks till after midnight and I slept horribly, and when I woke up I felt awful. Terrible headache, body aches, sooooooooo tired. Travis has really taken charge this trip and he let me rest while he packed up everything and even took more gear. Because we still had to ride 30 miles to our next campsite!!

And We Thought the Sunshine State Was Sunny

Morning started at the reservoir, and though we've packed way less stuff this trip it still takes a long time to get started in the morning. I swear the sun rises quicker here. First thing on the agenda was a thousand foot climb on pavement out of the river valley, just to wet our whistles.

The guy at the Featherville Cafe who gave us this rerouted told us that we would be traveling through high desert and there was nothing he could do about it. WOW he was right.

He also said there would be water the whole way, and with the exception of some cow creeks he was wrong about that.

Travis really wanted to stay on the off-road route, which would bypass the only town we would pass that day. There had been zero shade. I was almost out of water. I decided we needed to ride on the highway for a bit to make it to Fairfield.

Omg what would we have done if the Fairfield Country Store had been closed for the 4th. There was clean water, the most grizzled cowboy old timers I've ever seen, and food!

Bike tour lunch is hilarious. Travis bought three rounds of snacks, which included hot funyons, gatoraid, potato salad, breakfast burrito, V8, coffee, beer, and more potato salad. You gotta go with what you're craving.

Eventually we had to leave the shade and the AC to make our final travels for the day. We were trying to make it to Hailey, the only town nearby. But this route put us through a treeless valley and then up through a canyon! Idaho has no chill!

Somehow we traveled for five more hours, not a cloud in the sky. A cool thing that my body is doing these days is breaking out in heat/sun rash on the tops of my thighs. I even bought longer shorts for this trip so my thighs would have some relief, but the rash comes out even when they're covered. Today we went though so much unfiltered sun that the rash moved to the backs of my calves. The sun was so painful. It didn't stop.

Then somehow we crested the hills, and waaaay down below we could see a grove of trees, which was Hailey. And it was all downhill from there.

First Peak!

I slept for a full ten hours and could have slept more. But alas, Idaho is a land of extremes and we wanted to catch the blissfully cool early morning hours as we summited our first mountain. We were warned that the road to Rocky Bar was a little tougher than the canyon we took out of Boise.

Well that was an exaggeration. This was an elevation gain of 2000 feet in 10 miles. I rode about 15% of that and walked the rest.

Have you ever walked ten miles, how about ten miles up a mountain? Pushing a bicycle?

Sections were so steep each pedal stroke felt like the wheel turned a quarter turn. I was going so slow I lost all momentum and fell sideways off my bike.

And then the three guys we met yesterday just zoomed past us, one of them wasn't even in his easiest gear, and they weren't clipped in. It was insane. It's really hard to tell how in shape you are in these situations.

So that's what we did all day, we pushed our bikes up a mountain, talked with these three bikepacking sweethearts from California, and somehow we descended.

We made it to Featherville, where they were expecting us.

When we walked in the door of the cafe, the owner seemed genuinely mad and asked, "Are you cyclists? You know you're SCREWED??" He explained that the road on our route had literally washed away this spring, and I realized that he wasn't mad at cyclists he was just honestly did not understand why we would go up these mountains without motors. Touché, sir. He had already written out directions for cyclists, and showed us on a forest service map the reroute he planned for us and our ilk who would be passing through all summer. He said one guy didn't listen to him and called him from the summit to say he didn't wish the washed out route on his worst enemy. Apparently he had four inches of path to push his bike along the roaring riverside, batting willows out his way as he ascended 4000 feet up Dollarhide Mountain. Sounds terrible.

Then we feasted on wonderful diner food.

Crucially, we were able to end the day at water. Western reservoirs are pretty great.

Camp that night was the only pullout along the reservoir that was too steep and bumpy for people to drive their RVs down, so we had our own cove to ourselves on Fourth of July weekend.