Ketchum ID

We left SLC and headed straight up to Idaho. Eric has been itching to get back to cooler weather for awhile now. I am not sure if he was really thinking lows in the upper 40s, but hey, who's complaining? We set up camp just out of town. For 4th of July weekend, you would think the camping would be at its limit when actually they were probably more available sites than sites taken. On Friday, we scoped out town, stopped into bike shops and basically planned our next 10 days or so. On Saturday, we went on our first big biking adventure. We decided on a trail system, close to town, called Fox Creek. Here we saw many joggers, hikers, bikers, equestrians, dogs, you name its. It wasn't until we got a few miles away from the trailhead did the number of recreationalists drop off. What did we expect for 4th of July on a Saturday? Unfortunately, we were having too much fun and took a wrong turn which could have shortened our riding day by 10 miles. Although we were disappointed with our error in navigation, we decided to do the big loop in reverse of what everyone had told us. This started out as and a-okay decision. Later though, it was questionable. The reason most people recommend riding the Oregon Gulch trail in one direction and not the other is because one direction is too steep to ride up. Oh well, once we made it to the top, all the downhill was super fun. Instead of being super steep (what we had just pushed our bikes up) it was smooth and turning. I would almost suggest doing this ride as an out and back. During our big decent, dark clouds were gathering overhead. I was glad to be off the ridge, but the rumbling from the heavens was disturbing. In the trees, it was a little less frightening. The trail crossed through treed sections out into meadows. The sky was never silent, it just kept rumbling. Soon, we were on trail that we had ridden on before, but the GPS batteries died. We weren't sure how much further down the trail the car was. Eric stopped to change the batteries. I waited until he said to go, but he actually may not have said to go. I took off on the trail for the car, but we weren't fast enough. The sky split open and rain crashed down on us. We had rain coats with us, but we were already soaked. It would still have been worth putting them on because the next burst from the sky came as bee-bee sized hail, which stung when it hit my bare arms. I stopped and turned around, but Eric wasn't right behind me as I had thought. Panic! Panic! Panic! Did I miss the turn? Is Eric okay? More grumbling from the sky. Finally, Eric appeared. He didn't understand my hysteria. We made it back to the car wet and muddy, but safe. Phew! We sat in the car for, mmmm, five minutes and the sun was already back out. Seriously, that was the difference, 5 minutes! During our ride I had managed to break another rear spoke. I had been replacing spokes, but it was now time to question a new wheel. We changed into dry clothes and went to the Sturdos bike shop. The mechanic, Todd, said he could rebuild my wheel instead of buying a new one. Great! Back at the motorhome, we cooked up some dinner, showered and got ready for day 3 in Sun Valley.

I was pretty much counting on my wheel not being ready by the time we were ready to hit the trail. We considered demoing a bike for me, but instead I opted to switch it up with a trail run. We headed to an area called Adam's Gulch which has many loops in various lengths, which was pretty optimal for Eric to ride and me to run. My adventure was fairly short due to side stitches and trail closures. Eric's ride was pretty extreme due to rugged trails. I made it back to the car and headed into town for some reading at my favorite place (Starbucks, duh!). I had a coffee frap and an ice water and snuggled into some good reading. I met Eric back at the motorhome later with a new wheel in hand. We relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Relaxing included a motorcycle ride to the top of the pass. It was beautiful, but both our bums were happy to be off the motorcycle 40 miles later. HA!

Yesterday, we rode at the Greenhorn Gulch Area. When we arrived, a fire fighter approached us and told us that a woman was up of the mountain somewhere with a broken leg. She had her cell phone and had called her husband who had called in the emergency. The only problem was they didn't know exactly where she was. (I thought the directions were quite clear, but if you are dispatching several rescue personnel, you better be right on the money) No one that was returning to the parking lot had seen her. He asked us to take the Imperial trail up and call if we happened upon her. Honestly, I would hope that if I were stranded up on a mountain with a broken leg, that the rescue team wouldn't be waiting for 2 recreational bikers to find me before sending up the squad. Luckily, they were already on the way with 4-wheelers and gurnies. Quite the production. When we finally crossed paths (~1500-1800 vertical feet later), she was calmly waiting for the transportation down with a medical officer and her dog. The dog seemed much more concerned than the lady did. We had not planned on taking this route in the beginning, but the views were spectacular! Just amazing! We were not disappointed with the change of plans, but it did mean that we were planning a new route as we were riding. I am opposed to doing this for several reasons. The main being that I like to know how much further I have to climb and how much further we have to go. If we are still improvising a route, this isn't possible. We made it to what seemed like the top of the world, with great effort. These trails are open to motorcycles, which does a number on the trails. A lot of the climbs were too loose to ride and we had to push our bikes (seems like the usual for this area, hike-a-biking). When we finally found downhill, we were both ready to let it fly. Unfortunately, I can't handle this and went too hard around a banked corner. My wheels slipped of the top edge and I went splat! Again! We had maybe gone 20 vertical feet down and I am already rolling around in the dirt. Skinned my elbow and my knee. No real damage though. Just sore. I took it easy for the rest of the way down. We went through some really neat burn sections. Washouts had claimed some of the trail and we had to traverse large shale areas. Finally we made it to some easy (that's what I like these days) downhill. Gentle turns and minor whoopties back to the car. All the emergency vehicles were long gone and we headed back to the motorhome for showers. Oh, but we didn't actually. We just ate and then headed back to a new trail. This one was just right up my alley. It was easy climbing with fun easy downhill. It added about 10 miles to our day for a total of 25 miles and over 5000 vertical feet. Now it was shower time and ice cream time. I sure deserve it!

Today, we drove to Stanley Idaho to see about the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. This stretch is permitted, so we printed off some signs requesting help filling spots on a trip leaving in the next couple days. There are not very many places in Stanley to hang such flyers, but we managed to litter the town pretty well. Now we just sit back and wait for the phone to ring. It is a long shot, but it would mean a break from riding, which would be welcome. There is a day stretch up there too that Eric and I checked out. The river looked super fun with safe rapids and no super slow spots. If we don't get on the Middle Fork, we are definitely going to do this stretch. Eric called in on the Selway and they had a cancellation! This is the river we have been dreaming about. We have been calling in daily for cancellation permits on the Selway. We were hoping for the next couple days, but this permit is for July 28th. Anyone want to go? The water level is probably going to be so low that we will have to do a backpack style trip with the mini-me and maybe a ducky. Our gear will be minimal. The trip is 5ish days, so it isn't roughing for a long time, just a short time. Consider that they only let one trip on the river a day (16 people max). About half of the permits go to commercial outfits and many of the permits go unused do to dangerously high waters or too low to float. What it boils down to is, you have to be really, super-mega lucky to get on a Selway trip. If we are lucky, Idaho will get a little more rain in the next couple weeks and we will be able to go. Yeah! Eric noticed that one of our tires was flat (14psi) on the Explorer, so we had to skip our planned ride and head to the Dean's Tire for repair. Both of us are pretty excited about the Selway possibility or even Middle Fork. My bike says she is tired of dumping me too.

Pictures from Flagstaff and North Rim

Sorry Pictures to Follow Later!!!!

June 27-28 Flagstaff
Mt. Eldon. Wow. Flagstaff has a fun little downtown area with shops, an Amtrak station, free parking, and many restaurants. Eric and I didn’t spend much time there. Instead, we headed to recreation central aka Mt. Eldon. There are runners, equestrians, hikers, and many, MANY bikers. We started out riding the Schultz Creek trail. It was fairly flat with some technical sections and climbed an amazing amount of vertical without much noticing. We had printed off some maps from the forest service, but we found there are many more trails that weren’t on our map. Navigating was a little difficult. We cruised down the Arizona trail to Little Bear. LB climbs for 3.5 miles with nice overlooks of the area. We were impressed! The temps began to rise as my strength wore out. This was our first time riding on the weekend, so there were a few more people out than what we use to. We were fortunate that everyone we encountered on the trail was friendly and helpful with finding trails. We decided to take Brookbank down. After a little decent Eric noticed a small rogue trail heading off into the forest. He decided that it would be more fun to explore this unnamed trail than to continue on the somewhat rocky wide decent that Brookbank had become. This offshoot trail was for crazy people only. We didn’t know that at first. Eric did a sweet jump off the first large boulder, but they got bigger and steeper and both Eric and I got a little nervous. The trail ended up connecting back with Brookbank, but before this intersection was one last crazy person obstacle. A giant tree. This tree had fallen across the trail and modified to ride with chicken wire across the top for traction and a pile of rocks and dirt for the exit. I was happy to make it back to the somewhat wide and boring Brookbank. We later found out this crazy trail was called Prom Night, “ya know, it finishes with a bang . . . get it? Hahah!” Yeah hilarious, dude. Because Eric and I find enjoyment in pain, we decided to ride up the logging road in the afternoon sun to the very top. We were passed by several truck loads of guys and their bikes being shuttled to the top. I started cursing myself for not carrying ten bucks with me. Next time. We got to the top and rode the Catwalk across the ridge. If I wasn’t ready to quit, mmm, yesterday, it might have been one of the cooler portions of trail of the day. To finish, we rode Sunset to Schultz creek down to the motorhome. We BBQed in a small grove of trees before heading up the road to camp for the night. Oh, but we didn’t just camp for the night. We decided to go for a night ride. We have hauled our bike headlamps all over AZ with the intention of riding when its cooler, at night. So far, we have been so lucky with the mild temps that we haven’t even considered skipping the day ride for a night ride. Although we had already ridden over 26 miles and 5700 vertical feet, we headed out for some more riding. It was pretty fun and the moon was pretty cool. We added about 6 miles with no wildlife encounters. Exhausted, we slept soundly. On Sunday, we planned a shorter ride so that we would have enough time to drive to the Grand Canyon. On this ride, we got lost and ended up on Sunset again, which was fine by us because it was so much fun the first time. We had been hearing a lot of chatter about a trail called Secret and had accidentally ridden a portion of it on Saturday. Our final loop in Flagstaff was up Secret and down the moto-trails. Secret was in prime condition. The trail was fun to ride up and consistently climbed and dipped to our surprise. Towards the end, we stopped to consider 2 signs and 2 trails. One trail was labeled Easy and the other Hard. Although I am not a sissy pants, I preferred to take Easy. I told Eric he should take the Hard trail. We both thought the two trails would rejoin on the other side a giant rock formation. Once on my own, I cruised through a meadow and around some sweet trees. I climbed up a little and dropped a little. Then I dropped an extremely technical boulder garden and found myself wondering when the trails would reconnect. I frightened a baby elk when flew through some loose rocks. I had thought maybe Eric was just ahead of me, and we had missed the reconnection, but the baby elk was clearly disturbed by my presence and so Eric couldn’t be ahead of me. It turns out, I was lost. Not to worry though, I backtracked all the way to Easy/Hard intersection where Eric had left me a giant arrow and messages scratched in the dirt. I descended the hard stuff by myself and soon encountered a tired, worried, hungry husband who was in a near panic state with my absence. We called it a day! We drove to the Grand Canyon. As it turns out, I had never been there before. It truly is grand! I knew this, but we didn’t arrive in Marble Canyon until after the sun had already set. We stopped at the bridge anyhow, walked out to the middle and looked down. The canyon was mystical at night and gave me the heebee-jeebees.

June 29 Grand Canyon –North Rim

In the morning, we took the motorcycle for a spin to Lees Ferry to watch as the lucky rafters loaded their gear for trips down the GC. Eric and I both felt pangs of jealousy. We motored up to the bridge so that I could witness its grandeur of the canyon in the light of day. I wasn’t nearly as creeped out in daylight with other passing motorists. As we were leaving, a man came flying into the parking lot in his pick up. He grabbed binoculars and ran out to the bridge. He asked, “Are they here? Are the condors here?” Eric and I shrugged. We hadn’t noticed any giant birds with wingspans of 9.5 feet. To our surprise, he pointed out 3 giant birds roosting in a nearby cliff face. The enormity of the canyon had dwarfed these magnificent creatures so that we had missed them. Even when one flew across the canyon, we could tell it was big, but it didn’t really look that big. We were able to get a photograph of one of the condours stretching out its wings, but missed the flight. (Today, we saw one soaring above the canyon, so it made up for it) We hung out on the bridge perhaps a little too long waiting for another condor to decide to fly. I was getting sunburned and tourists began arriving by the bus-load! Our intentions for the area were to ride the Rainbow Rim trail of the North Rim. After talking with the lady at the forest ranger station, we decided to drive the 21 miles of gravel road to Parissawampits point, which is at the far end of the 18 mile out and back ride. It pretty much took all afternoon to make the drive, but the difficult access and remoteness limited the number of other visitors to the area. We cruised around some forest roads on the motorcycle exploring the area. The North rim is very scenic and the views are just as breath taking as anything I have ever seen. We enjoyed outdoor showers in the company of nature alone. Later in the evening, we met a lovely woman and her two boys. We enjoyed s’mores around their campfire and chatted about our different vacations. Back at the motorhome, we set an alarm for 5AM. If we were going to ride 36 miles in upper 80s, we had to get an early start and bring lots of supplies.

June 30 Rainbow Rim

5AM was a little early. The sun had not even considered getting up yet, but Eric and I managed to pull out of bed with only two snoozes. There was a little confusion about what time it actually was because our cell phones may have been picking up a cell tower in Utah. Even so, we struck to the plan, eating yogurt and granola for breakfast with hot cocoa to manage the chilly morning. By the time we had finished our mugs, the trees backlit by the dark sky and by the time we had our riding gear on, the birds were chirping. We left the comfort of the motorhome and headed out on the trail. Eric was wearing long johns and a long sleeve shirt. I couldn’t bring myself to wear leggings given it is the middle of the summer at the grand canyon. I mean, come on! The views of the canyon were spectacular all across the rim and we took several dozen pictures. We didn’t see a whole lot of wild life, but I actually was okay with not encountering a bear at dawn. Call me crazy! We rode quickly over the somewhat non-technical trail and ended up at 18 miles away still wearing long johns and long sleeve shirts. It was just getting warm enough to not need them. We sat at the far end of the trail and ate snacks that we probably weren’t hungry for yet, but we had packed so much because we thought it was going to be a somewhat epic ride. As we snacked, we could see a giant bird soaring in the distance. It was a condor! For the next 45 minutes, we were glued to the binoculars. He would wait for air currents to rise up over the canyon and then continue to soar. The distance that could be covered by a bird like that was incredible. Eric and I turned back towards the motorhome thinking that the sun would surely slow us down. As it turns out, the trail was equally fun in the opposite direction at 80 degrees. We took a little more time to take pictures and appreciate the views. About 34 miles into our trip (2 miles to go) we heard a strange buzzing noise that increased in volume as we continued down the trail. We flew around a corner and nearly took out a forest service worker who was weed-wacking an overgrown section. We smiled and continued, stupidly, down the trail covered in the fallen debris. We went a little further and Eric realized his front tire was going flat. Because this was an especially long day, we had packed 2 spare tubes, which was lucky because I had a flat a few miles back. Eric took one look at his wheel and said, “Holy ****!” Our tires were full of goat head thorns left behind in the trail by the forest service jerk. We were about to have 4 flat tires. I ended up making a run for it while mine were holding air, but assessing the number of punctures in my wheels lead me to believe it was only a matter of time. By the time I reached the trailhead I was riding mushy tires. Eric had to change his before booking it back. Forget doing a ride by Bryce Canyon, we had to get to Salt Lake to get our equipment fixed. Eric had also just broken his cable that moves his rear derailer, so getting to a bike shop became a priority. We packed up and moved out. Back down the 22 miles of gravel forest service road and on to SLC. We made to Utah and camped just outside Bryce Canyon. We planned to make a run into the park because I had seen a postcard in a gas station and decided that it was important to see this park.

July 1—Bryce Canyon—Salt Lake

Again, we awoke at the crack of dawn to view the park. I had told my future mentor that I be in SLC around 2pm. If you know me, then you realize that I got a little nervous about making to the city. I don’t like to be late or behind schedule. We cruised into the park before they were checking passes (again, why did we buy the pass?) and stopped at the first overlook. The Bryce Canyon amphitheater was amazing at Sunrise Point! The spires were just starting to see the sun. We traveled further into the park, but realized there wasn’t anything quite as spectacular as the amphitheater. Soon we turned around for the motorhome and the long drive to SLC. We were on the road before 8AM. There isn’t a lot on the road between Bryce and SLC, so it was boring, but we made it to the valley around 1 and Barbara’s around 2, on schedule as planned. Eric and I got the bikes fixed at REI, which was pretty funny with 4 flats. We ended up changing them in front of the bike shop in the middle of REI while the awesome mechanic, Ben, took care of the more challenging parts of bike repair. Later, we met up with some folks from my future lab for dinner. They are a friendly bunch and I am looking forward to working with them this fall.

July 2—Working in the Lab

I know, I know. I’m on vacation, but there are things that need to get going now. I went to work with Barbara at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and began thinking over projects and fellowship writing. I spent most of my day printing papers, updating my CV, and chatting with Barbara while Eric worked on finding trails and figuring out new routes. He also did the laundry. What a good husband! Barbara and her husband, Bob, took us out for dinner at the Red Iguana. We waited about 45-60 minutes to be seated, which seemed pretty typical given the number of people waiting for tables even after we were finished. Barbara and Bob said it is usually only 25 minutes, but there are always people waiting outside. It is a very popular place to eat and has been for as long as they have lived here (>20years). We stayed up pretty late chit-chatting about anything and everything and finally hit the sack around midnight. Tomorrow, we are back on the road enroute to Idaho. This was a good break for me. My bruises are fading and my neck is less stiff. We’re clean and have clean clothes . .. life is great!

June 23-24 Prescott, AZ

We loved Prescott! SO many trails! We weren't sure if we were even going to visit Prescott or not. I called a bike shop (High Gear) and talked to a kid named Travis. He said, "You have to come to Prescott, it is one of the best places to ride in AZ! Stop by the shop, I'll show you where to ride!" Okay! Well then! To Prescott we go! I made a little navigation error and pointed us in the shortest route over a giant mountain. We went over Mingus mtn through Jerome along this narrow, winding road. Whoops. A mouse popped out of our hood (probably got too hot in there) and proceeded to hunker down on the windshield. I took his picture; we named him Mingus. Once in Prescott, we visited the bike shop and spoke with a lady, who wasn't that helpful, but did give us a pretty good over view map of the area. While we stood there looking it over, Travis came by. He showed us which trails to take, in what direction, how long it would take, gave us directions . . . the works. Speaking with people like that inspires you. He was so excited about riding and helping us. We couldn't have hoped for better advice. He also told us about a swimming hole on the way to Sedona! We hit the trail. We started with the Thumb Butte area, which was okay. Lots of trails, single track, secret single track and a very long climb up a dirt road to a picturesque overlook. It wasn't our idea of the perfect ride, but it was pretty good. In the AM, we hit the Lynx Lake trail. Travis had recommended this as a possible night ride, but we were in the area, so we hit it in the daylight. The trail was intended for an out and back and climbed steady, but not too bad, all the way out. It was twisty and narrow. I wasn't in the best mood, sorry Eric, and we ended up trying to make a loop that took us an even greater climb. Eric kept saying, "It's that next ridge, I'm sure of it." We were missing part of the loop to the edge of the map and so we really didn't know if it was going to loop. We ended up doing a hike-a-bike motorcycle trail over a mountain and finally made it back to the camper by 3pm. I am not a huge fan of those types of rides. They're frustrating and exhausting. I am a fan of super fun rides like Granite Basin. After a nice meal, we hit the best trail in the area, Granite Basin. We started from the Cayuse day use area on trail 347. The map recommended we do the loop in the opposite direction, but Travis said, "oh no, you want to go this way." We couldn't believe how fun it was, looping with whoopties. It was like a dessert garden. There were plants flowers and rocks, my goodness, it was amazing and fun. Even the climb was fun. There were big boulders to challenge you and scenic rock formations. We came to a lake that had all the noises of a jungle (birds that sounded just like monkeys). Duck families were swimming in the water grass and the sun was just above the horizon. We were only 2 miles from the car, so we weren't worried about making it back before dark. We thought we had a little more climbing ahead of us, which we did, but we didn't realize we had a mile of awesome downhill too. We got back to the RV and considered taking it again with the headlamps. We didn't. Instead, we headed into town for supplies. Juice, popsicles, crunch-n-munch, ya know, the necessities.


































June 24 -- Prescott Spruce Mtn, Beaver Creek (Crack in the Rock, Bell Trail)

We enjoyed our time in Prescott. Not only are the trails pretty decent and close to town (you could ride in any direction from your house and have access to great riding), but the community was not your typical tourist town. We decided to hit the trail hard and then head to a little place just South of Sedona that you could hike 3.5 miles into a natural swimming pool. SWEET! The trail was up Spruce Mtn called the Groom Loop or something close to that. We had been spoiled the night before on the Granite Basin trails and now found the climb to be brutal. It wasn't that steep, but loose and rocky. Instead of making water-bars that you could ride over, they put in giant logs that were nearly impossible to make over without a good run at it. I just accepted the fact that I wasn't going to make it and got off to carry my bike over many of them. Eric tried harder. By the time we were 0.4 miles away from the lookout, we were both burnt out and decided to stop and eat at a non-scenic log section. This worked out fine because the lookout wasn't really a look out. It was a radio tour in the middle of some trees. The way down was much more fun (why is it always like that?). The trail was nothing special and we probably wouldn't go back there. By now, it was after lunch and we headed north towards Sedona. We filled up for $2.34/gallon! Nice one.

The hike was fun, but a little stupid. The ranger lady told us that we could stay at the campground for $15/night, but we couldn't park at the trailhead. Then we told her that we were driving to Sedona after the hike and wouldn't need to camp at the campground. This conversation continued like this for a good 15 minutes. By the end, Eric and I thought the trail started in the campground. We parked our RV and trailer out past the campground on a forest service road and started hiking around the campground, only to learn that the trailhead was at the ranger station. Out of the entire conversation with the ranger, she did not tell us what the trail was called or that it literally started 100 ft from the station. I think she was so concerned we were going to camp at the ranger station, she forgot to tell us about the trail. Anyhow, an hour later, we finally left on our hike in search of the swimming hole. Because the trail enters wilderness, we couldn't take the bikes, which was really lame since the trail was 10 feet wide and maybe a 1% grade. It was hot! By the time we hit the wilderness (3 miles in), we were out of juice. We thought that we were supposed to stay on the same trail the whole way, based on the information learned at the rangers station, and hiked .7 miles in the wrong direction. We turned back, found the correct trail, hiked an additional .5 miles in the right direction and found the swimming hole. It wasn't the cascading pools that we had imagines, but it was cool and wet. That was all I needed. There were small cliffs to jump off, which I loved, and plenty of warm rocks to hug if you got too cold. After swimming, we hiked out, making it to the RV just as the light faded into night.















































June 25 -- Sedona, AZ

Yesterday, we did the tour of Sedona. We started on a fun trail called Baldwin cruised to cathedral rock where I took a major spill. I was following too close to Eric and didn't realize that we were about to start a technical downhill. I managed to spread the impact over my entire body, so very little blood lost. Good. We continued on to Little Horse, Chicken Point and Broken Arrow. By now, we were running low on water and tired of being out in the sun. I tried to be a good sport for the rest of the day, but I was getting cranky. We decided to head into town for a slurpy, but ended up at a Mexican food restaurant and loaded up on enchiladas, tacos, rice, the works. Our waiter brought a giant pitcher of ice water for us to fill our camelbaks before heading back out on the trail. From town, we hit the Airport loop followed by Old Post and some other fun trails and ended up back at the MH. We were both pretty tired and dirty. In the interest of fresh bike clothes, we decided it was time to stay at an RV park for the night. This, to us, is a luxury. In addition to a picnic table next to a few dozen other RVs, there are showers. Their showers you can stand in all night if you wanted because you don't have to worry about hot water, filling tanks or running out of fresh water. They have laundry, which you do have to pay for, but don't require sitting at a laundry mat for a couple hours. They have power, which allows us to turn on our AC and charge our phones, computer, camera batteries, bike lights, turn on the lights, use the microwave . . . the options are endless (nearly). They also have high speed internet, which for obvious reasons is nice. Sedona has one RV park and although a little expensive, was totally worth the cost.

Today, we got up at 6:30 and started going through the motions, breakfast, pick some trails, look at the map, weather . . . and then we heard thunder followed by rain. Instead of being disappointed, I was relieved. My body is so tired and sore and my neck is stiff. I took a nap after breakfast (finally made it to full-on vacation mode) and Eric continued to plan a ride despite the rain. When the clouds cleared and the sun appeared Eric left for a ride and I am sitting here enjoying the birds, the cool air and the peace and quiet. Below are our pics from yesterday's adventure. (Trying something new, so that the pictures don't end up so crazy)