July 26-Aug 1

SO, we have been busy and lazy. We had a change in schedule that basically meant that riding in Cali would be shortened considerably. My family all decided to meet in Arcata at my sister’s house. My folks were really excited to get us all together. The last time was at our wedding over 4 years ago. Eric and I had to prioritize our trails. We decided to hit Tahoe hard and then head to Downieville to finish it off before rushing out to the coast.
Tahoe was amazing! The views are spectacular and the trails immaculate. We started with the classic Rim trail to Flume. This was by far the lamest trail. The Rim trail section was really fun, with a few challenging rocks and super fast downs. The Flume, was scenic, boring, crowded . . . . pretty much a big disappointment. The Rim trail surrounds the lake with around 200 miles of trail. We decided to try some other sections that were open to bikes. After a short regroup, we set out with our lights for an evening ride. We did the Kinsbury section until the light faded. It was beautiful. No wild animal sightings. Actually, we didn’t see anything bigger than a squirrel the entire time we were in Tahoe!

In the morning we chose the famous “Mr Toads Wild Ride” trail. After a brutal climb, we were met with some technical drops and loose sand. Although we were warned this trail was for downhill riders and required more suspension than our cross country bikes, Eric and I had little trouble navigating through rocky sections. I got off my bike a couple times, but rode the majority of the techy section. One cool spot was a staircase of wood with sand to make it slick. Although not too challenging, it was something Eric and I had never experienced before. After the little tricky spot, we bombed through the winding fun and fast trail that led us to the bottom. We were happy with the ride, but it left something to be desired.

The next day, we took the advice of a local bike shop guy (Wattabike), who said to ride from Heavenly, up the Rim, down Armstrong. All our rides required shuttling a car (motorcycle) to the other side in Tahoe, but that didn’t mean we were doing downhill rides. The reason to shuttle was to get from one point to the other without backtracking. I didn’t realize that. The climb out of Heavenly was really decent. There were technical sections, one of which, ate me. My knee took the brunt of it only 2 miles into our day. I cried. After cleaning my wound with hand sanitizer, we decided to continue on our ride as planned. It was sore for the rest of the day, but this was the ride I will remember when I think of Tahoe riding, and not because I split my knee open. It was hellish climbing (hmm, not selling this well), but everything was part of the adventure. The views were amazing and changed drastically from overlooking farmland on an exposed ridge to alpine desert. We even passed a lake (Star Lake). Once over the top of the final ridge, we had beautiful foliage and large odd looking trees. We made it to Armstrong Pass with huge smiles on our faces. From there, we took a super-duper fun downhill down the Armstrong trail. Seriously, it was sooooooo fun. Looping and banked! Then we took a trail called Sindwinder that made us dizzy with all its banked turns and finally finished with Corral Trail.

To finish off the Tahoe area, we hit yet another section of the Rim trail. This one started up Martis Peak and finished in Tahoe City. This was supposed to be our big downhill shuttled ride, but again, to my surprise we had at least 3 major climbs, which led us to conclude that there are no “downhill” rides in Tahoe. We had a few sections of fun downhill and one good section of ledge riding. Although this trail was better than average for most of the rides we have done, it didn’t really compare with the previous day’s ride. Also, the weather was on the edge of dangerous. The sky rumbled and lightning was visible jumping between clouds. I was scared for most of the ride and looked forward to seeing the end. This came several hours later. We left Tahoe with most of our skin and blood and lots of good memories. We drove all the way to Truckee for the night (not very far).

The only ride that people will tell you about in Truckee is called Hole-in-the-Ground. I agree, it was realy fun, but a lot of the trail (~10%) had these giant concrete pavers. It took away from being out on a trail and the people who put them in could have done a much better job with the placement. One in particular dropped you onto a rock that would perfectly positioned to endo you. I mean, come on! Everyone also warned that the climb was horrendous!, but we didn’t think it even came close to some of the riding we had just done in Tahoe. It was like people in Truckee hadn’t made it to Tahoe for any riding. It was a good ride and the hill was pretty good. Eric had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, so everything was annoying to him at Hole-in-the-Ground, but all in all, it was still a very good ride. Neat rocks! The whole time we were joking about the “technical” downhill that we were riding and how we were able to continue our conversation while riding it and how that made us such bad-asses. The final decent we were nearly ate our words because it was super sketchy, decent drops, rooty, downs. These hiker ladies were impressed at first. Then I saw the perfect endo rock and in an effort to avoid it, drove right into it! I said,”Oh, Shhhhhhhoot!” In the end, I didn’t endo, just bounced right over it, but when I rode up to Eric my leg was shaking with adrenaline. We agreed that there were some technical downhills afterall. HA!

Downieville was where the downhill was promised and received. On day 1, we shuttled the moto to the end and camped about 6,000 vertical feet above, near the trailhead. We started with a sick half mile paved climb to start, but after that, FUN!!!! Eric had done his research and had our entire route on GPS to prevent missing anything awesome. It was great! We did a similar plan for day 2, but that didn’t work out so well. We wanted to hit everything that we missed on day 1 and not have to do much climbing to get it. Unfortunately, some trails that were serving as short cuts, no longer existed and we spent a grueling climb going out and around to reach the other side (Whoops!). In all, day 2 had about 6,000 ascending and 10,000 vertical feet in descending. We didn’t complain too much. We had one more adventure planned in the lakes basin area, however, when we checked our messages, we each had one from my mother. She wanted us in Arcata pronto! We were going to stick to the plan and finish our riding, but decided we wouldn’t really enjoy it much knowing everyone else was together rafting the Trinity. Eric and I booked out of Downieville for a late night drive ending somewhere near Weaverville and continued on to the put-in in the morning. We were glad we did!

Selway

July 17th

Drove to Missoula, one of my favorite towns. We met our travel companies for the Selway trip at the Southgate Inn. Although, the pool looked mighty inviting in the 90 degree heat, we had some serious packing up to do. Eric built up the raft frame and we laid out all of our gear on the lawn. We weren’t really sure what equipment would be provided and what we would need to remember. In the end, we probably could have brought our own pump, but other than that we did pretty good. The rafting outfittiers had just got back from another trip and had some serious work to do that kept them packing until the wee hours. Eric and I managed to tour the riverwalk of Missoula, eat Mexican food, and snuggle into TV watching in our hotel room. TV is so ridiculous. You don’t miss it when you don’t have it, but when you get to watch it . . . very mesmerizing what is considered entertainment. I watched several episodes of CSI before turning off the lights.

July 18thi
Today was a big day! Dan and Stacey tied the knot in beautiful sunny Colorado in the presence of well behaved family and friends (I only saw the tame pics on facebook). Eric and I put on the Selway. Our day started with a 4 hour drive to the put-in in a 16 passenger van. Not to worry though, we had several stops to get fishing licenses, random gear, and of course, more beer and liquor. Once passed the final town, we made the long haul into the river. What started out as a creek tracking beside the road, quickly grew into a river. The Selway is one of the most technical rivers in the entire country and is famous for its unique beauty and remote location. The water is crystal clear, which makes the shallows appear really shallow and the fish have no place to hide. After a long, tedious, rigging of the boats, we pushed off the shore and started the great adventure downstream. The water level was at 1.5 feet, which is still good for full size rafts, but we knew there would be a lot of rocks to dodge. The horse flies were deadly! They would wait until a rapid to bite and then you couldn’t do anything about because you couldn’t let go of the oars in order to swat them. It was clear that the fish don’t see a lot of action because they bite anything, even bad casts and sunken flies. After a long stretch of rock dodging, we pulled off to camp at Running Elk (aka Archer). For dinner, we enjoyed lasagna followed by brownies. If we thought the horse flies were bad, the mosquitoes were above and beyond bad. They were miserable and relentless. I am not sure I have any blood left. What kinda mosquito bites your eyebrow? I mean, come on! Eric and I hit the hay early and itched until morning. kI have never been so excited to get on the river.

July 19

After leaving the mosquitos behind, we floated our longest day. Nothing too tricky, although Goat Creek rapid was pretty cool. Eric and I are use to scouting rapids that we have never run before (and ones we have) in order to plan a good route and not get into trouble. We were lucky our guides have been down this river before because scouting Goat Creek wasn’t possible, too bendy. The river increased in volume with every creek that dumped into the Selway. We were happy for more water. One interesting maneuver required getting out of the boat to drag the boats through Ping Pong “rapid” because there wasn’t enough water running to carry them. Whatever gets the job done! There was a bear sighting, but I didn’t see it. On the last trip, they saw 5 bears! We had ham and pineapple for dinner at the Roots camp. Thankfully, the bugs were nearly extinct for the rest of the trip. We slept on the sloping beach down by the boats without our tent. The sky was so dark and the stars were twinkling. Several shooting stars whizzed by before we drifted to sleep.

July 20

Good morning! Today is the day we head into the canyon and where the majority of the class IV rapids await. It wasn’t long after we pushed off that we got to our first major obstacle called Double Drop (named appropriately so). We watched several boats go through before punching in. The first drop shot us around on a smooth tongue of surging water. We had enough time to get set up for the second drop, which was turbulent, but not really scary. Immediately after, Eric told me to grab the camera to see if I could get a good shot of the next boat coming through. Just then, our boat got stuck in a hole and we nearly lost our oar. I guess we should have made sure we cleared the entire rapid before turning photographer. The hardest rapid of the river is Ladle, which was only a little ways further. This one, we did scout, well, most of us. The route was not obvious, but has proven successful at getting large rafts through with minimal problems. The first boat through was unfortunate to hit a rock and got spun and pinned in a bad spot. It took careful placement of ropes and bouncing by the passengers to unstick the stuck boat. After that episode, each boat took their turn through Ladle. Every boat had to do some bouncing to get through, but we all made it. After Ladle we had a series of fun drops and rapids. It truly was an exciting day! To finish, we had an awesome camp (Tango bar) with a giant sandy bar. The horseshoes were a hit among the present crowd. We had Pad Thai for dinner. In addition to a perfect camp, we were also serenaded by an amazing guitarist who was capable of playing anything . . . and knew all the words too. We got out the S’more making materials (only adding to the perfect day) and made some tasty morsels. Eric and I slept out under the stars again because setting up a tent just seemed unnecessary given the perfectness of everything.

July 21

This was our shortest river day. To make up for it, we floated a mile away from camp and pulled over for a hike. We saw a rattlesnake that had about 6 rattles. Scary. I ate a ton of huckleberries. I also learned that thimble berries are also eatable and had my fair share of those too. When we arrived back at the boats, lunch was ready. We had Rueben sandwiches. I didn’t think I would like it, but I did. I guess that’s why we should always try new stuff, you just never know. While we sat munching our lunches, a bald eagle flew down the river. I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. It was neat to see it out in nature. We had seen several Osprey along the way too and ducks with baby ducks. We finished the canyon off with Meeker and Osprey rapids and got to camp in the mid afternoon. This camp was also very nice. It had a large peninsula sand bar that Eric and I opted to sleep at the far end of. It was steak night and we had awesome potatoes and salad too. Althoough many aspects of the campfire were the same as the previous night, the vibe couldn’t be recreated. Eric and I drifted towards bed before it got too rowdy and watched shooting stars until we fell asleep.

July 22

We only had about 3 miles to go. I guess that technically makes this our shortest day, but we had a ton of down-rigging and driving to get back to our car, so it didn’t feel like it. We strapped most things down before pushing off, but their weren’t any rapids left, mostly just flat water. In a deeper section, Eric and I saw a large object swimming upstream. Most of the trout being caught were between 10-14 inches max. This massive creature was a good 24 inches. It was a salmon who had swum all the way from the ocean to the middle of Idaho. That is truly a miracle of nature. We took out, packed it up and jumped in our 16 passenger van for the long haul back to Missoula. I managed to stay awake for most of the ride. We quickly loaded back into the Explorer to continue our 6 hour drive back to Stanley ID where we had ditched our motorhome in the woods. We arrived around midnight and were happy to find she was a-okay. Planning to drive to Boise tomorrow.

July 23

We swung by a cabin in Stanley for a hot shower before hitting the road. Five days on the river is a lot of suncreen, bugspray, sweat, dirt . . . you name it build up. It makes you crave shampoo. We started the drive to Boise, but couldn’t help getting excited about the Payette river. It was only a 7 mile stretch, which we could easily do in the mini-me. We shuttle the cars and hit the river. I gotta say, for white water, this was way more fun than any rapid we had on the Selway. Part of it was, we were in a smaller boat, which makes the waves bigger. Secondly, the Payette had a lot of water. It was a blast! I wanted to re-run it in the Ducky, but Eric said we had to get to Boise. Next time. We jumped off the river, rolled up the boat and headed into Caldwell ID for the county fair. We caught the end of the Little Big Town concert before heading back to Boise for a couple days.

July 24

Omelets for breakfast! Did 4 loads of wash, showered, cleaned all our water bottles and dishes (thoroughly), went grocery shopping, went to Home Depot to rent a tool for the plumbing repair in the motorhome, had a BBQ with Lisa and Ross’s friends, played pictionary man, ate drimsticks, crashed. It was a busy day, but kinda fun too, especially the second half.

July 25

Well, it’s time to scoot out of Boise again. This time we left our Explorer for Lisa and Ross to look after. Eric and I are back to driving the motorhome together, which is highly preferred over driving separate. Eric toyed with all the sprinkler settings and I tried to cram everything back into the motorhome. We finally pulled away from the curb around 10? 11? Does it matter? We were planning on leaving at 6, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen! We drove all the way to Virginia City, NV. My favorite stop was in Winnemucca, NV.

June 11 Continued

We put on the river in the afternoon and had a lovely time floating. The section of the Salmon was Yankee Fork to Torreys and was fast and fun the whole time. Nothing too terrifying, but Eric and I both ended up in the bottom of the boat at some point during the trip. At least we managed to stay in the boat! We are just getting warmed up for bigger waves later.

June 12-14 – Elk Mountain-Boise

Early the next morning, we arose to ride at Elk Mountain (Meadow?). We were planning on driving to Boise to see the McCanns and the Meyer family, so we hit the trail as soon as we could climb out of the warm bed. It was a good thing we did! We ended up seeing a lot of wildlife. First, we came across a grouse that was behaving a bit unusual. Instead of flying miles away from us and our quick (not quick enough cameras), it flew into the closest tree and cooed at us. We were able to get some sweet pics, but then we saw who she was actually cooing at . . . a little baby grouse. It was sooooo cute! Then when I was riding out of a meadow and back into thicker forests, I spooked a herd of elk (Elk Mountain, yeah baby). I thought Eric could catch them, but I ended up sending him on a wild goose chase (but we didn’t see any geese). Then we came across a giant owl! It was pretty photogenic, so we stayed with him until the misquitos just about sucked all the blood out of me. Then, we rallied home and on the road. We drove the scenic 3 hour trek to Boise along Highway 21. I learned how to knit (again) in the company of Eric’s grandma, mom, and sister. It is easier with 3 generations of knitters to guide you. We celebrated Joyce’s (grandma) 79th birthday on Monday. Lisa (sister) and I made 2 angel food cakes. They turned out great (if I must say myself)! All in all, we did a lot of relaxing in Boise and were pretty much refreshed by the time we headed back to the motorhome, which we had abandoned in the woods up in Stanley. We figured she could handle some alone time too. We arrived back at the trailer late on Tuesday.

June 15 – Potato Mountain

Eric and I like to make things hard on ourselves. Instead of riding the trail the direction everyone else does, we ride it in the opposite direction. It was alright. Our climb was gentle and followed a creek, which we crossed half a dozen times. I got new bike shoes in Boise and broke them in with a water ride. These new shoes dry out a heck of a lot faster than my old ones. We passed several other surprised cyclists who asked why we were riding up the trail? We love to go against the grain of course! Our reward for riding up the whole way was a steep loose and rocky downhill. It wouldn’t have been fun to ride up it either, but the rest of the ride would have been sweet. Next time, next time. Along the way, we crossed through an amazing meadow and the creek was clear and cool. I would say it was a great ride. At the end, we saw the same folks sitting around enjoying a beer. It turns out they were newlyweds with a few straggler wedding guests enjoying their honeymoon. Then the other people we ran into on the trail came by. They worked at the Redfish lodge, which was where the couple had gotten hitched. Everyone seemed to know everyone already. There was a rope swing rumored to be awesome about a 2 minute hike up a trail from where everyone met. Apparently, it swings out about 50 feet over the canyon. Sounds cool, but Eric and I passed. We ended our ride and headed back to base camp. We made a small fire in our fire pit and enjoyed s’more after s’more. It was pretty much perfect.

June 16 – Beaver Creek

So this might have been a bad decision. We got to the trail, which was not easy for the Explorer and would have not happened in the motorhome only to realize that what might have been single track at some point was actually a well-used ATV trail. Given the time of day and our lack of creativity, we rode it anyway. Again, we crossed numerous creeks and some muddy bogs. The trail was not epic by any means, more entertainment on an otherwise uneventful day.

June 17 – Drive to Missoula

I know, I know. We were supposed to be driving to Colorado, not Montana. Unfortunately, Eric and I can’t control every aspect of our trip with grace and beauty. Instead of making a mad dash for Breckenridge, we are putting on the Selway tomorrow with a commercial outfitter that is allowing us to tag along with their trip. The only permit we could get on left on Saturday, which means we had to make a tough decision. Eric was furious that the timing was so perfectly bad, but couldn’t resist turning down the Selway trip to spend 2 fifteen hour days in the car. I am sad, but I realize I have to spend the next 2 months in the motorhome with Eric, not Dan and Stacey, so I guess we’re floating a river. We will try to take lots of pictures, but it will depend on how long our camera batteries last. We will be on the river 18th-22nd. Check back in then!