RR: Another Boring Road Trip

I'm dreaming that a waterfall next to me is being turned on and off by
some celestial being. Heavenly music reverberates. Slowly wake
having to take a wizz like bad, but its cold, even in the tent. Get
up, quietly step out and see flocks of Canadian Geese landing on the
lake just 20 feet from my tent. They take off, another group lands.
Mist rises off the water, as the sun's not up yet.

We're at 7,000 feet, camped on the shore of Bull Trout Lake, in the
Sawtooth mtns of Idaho, and not another soul around. No hot showers,
no phone booths or Ranger Rick programs for kids. This is waaaay
back. The way we like it, uh huh.

Start the jabba brewing, and its gonna be strong, at 630am, 35
degreesF, as I stumble around, sun just peeking over the jagged
mountains on the far side of the lake.

So get the lizard drained for now and tucked in, stumble over to the
female's tent: "Psst, Bones, we're burnin daylight!" A musical voice
mutters, "what? O yeah-OK." Over to Patrick's tent, lean over the
top, which is screened to the sky. My best Almighty imitation: "This
is God, get ye up to ride!" His eyes pop wide open, with a "where am
I?! who are you?!" panicked look on his face, then he remembers and
gets a move on.

Load up, grab some fruit & post-ride refreshments, run back to kiss
the spousal unit adios, "don't worry, just work hard while we're away,
dear," and we three pile in the cab of my Idaho-to-the-bone pickup &
go bouncing out of the campsite, hit the main road into Stanley, and
we're jacked.

This was to be a debut special, and might take a little exploring and
trial and error to find the start of the trail and get oriented.

Looking for Elk Mountain Trail next to Stanley Lake, one of my
all-time favorite alpine lakes closed to motor boats. We pull in,
drive past the campground, and find this parking area. A big new sign
reads: *Elk Mountain Bike Trail*, with an arrow pointing up a fire
road. Jimminy! if I always had it this easy finding trailheads!

A warm-up spin a couple miles *up* the fire road, until there's a turn
off onto single-track into dense forest. Hang on friends. We enter
this steep, rock filled creek bed that reminded me of a downhill race
course 100 miles west, but we're light, movin and groovin, poppin
through that stuff. Lots of 6" to 24" rocks to negotiate with gnarly
roots thrown in. Too much fun. Dark, cool, and it's all happenin in
real time. You can't get here with the click of a mouse, boys and
girls. Fun, fun, fun.

For example, I dropped my front wheel over a root, fell about 24"
down, and stopped against a boulder. Then had to turn sharp right
without any way to go forward, as my wheel was in a 3-sided natural
box. So rather than biff it or walk it, I did the crux move: nose
wheelie to whip my rear around to the left, cranked the bars to the
right, spit and yelled, and pedalled out with another shout! Whooda
man?

Stop to take a picture of my compadres negotiating down this, and will
post them, soon. I doubt they will capture the drama of the moment,
but hey, just stay tuned.

After that awesome drop of a thousand feet or so through mostly dried
creek bed, we spill out into a huge, high-grass mountain meadow,
grinning like fools on Holiday from a loony bin. A couple creek
crossings, we get muddy, sandy, cool and even more loony. Look for
the trail, and we're flummoxed, so back track until we find the little
tiny sign that says go right.

We go right, and hit this narrow side hill climb that parallels
another lake below to our left. Man, this is getting even better in a
hurry. So I stop and snap a pic of the female following. You'll
just have to wait, friends, but use your imaginations, OK? It was
pretty grand. Then she takes my picture, and one of us snaps Patrick,
our token newbie that I've mercilessly dragged around the state to get
him up to speed on a mtnbike this summer.

Climb out above the lake, and hit a little used fire road that
meanders up through the forest to regain the altitude we'd lost on the
rockin descent earlier. The tougher climbs, I'd say to the group,
"Spin Class!" and other corny comments to keep us humming along. The
effects of 7,000 to 9,000 elevation was being felt, but none of the
climbs were that bad, really. We were just keeping a pretty brisk pace
to get back to camp in time.

Come out into the open at one point, and there's nothing but a field
of wild-flowers and grasshoppers between us and the mighty Sawtooth
mountains. Too cool. Then around a corner to another kodak spot,
down a descent, back into the woods, and now it's coming at us like a
mad hounddog! Sit down, Shut Up, and Hang On!

This singulated double track is fast! Smooth, level or slightly
downhill, only occasionally rocky, and we're hauling outta there.
Banked turns, water bars to jump, I go into a 2-wheel fade on a right
turn, hit the front brake, the rear keeps going and lines me up to
shoot through the corner. You know what I'm talkin about.

Before we know it, the drugs wear off, wake up from this dream and
we're back on the campground road, 3/4's of a mile to our right is
where be started this escapade. Guess that's why they call it a loop.
Get back to Bull Trout late, but hey, that's how it goes some times.

Register that hombre in my top-10 Hall of Fame.

Paladin
(photos later, but had to share the love, right away)

Yawn............. ;-)

Steve "I'll get you for that as I sit here in 90% RH and temps rising by the
second....."

Paladin wrote:

I'm dreaming that a waterfall next to me is being turned on and off by
some celestial being. Heavenly music reverberates. Slowly wake
having to take a wizz like bad, but its cold, even in the tent. Get

Snip the mountain biking equivalent to "Letters to Penthouse"

Paladin
(photos later, but had to share the love, right away)

I think I need to clean my keyboard ;-)

Cheers,
Shawn

ospam (Stephen Baker) wrote in message ...
Yawn............. ;-)

Steve "I'll get you for that as I sit here in 90% RH and temps rising by the
second....."

We finished the ride around noon, and it was heating up. 88f at
8,000f can seem pretty hot.

So come on out and bring one of your sailboats: Here are some shots
from 2 adjacent lakes, and some misc. The lake we rode around this
time is in the later pictures. I hope to have my own ride pics posted
next week.

http://gallery.consumerreview.com/we...fishLakeSm.jpg

http://gallery.consumerreview.com/we...fRedfishSm.jpg

http://www.scenic-idaho.com/pics/rfl_2.jpg

http://www.pbc.org/dp/dcroper/images/stanley2.jpg

http://www.ohwy.com/id/s/stanley.jpg

http://www.dochemp.com/images/jpg/haileyd.jpg

http://www.ruralnetwork.net/~gkenley/PHOTOS/lake.jpg

http://www.scenic-idaho.com/pics/rfl_mar.jpg

http://www.angelfire.com/nv/rockytrails/mtlake.jpg


The water's fine....

Paladin

Shawn Curry wrote in message thlink.net...
Paladin wrote:

I'm dreaming that a waterfall next to me is being turned on and off by
some celestial being. Heavenly music reverberates. Slowly wake
having to take a wizz like bad, but its cold, even in the tent. Get

Snip the mountain biking equivalent to "Letters to Penthouse"

Paladin
(photos later, but had to share the love, right away)

I think I need to clean my keyboard ;-)

Cheers,
Shawn

Bike Porn amateurs! See them do it all! Pic fold-outs and other
photo spreads in about a week.

Paladin

Paladin says:

We finished the ride around noon, and it was heating up. 88f at
8,000f can seem pretty hot.


Hadn't thought about altitude affecting heat. Ya learn something new everyday.

So come on out and bring one of your sailboats: Here are some shots
from 2 adjacent lakes, and some misc.

Not sure the sailboat would transport too well over that distance. Do you have
a good wooden boatbuilder for a rebuild before launching? ;-) Kayaks are a
possibility, though.
The old saw about "cobbler's kids have no shoes" holds true for designers and
boats. My only _real_ boat is a kind of personal boat, in that no-one else
would be willing ot take her out solo. Too many foibles - kind of like
marriage ;-)

Steve "but I'll let you know if I get one that'll hang together"

Originally posted by Paladin snip The water's fine....

Paladin


Some beautiful pics Thank you!


Jimbo(san)



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ospam (Stephen Baker) wrote in message ...
Paladin says:

We finished the ride around noon, and it was heating up. 88f at
8,000f can seem pretty hot.


Hadn't thought about altitude affecting heat. Ya learn something new everyday.

So come on out and bring one of your sailboats: Here are some shots
from 2 adjacent lakes, and some misc.

Not sure the sailboat would transport too well over that distance. Do you have
a good wooden boatbuilder for a rebuild before launching? ;-) Kayaks are a
possibility, though.
The old saw about "cobbler's kids have no shoes" holds true for designers and
boats. My only _real_ boat is a kind of personal boat, in that no-one else
would be willing ot take her out solo. Too many foibles - kind of like
marriage ;-)

Steve "but I'll let you know if I get one that'll hang together"

Reminds me of when a buddy and I started building a wooden catamaran
in my garage. Lotsa fun, but we took so long, he eventually moved
away and we cut a deal where he took the interesting looking pieces.

Kayaks are really popular, especially on the rivers. We have a
Whitewater Rodeo on the (N. Fork?)Payette River that brings folks from
all over the world. Penny's hubby is a top white-water guy who know a
lot more than me, though.

Re elevation, you sunburn quicker, and dehydrate quicker, so I had to
keep reminding the group to drink more in quantity, and more often.

Re the pics, the first 2 are from Redfish Lake, where we watered the
kids on Saturday. Its about 20 minutes from Stanley Lake, where we
did the awesome ride Sunday morning.

More than you wanted to know, I appreciate.

Paladin