A little bit of Idaho

[Irulan]

You have to understand, we never, ever have sunshine for memorial day around here....

Bernard Peak... I've been hearing for a very long time that this trail is one of the finest in N Idaho. Mr. Adventure ( my hubby) and the boys are off on the Lochsa catching the whitewater season, so I'm on my own, for biking naturally. I plan this outing with one of my new club friends and off we go.

Armed with xerox's from the Falcon guide, we head off to find the trail head. This turns out to be a somewhat elusive project. The maps from the book are next to useless, and he routes you on 12 miles of road to the summit to pick up the singletrack down, and we want to go out and back. Cell phones do prove useful: I call my friend back here in town who looks up the number of the local to the trailhead bike shop, where helpful LBS guy kindly walks us though which gated fireroad to take, to stay right, but stay on the main road, go up two sandy climbs and the trail will turn off to the left.

Ok, sounds good. We were warned they had been logging in here, and sure enough the main looking branch of the road goes right.....

bzzt.




Fricking road is obliterated. There are three skid road options, we trash around muttering looking for anything that looks like a road or a trail... and pull out the cell phone... "are you sure about that staying right thing?" He lets us know that he is a total singletrack snob and it will be worth getting there. Well, stay on the main road....

We back track, take the NEXT branch of the road, skip the left branch.... ok, here's a sandy climb... wow, what a mo-fo of a climb but they said the trail head was at the top. I see Clark dogging it too so I don't feel bad that I'm just about to puke. I keep checking the odometer but we never found anything. It's a fantastic day out, so by the time we hit 3.5 miles ( the trail head is supposed to be 2.5) we said the heck with it, let's just see where this goes. It's a nice old abandoned doubletrack, complete with fresh bear scat. Being that it is an outstanding day, and that we NEVER have sun on Memorial Day weekend, we decide to just take this doubletrack up and forget the trail. A few miles up, there's a great view(looking west across the Idaho panhandle)



and we keep on going. .... Finally, the doubletrack starts to peter out

and a little farther on it just dies. Stops. Clark even hikes down the elk trail heading off in the forest, but it's not bike able. We are almost at the summit, but there's nothing to be done. So we head down, wheeeeeee down the double track. Down a few miles, we decide it's early yet, let's try and find the trailhead, since we are already here. We choose the most left fork in the road, that's all that's left. It's beautiful as the fire road winds through the open the forest. Hey, a sandy short climb! Bike tracks! And another sandy climb! And some slash piles.... could it be...?

Of course, we can't just look at it. We decide to go up aways now that we are here.


Ohh, la la! This is fine. Very fine.


This is real singletrack. Perfect conditions, pine needle carpet, spin up the side of the mountain. Folks are spinning down the mountain too. We (almost) run into some kids, "hey guys, it's considered courteous to let the uphill riders go, down hill riders yield to them" I say in most mom-like voice. We find evidence of their passing up the trail:


RIP.

We stop at a little creek for a snack.


and keep on climbing.
It's five miles up to the summit, so we decide to give it a go. So what if we already did a different five mile climb almost to the summit on the other side of the hill.
The summit is not to be. We get to the lookout, and both of us are pretty much out of steam. It's not like we didn't do a whole bunch of riding. ;-)
So we take a little break, enjoy the view

(Lake Pend Oreille) and then hit the singletrack allllll the way back down.
woo-hoo. Good ride, and now we know there the trail head is for next time.

Something like probably 4000 feet of climbing ( we did it 2/3 of the way up, twice) and 17 miles.

Irulan

[SadieKate]

Great story and pics. Made me think of our trek looking for Kelly Creek in the Stanley Basin. At some point you go for the adventure.

Nice to be back on the trails. Love road riding but just need the dirt for variety, the quiet, the smells (good and bad), the sounds, etc.

[snapdragen]

Irulan - where in N. Idaho? My family used to go up to Priest Lake regularly - I wonder if it's as great as I remember?

snap "born in Idaho Falls" dragen

[Veronica]

Love the pictures. Makes me want to get out on my mountain bike today.

V.

[SadieKate]

snap "born in Idaho Falls" dragen

What?? Bubba was born in St. Anthony and a graduate of Madison High in Rexburg. His aunt taught in Roberts.

[snapdragen]

What?? Bubba was born in St. Anthony and a graduate of Madison High in Rexburg. His aunt taught in Roberts.

Well see, another reason to like Bubba! We moved when I was 3, but went back for vacations quite a bit. My grandfather was a professer at the university in Moscow, Dad grew up there and graduated from the uni.

[betagirl]

Great pics. My hats go off to all the mtn bikers. I don't have the guts to do it