September rides

[Sky King]

Tumbleweeds... Last year the DH got a flat tire when the tumbleweed caught in his spoke actually stabbed through the hole in the rabbit rims on his Surly Troll. Over labor day weekend we fought them for several stretches in the Jabridge desert but thankfully no flats.

This past weekend we finally had our first Owyhee Pedal Patrol trip. The Wilderness Ranger at the BLM office is a customer of the shop and he put together this great program of volunteers. We are all Leave no Trace certified and have up to date First Aid and CPR. This trip there was only 4 of us. We camped together Friday night and rode about 6 miles as a group on Saturday then we split into 2 groups to check out specific areas of the Owyhee Wilderness. The DH and I had an awesome camp site overlooking the river. We hiked down to filter water and even saw a fish. Happy to say we didn't see any people besides the two other riders we went with. Sunday we met up about 1:30 and then had the "joy" of climbing back up to the truck - about 4,000 foot elevation gain. We were really pooped. Had to laugh at the Ranger as he learned the valuable lesson of never passing up the opportunity to filter water and top off your supply. We all shared water and we knew there was a spring about 2 miles before we ended the ride. By the time we got there everyone was out of water. We saw Antelope, Deer, coyote and a rattlesnake and the other team saw some elk. Super fun but I am really tired today!
I put a bunch of photos on our facebook page so won't go wild here.