The Ride That Nearly Killed Me

When someone in the valley says they road The Loop you should ask for a little clarification. "The Loop" is a pleasant 25 mile road ride that starts in Victor and goes north to Driggs and then loops back to Victor via Cedron Road along the Big Holes. I have done this loop many times and it is a beautiful, though not too challenging afternoon jaunt......... "THE LOOP" is different.

THE LOOP is a lot farther and hillier. Yeah, yeah, I realize that there are those who do this loop with regularity, but I am not cut from the same cloth as these super heroes. I am a mere mortal. This was the most difficult 110 miles I have EVER ridden. I have ridden lots of centuries in my life. Maybe it's age or the fact that I don't ride as much as I once did, but this one defined my limits.

I got a slightly later start than I had hoped. I was not at all sure how long it would take but I knew I needed time. Originally I was suppose to meet a friend, her kids and Owen in Jackson at the climbing gym and it was only going to be 85 miles. That morning she informed me that she had forgotten about a prior dinner engagement she had but could still take Owen for a play date after school if I still wanted to ride. Hmmm....that means an extra 25 miles. Well, okay.

Contrary to Tony's suggestion, I decided to do the ride counter clockwise so I did not have to deal with the often formidable wind that blows west along Swan Valley and Palisade Reservoir. Of course that means I would have to end the ride with Teton Pass. Yuck.

I started out at about 10 am and headed up Pine Creek Pass. It is soooooo much easier to ride the pass heading east, short uphill and long downhill into Swan Valley.

I fueled up on a BLT and fries at The Angus before heading out to what was to be the toughest section of the ride.

Swan Valley to Alpine is spectacular scenery. There were raptors soaring off the updrafts of every cliff and the reservoir was populated along the shores and islands with nesting pelicans. However, there was so much elevation gain I could not fully enjoy it.


When I arrived in Alpine, Wy it was apparent to me that Owen would be joining my friend for her dinner engagement. I was not feeling too guilty, since I had her to blame for the extra 25 miles I would have to ride.

The road quality greatly improved the moment I entered WY; goodbye to chip-n-seal and inch-wide road shoulder. Rte 189/191, along the Snake River, is heavenly. There is a 3 foot wide shoulder almost the entire way and silky, smooth asphalt. It is also the best scenery of the ride, with the snow melt engorged river to the right and beautiful cliffs interspersed with forests of cottonwood to the left. Based on the number of rafts I saw careen by, the crappy economy is not affecting tourism too much in Jackson. I even got to witness an entire raft full of unfortunates take a swim at Lunch Counter Rapid.



My arrival to Hoback Junction was greeted by a thunderstorm that lasted exactly the 13 miles it took to limped into Jackson very cold and hungry. I opted to wait until Wilson to buy wool socks, eat Mexican food and steel my mind and body against the climb I had been dreading for the past 50 miles or so. I lingered over a Sangria soda and torta sandwhich hoping the pass would just go away. I considered sticking out my thumb and calling it a day.

Let's just say it is a lot easier riding the pass on a mountain bike with 29 gears. Under powered AND under geared is not a good combo. But I did get this great photo:

I stopped to take a rest at some point and put my gloves back on when I heard a noise to my right and there was a yearling moose not five feet from me, browsing on some quakie shoots. He was completely unfazed by my presence and cooperated as a shot a few photos.

The last 12 or so miles into Victor were both glorious and painful. I was beyond happy to coast downhill but this feeling was tempered by the incredible cold that was seeping deep into my limbs. Mind you, at this point it was almost 8:30, in the low 40s and spitting rain.

Today I opted for a short run.

Lefty lets us down...so does Nellie...as does the weather

Owen has been looking forward to the last week of school for some time now. Not just because it is Final Fun Week but because we get to spend the last week of school camping since we needed to be out of the condo for the painters. Owen dreams of a life as a true dirt bag. Its kinda his style. We have been offered many a bed under friends' roofs or even just a place to park overnight but Owen wanted to spend the first night in the woods. We checked out Mike Harris CG thinking it would still be deserted this time of year but there was already a camp host parked collected $10/night. We feel it should be free to sleep in the woods if you are surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest. We drove up Moose Creek and picked the first pull off over the bridge with a bear box. (We may be cooking meat, you know) It is a great spot adjacent to trails and the creek.

First let me explain that before Tony left me in charge of "his" van he gave me a long lecture on stewardship and how this van was built the year he graduated from high school and there were procedures and rules and blah, blah, blah..............

Upon parking I immediately opened the glove box to retrieve a trail map and found I could not close it. I tried for a good 15 minutes and even called Tony (he informed me that nothing like that ever happened when he had the van; he has owned it for 3 weeks, mind you) for suggestions but the damn thing was stuck.

After hiking and then dinner preparation, Owen closed the sliding door to the steady wind and rain that had started up. When I went to open it 5 minutes later to let the dog in it would not open. It was locked and would not unlock. Another call to Tony. Disbelief on his part.

So I had to let Nellie in the front door. She was mid-air in her jump onto the front seat when the smell of unholy putrescence hit out nostrils. She was covered from head to tail in cow shit and looking very pleased with herself. By this time in the evening the temperature had dropped to the low 40s and it was apparent that I was going to be wading in the torrenting, snow-melt-frigid creek with my dog and a bottle of dish washing liquid. After 3 washes she was almost sufferable and I felt like there were knives stabbing into my body where it was submerged in water. The parts that were not submerged in water were soaked from what had turned into a downpour. Nellie was no longer looking so smug.

The rest of the evening was fun. We ate a dinner unworthy of interest by bears: tortellini with fresh parmigiano, steamed broccoli with a hollandaise sauce and scrambled eggs. We played bat gammon and read some chapters of Lassie Come Home. Uneventful.
The next morning as we pull out onto Old Jackson Hwy I smell gasoline and stop to investigate only to discover gas pouring out from under the carriage of the vehicle. This is never a good sign. Another call and Tony decides he will be taking off work to drive to Victor to rescue me.

Thanks goodness I am married to someone who can not only fix robots but 1984 VW Vans!!

Summarization of Spring

I have not been very diligent about blogging this spring so I will just highlight some events. The title of this post is actually a bit misleading because by any reasonable measure "spring" never really occurred. It went from winter to summer in a blink.

Once again we met my family in Tybee Island, of the coast of Savannah, GA for a week of sun and sand. We stayed in much more luxurious digs this year and I've got to say that I prefer the simple, (and less expensive) one story, traditional beach cottage of last year. This year there was a new baby to meet and some of my brother's in-laws joined us.
Not too far from much tonier Hilton Head, Tybee Island is beautiful, small and not over-built. Howeverm I was very disappointed when I went for a run on the beach one evening as the sun was setting and the tide was coming in and the entire beach was strewn with the refuse of that days beach-goers. These same pigs surely came to the beach for its beauty yet felt no responsibility of stewardship. I continue to be shocked by the cesspool of humanity that our culture has created. It made me want to retreat home, one of those few places left in the United States where the majority of people treat their environment with reverence.

Last snow of the season.....we hope.
We returned from Georgia to rotten weather. At least the snow was off the bike path and we could resume biking to school. I grabbed my camera on the way out of the house in hopes that I would be photoing the last, winter's snowfall. So far so good.

Lefty Shenanigan the Vanagon
I am considering this Tony's mid-life crisis purchase.

As May winds down the sun is out in force and so are we. We have been spending most days after school riding into Driggs and hanging out at Pendl's Bakery and then the Skateboard Park. We are trying to built our mileage for our bike trip to Vermont. Weekends have been spent back in Idaho Falls so I can spend as much time as possible with Ben since he will be leaving to attend University of Idaho in Moscow while I am at The Middlebury College Language Program this summer.

Pole Canyon: A Two Stroke HWY to Hell

I naively thought I would spend some quality outdoor time snowshoeing up Pole Canyon and perhaps capture some wildlife photos and just enjoy the serenity of one of my favorite local trails. Nope.

Call me biased and judgmental but I just think people don't deserve to be out in the wilderness unless they come to be there under their own power. I wonder if these men think of themselves as lovers of nature. They obviously love being out in nature, but sn't their presence on those obnoxious machines detrimental the very existence of the natural world? In the case of Pole Canyon, they are passing right through the center of a major wildlife corridor. Believe me, no animals are going to be utilizing that area as a means for traversing north and south, even though it is a natural corridor for such travel by wildlife.

I was hoping for this:


But instead got this:


In my quest to make lemonade out of lemons, I came back the next day with my trail shoes and spikes and ran the damn snowy highway.

Later That Same Day: Darby Canyon

Later that day while Tony, Ben and Owen went up the the mountain I went with my friends Heather, Nellie and Sam up Badger Creek Canyon. After about 3 miles we got to pretty fresh, un-skied snow and the going was much more fun and the scenery got better and better.