The higher you climb Boundary Creek, the further your jaw drops.

Now comes word that Ketchum and Sun Valley will host the 2011 and 2012 USA Cycling Mountain Biking National Championships, spanning the very same five days in late July that Team Mojo habitually picks for its “national hardships.” We would much appreciate a finders’ fee! (Or maybe free tickets?)

After Boundary Creek got done wringing us out, we headed to the bucolic little burg of Stanley, hard by the Salmon River. First on the agenda was finding a camp site. There are plenty of campgrounds off Highway 75 just beyond Stanley and we had little trouble getting one within 200 feet of the river. We jumped in to cool down; the water was unexpectedly warm even though the river seemed a bit high and the current was strong.

What Stanley lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. Our fave place for dinner is the Bridge Street Grill, which has a deck right out over the river where there’s some kind of steel bridge — no guard rails — that looks for all the world like a girder laid sideways over the gap. Motorbikes, scooters, small children … they all crossed the bridge, the latter even playing a game of tossing flowers into the river, then running to the other side of the bridge to see them pass beneath in the current. Ah the simple joys of youth — if you don’t fall in, that is. We seemed a lot more worried about the prospect than they did.

I’ve gotten to the point where I avoid eating meat if I can, but that can be a bit of a stretch in a place like Stanley, Idaho. The only veggie thing on the menu was a mushroom burger. I’ve liked most mushroom burgers I’ve eaten, but once in the similarly carnivorous small town of Winthrop WA I ordered a mushroom burger that subsequently arrived containing a huge steak patty with a portobello mushroom on top. So I figured on asking our Stanley waiter what kind of mushrooms the burger came with. I’m thinking maybe portobello, maybe shiitake. Perhaps the morels were already in. Button, crimini and porcini I would probably take a pass on.

“So,” says I, “what kind of mushrooms are in the mushroom burger?”

The waiter, who later turned out to be an actual bull rider called in when the regular help was sick, thought for a moment and said, “Um … non-hallucinogenic?”

You can see why we love this place.

I went with the BBQ chicken sandwich, which was quite tasty. And we left our cowpoke friend, clearly out of his element but endearingly solicitous of our every request, a big tip.

At dinner we asked around for a place to get breakfast, and everyone agreed that would be the bakery.

“What’s it called?” we asked.

“The Bakery,” they said.

“Just … the Bakery?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s the only place I ever eat breakfast,” our waiter chimed in.

“There isn’t any other place to eat breakfast,” a couple at the next table noted. [A complete list of Stanley dineries here.]

Later we spoke with the owner of the Grill, who acknowledged he’d tried serving breakfast for a while but “it didn’t work out.” Customers were not the problem — it was getting help.

“People come and go,” he said. “You never know if someone’s going to report for work or not.”

We asked him the population of Stanley. He thought for a bit.

“It must be up around 70,” he said. “A Mormon family moved in with 8 kids.”

After sleeping soundly with the whispering river providing soothing white noise, we rose and hustled over to The Bakery. It was packed with cyclists, largely because of a big road ride in town. But we got seated fairly expeditiously and enjoyed a huge bowl of steaming oatmeal with berries. They also had signature hearty fare, including flapjacks the size of frisbees. We finished up and were soon on our way. Which was good, because we had a long ride ahead of us.

A few years back we’d spent time in Stanley planning to do Big Boulder/Little Boulder, an epic backcountry loop that requires an hour-plus drive from Stanley just to the starting point on East Fork Salmon River Road, 18 miles in from Highway 75. We’d gotten too late of a start to do the loop, though, which meant an out-and-back, or up-and-down, ride on Big Boulder. That was a screaming downhill, one of the best we’ve ever had. But it left us craving the entire ride.

Because the Big Boulder downhill is so spectacular — 6.5 miles of non-stop ripping over buff singletrack with G-force straightaways — you’re forced to make a decision at the start. Do you go up Little Boulder and down Big, or the other way around? Since we’d already done the down Big thing, we decided to go up Big and down Little. The ride profile showed that to be a lot longer downhill, even if our local tipster (Don Wiseman) had warned us of lots of rocky sections.

The primary thing to remember, no matter which direction you take, is to park at the dirt-road turnoff from East Fork Salmon River Road. You do NOT want to ride the dirt road to or from the trailhead at the END of the loop, no matter which way you do it.

We parked and geared up. It was approaching 80 degrees and I was thinking, another hot one.

“Should I take along my rain jacket?” I asked Jim.

“What do you think?” he said.

Jim always answers what he considers boneheaded questions with a Zen koan or something, which is only fair because by now he knows my chief problem is that I don’t think.

“There’s not a cloud in the sky. It’s pushing 80 degrees out. What’s the point?” I asked him back. He just smiled and rolled his eyes.

Doing the dirt road up to the trail head at the start of the ride isn’t a bad thing. You get to stretch your legs a bit and, dusty and uninspiring though it be, you’re fresh and looking forward to a day of spectacular riding. We were kind of hoping one of the hikers or good ol’ boys who passed us on the way would give us a ride, but no luck. Yeah it would’ve been cheating, but an honest kind of cheating.

The climb up Big Boulder is gentle, beautiful, scenic and altogether pleasant. About half way up, the sky began to darken. Then it got darker. In a few minutes it was all but black. Lightning crackled to the northwest, thunder rattled the ridge and fat splotches of sloppy rain began pelting down on us.

Even though we were riding carbon bikes, Jim cautioned we could get struck by lightning or otherwise imperiled if lightning chose a tree close by. We crawled down off the trail and took refuge in a small stand of pine.

“You don’t want to be near the tall trees,” Jim said. They’re likeliest to get hit.

Jim got out his rain gear and was soon covered up. When I pulled out my yellow Patagonia jacket, he did a double-take.

“Glad I followed your advice,” I said.

The rain was coming down hard but Jim, who once was a rock climber and professional mountain guide, scanned the horizon and said, “It’ll be over in 15 minutes or so.” For the time being, all we could do was sit and wait.

When the rain did stop, the skies opened back up and we resumed riding, Jim said, “I think that’s the last of it for today.” That he was right was a good thing, because we still had five or six hours ahead of us.

Apres le deluge, climbing Big Boulder Creek trail.

Eventually we crested on Big Boulder, providing gobsmacking 360s of stunning mountain ranges, lakes and meadows below. It was time to start heading down.

Near the top, views all around.

There are indeed rocky sections of trail on the ride down Little Boulder, but our Mojos were sucking up everything like cotton candy and we were maintaining whooping velocity on the route to Frog Lakes. Then I heard some scraping from my brakes. I stopped and gave the wheels a spin. The front rotor had serious rub.

I ride Magura Martas on the Mojo and love ‘em. But when the pads go, there’s no forgiveness. I looked into the caliper and saw telltale shiny filings from metal on metal. We were miles from our destination, with around 4,000 feet of elevation to drop.

Fortunately, in packing for the trip Jim and I had both included spare pads in our packs. I pulled out my set and Jim slapped them in while I held the fork aloft. Good as new, we were ready to roll in 5 minutes. Nevertheless, it was a good reminder of Rule No. 1 for epic riding in the back country: Bring all the spare parts you can reasonably pack. For me that means a dropout and brake pads as well as a tube and patch kit. I know guys who include rotors, rear derailleurs and even chains in the mix, but I’ve always found workarounds for those catastrophes. And a few inches of duct tape, a collection of zip ties, a first aid kit and of course wrenches and tools accompany me wherever I ride.

But you knew all this, right?

The long descent on Little Boulder is a wonderful ride, but not — on this occasion at least — without its drawbacks. The late spring had left the trail a complete bog in numerous places, worsened by post holes and generous deposits of effluent from horses. The only saving grace was that we could often (not always) ride around the mess, and that we were going down instead of up. Momentum was our friend.

Dropping back down toward Frog Lakes.

Finally we dropped onto a rollicking desert trail that took us back to the East Fork road, which we rode back up to the car.

Our Mojos were in pretty sad shape from the “horsepuckey crossings,” but it had been a fine ride. Would we do it again? Probably not the whole loop. For this specific loop we think up-and-back on Big Boulder is the best choice, giving you the better payoff for your pain.

But we have in mind another variation in this drainage that has us itching to get back asap. There’s always another ride to report, and we can dream of the day we return to Big Boulder Creek.

Distance: 27 miles plus. Elevation gain: 5020 feet.

[Tomorrow: We head to the panhandle!]

Older. Wiser. Better?

Sun Valley’s most famous mountain bike ride is the Fisher Creek loop, which in five trips there I’ve never actually done per se. You climb up Fisher Creek road, then circle back and absolutely rip one of the world’s great cross-country downhills, Williams Creek. The reason I’ve never done Fisher is because I typically combine it with a wider adventure, including one of my all-time favorite XC rides, Boundary Creek.

We’ve rhapsodized before about Boundary, running a 2004 version as one of our “Classics” during this most recent trip even as we rode it again real-time. It’s a true epic: 6 to 7 hours long, 27-plus hard miles, with just about every type of terrain you’ll encounter riding cross-country, from powdery singletrack to rocky descents. In 2005 it even added a forest burn with the epic Fisher-Williams fire. The good news is that stuff is already coming back, even though the trail remains post-burn limp and sandy.

Green is returning to 2005's Fisher Creek burn.

There’s even a big-chainring road ride at the beginning. The way we do it is to take Highway 75 to the Williams Creek trailhead, then ride road around 6 miles to Boundary Creek’s trailhead. You climb Boundary all the way to Casino Lakes, take Marten Creek down to Warm Springs, cross a vast ethereal meadow and then dive through the Fisher burn to Williams and back to the trailhead.

You have a number of options in this region just outside of the bustling little burg of Stanley. You could do Ants Basin, a giant shuttle. You could go up Fisher Creek and take Warm Springs down to Robinson Bar, another big shuttle (you’d get to see Carole King’s for-sale estate this way). You could take Boundary up to the Casino Lakes intersection and take one of the Casino trails down.

Of them all, Boundary is the most challenging, epic and rider-specific. No shuttle is required.

We were gearing up when who should pull up but a pickup jammed with bikes … from Seattle! It was a group ride of fellow Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance bros. Unbeknownst to us, a gang had come over and was renting a house near Ketchum for the week. We found this out just by striking up a conversation, which we always try to do at trailheads. You never know what connections you have in this small, small world.

In this case, our old riding buddy David James was the link. When someone mentioned he was part of the group, Dave popped his head around and we got to say hello. Some of the gang was doing classic Fisher, others were crossing the meadow to Warm Springs and down to Robinson Bar. It was going to be a memorable day for all. You can check out their adventures via Erik Alston’s posts on GotSingletrack.com.

Erik Alston's Seattle group at Fisher-Williams.

The road ride at the beginning of Boundary isn’t much fun. The road lacks shoulder space, but vehicles tend to give you wide berth in Idaho. It helped that a big road bike event was going on in Stanley; there were plenty of compatriots out flashing colors strung out along 75.

We registered at the Boundary Creek trailhead and began the long climb up. Around 9 miles up, the climb is a gradual ascent punctuated by a few wicked switchbacks. Most of it is rideable, and when I say that I usually mean by someone other than me. Especially on this long, long ride, you don’t want to burn out your jets early on.

On the way Jim reminded me of a pushing technique he had been introduced to by a riding buddy we would eventually hook up with in northern Idaho. Instead of the usual technique of pushing a bike alongside, left hand on bars, right hand on saddle (or whatever), with this maneuver you reverse the bike and push it backwards up the hill, both hands on the bars.

A new way of pushing up the steeps.

It feels funny at first and looks even funnier. But there’s an innate efficiency to the process that immediately clicks. Despite Jim’s snickers and ridicule, I found myself adapting to it quickly. Steering is at first a bit awkward, but soon enough I was negotiating rocks, step-ups and switchbacks with little trouble. Because it requires reversing the bike, it’s only practical for extended pushes. But try it sometime — you may like it.

As we continued to climb, the scenery got more and more stunning. Your backdrop is Idaho’s majestic Sawtooth range. Snow still strewed the peaks, and the morning sun gave an iridescent glow to the bluish massif. We don’t have mountains like this on the West Coast. Jim’s a Colorado native and says the Sawtooths are the closest he knows comparable to the commanding sweep of the Rockies.

The higher you climb Boundary Creek, the further your jaw drops.

About two-thirds of the way up a group of riders, led by a powerful pro (we guessed from his colors), came rolling by. They were strung out along the hillside, but to their credit all were riding all the way to the top. Several — the tall ones — had 29ers. A couple were out of Tucson, one woman was Australian, and the rest were locals. We’d see them again at the top but for now they were way off the front.

There’s a false summit on Boundary where you think whew, the climbing’s over at least. Far from it. You’ve got another thousand feet or so of really steep stuff before you crest for the best lunch spot.

Atop Boundary, you look down on the Sawtooths.

We encountered the group eating and laughing on slickrock boulders — perched on a ridge that made it seem like you were looking down on the Sawtooths. One guy in particular caught our interest. Dressed in a buttoned and collared short-sleeve shirt and natty creased shorts, he looked like he’d just stepped out of a Herb Allen conference seminar. It turned out he was Mike Herlinger, the founder of Club Ride Apparel, a clothing line represented in the Northwest by none other than former distance champion John Stamstad. We took Mike’s photo (he’s on the right) and made a mental note to follow up once we got back home.

“You don’t even look like you broke a sweat,” we commented.

“It’s all in the attire,” he said with a smile.

Club Ride: Dressing well is the best revenge.

That reminded us of a previous ride we’d done in the area with a dapper Boeing engineer named Steve Van Patten. Throughout a day-long epic in blistering heat, Steve wore a long-sleeved pinstripe dress shirt. We had to admit, for all the eccentricity of dress, he brought a touch of class to the proceedings.

The gang — whom we later learned comprised in part Team Niner-Ergon — soon departed after donning helmet cams (one had a GoPro Hero mounted on his handlebars; see video here). They were headed down Casino Lakes, the opposite way from us but an alternative we plan to do the next time. For now we were looking forward to a monster downhill.

If there’s such a thing as a challenging descent, Boundary Creek is it. Rock gardens abound, and the late spring had left creek crossings dicey. It’s fun, but you don’t want to hurt yourself or even get a mechanical this far from anywhere, and you don’t really get a lot of flow. I was heartened by Jim’s recollection of several crashes I’d had last time. This time out I stayed upright. Older, yes. Wiser, yes. Better? It must have been the Mojo.

Sometimes ya eats the rocks, sometimes the rocks eat you.

One interlude I always take advantage of is an alpine lake fairly early on, where you can take a cool dip that brings down the core temp fast and relaxes you for the rest of the ride. I had jumped in and was floating on my back when Jim, scanning out across the lake, said bemusedly, “Hmmm, there’s a water snake out there.”

A snake! Where there’s one, there’s got to be more! After I’d finished splashing to shore, cracking up Jim to no end, he explained that we probably weren’t talking water moccasins here. In any case, I was ready to roll on in no time at all.

A snake you say? Yeeeoooowwwww!

We rode down, down, down … through the ghostly burn, where underbrush is coming back to life … through creek crossings that were higher than normal … through the vast upper meadow bowl … up riser after riser on Fisher. The latter, coming late in the ride and the day, was leaving me pretty gassed, wondering if the intersection with Williams is ever going to show up.

But then you’re there.

It admittedly would be nice to do Williams a bit fresher. It’s one ride that invites speed so tantalizing you simply cannot resist the perfectly timed berms and roller-coaster straightaways. For the most part Williams has terrific sight lines and plenty of clearance. And you can go as fast as reflexes and fear factor permit.

You finally break out into a meadow at the bottom, then have a little 200-foot climb before the final rip to the trailhead. As much as I love this ride, it had pummeled me into submission by the end. I guess that’s one thing that keeps bringing me back. Maybe one of these days I’ll get the better of it rather than the other way around. Either way, it’s an incomparable mountain biking experience.

Warm Springs meadow, in the eye of God.

Back at the trailhead we’re packing up when we hear a voice … “Jim? Jim Lyon? Paul? Is that you?”

We turned around to see none other than Mr. Sartorial Splendor himself, Steve Van Patten.

After much exclaiming, hooting and greeting, we learned he was with the Seattle clan, having just been dropped back off at his camper after doing the Robinson Bar option. He had a different bike than in 2004, sans rack, but the camper was the same and Steve still was living large.

We told him the story of Club Ride Apparel.

“Was the material cotton?” he asked.

We weren’t positive but thought it a blend.

Steve shook his head. “Has to be cotton,” he said. “Cotton all the way.”

So there you have it. The last mountain biker in America to wear cotton on day-long rides. Boundary Creek truly has it all.

Elevation gain: Around 5300 feet. Miles: 27 plus change.

[Next up: Big Boulder/Little Boulder ... and medium boulders, er, road apples, too!]

Because of our late spring and/or non-existent summer, however you want to characterize it, in Year 2010 of the Great Northwest, we were even more out of shape than usual for late July. Jim was playing it cautious, keeping our entry rides in the medium-range level of distance and altitude. The nice thing about Sun Valley is that you can do a loop and then, if you’re feeling like more, add another, different loop of greater or lesser challenge right in the same basin. It’s really remarkable for that. There really is that much riding around.

We had been scheduled to tackle the forbidding Bowery Creek Loop up the road past Galena Pass. But it rained heavily during the night and kept spigot-showering through the early morning hours. There was no telling when the rain would let up, and in any case we had no idea what conditions were like up on Galena, so we lowered our sights to closer to town.

As it turned out, we were glad we did.

Pondering an innovative new route.

The departure point is a large parking lot at the Greenhorn Gulch trail head. You take Highway 75 south from Ketchum for 6 miles to Greenhorn Gulch Road and follow it to the end. You’ll find lots of hikers, mountain bikers and dog-walkers at the trail head, which has an outhouse as well.

Coming from Seattle, you expect after a downpour to find trails slippery and puddled. In Sun Valley we could hardly tell it rained. The trail surface was not only dry but nicely tacked up — no dust! We cruised around the loop in near-record time, pausing only at the upper junction for a very civilized photo at table and chairs. All we needed were a couple of cold ones, and we’d be right out of one of those outdoorsy beer commercials.

A couple of tall cold ones was all we needed.

We couldn’t take it too easy because our pals the bugs were still hot on our trail. Jim was starting to kvetch about the unfairness of it all, how I somehow got passed up for him when I was the fleshier, flabbier, presumably more succulent member of Team Mojo. He had even brought along a little cannister of spray in his pack. No matter how much he lathered on, though, the bugs still lapped him up.

Myself, I was beginning to think of the commercial value of my asset.

“We could bottle up my sweat and sell it,” I told Jim. “Team Mojo mosquito repellant. Paul’s Brow Juice. Or maybe Armpit by Paul.”

Jim thought for a moment, then said: “Eau de Butt Crack.”

Hey, if people will buy car insurance from little green lizards …

The last time we did the ridge section was at the end of a long, really hot day, when I’d run out of water and we made an unfortunate routing error — continuing on the up-and-down-and-up-again ridge instead of dropping down to the lower connector. This time we got it right, but you know what? I’ll remember the first time a lot more. Suffering imprints the gray cells far deeper.

The loopy joys of Greenhorn Gulch.

When we got back this time, we were actually just starting to get our Sun Valley rhythm. So Jim conjured up another loop — Cow Creek. It looked straightforward enough on the map, the only problem being we were following the map, not the recommended route.

We left from the Greenhorn Gulch trailhead but this time took a right at Cow Creek trail and headed up to a butte-like promontory. There was a lot more climbing than it looked at first, and when we came to a Y we were a bit puzzled. But a makeshift sign pointed us in what we thought was the right direction with crude Appalachian lettering: Cow C-R-I-C-K. There was no “Deliverance” theme, but things were about to get dicey.

Short on graphics, maybe, but getting the point across.

As we proceeded, the trail got sketchier and sketchier, till finally it disappeared altogether in a grass burn. We kept checking the map, and indeed we were on Cow Creek Trail. But it obviously wasn’t the mountain bike mecca that the route suggested.

We got off our bikes and beat the brushes for a bit, before Jim discovered the exit path. From there we dropped down a couple of steep switchbacks. Then the fun began.

Yee-haw! The rest of the trail, leading back to the parking lot, was a series of buckin’ bronco — or maybe it was bull-ridin’, given the name — bouldered downhills. You’d get through a patch and think, hey, that was intense! Now it’s time to ride!

Then you’d hit another. And another. Jim kept apologizing — “This isn’t what I figured on” — but I was having a great time. Until that one section. The one where I crashed.

It wasn’t a bad tumble. I was going pretty slow, which was part of the problem. The front wheel caught a doorstop that, with a bit more momentum, I would’ve rolled over easily. Instead the fork dived and I went over the bars.

If I’d been wearing full-finger gloves, I wouldn’t even have scratched my left index finger. As it was, I dug out a bit of skin and it was bleeding pretty bad. I also scraped my left shin and it was bleeding too. But I’ve been in lots worse crashes. I pulled my DIY first-aid kit out of my pack and put Neosporin on the cuts, bandaged my hand, took a shot of Arnica Montana and was ready to roll in no time.

[Please don't tell my wife about the crash, as she never reads this blog.]

There were even more boulder sections, but nothing too insurmountable. We cruised back to the trailhead, and I checked the sign. There it was: Cow Creek Trail, spelled American Textbook.

Jim, still scratching his head, consulted the map again and figured out where we went wrong. The traditional loop is to do Lodgepole Gulch (Mahoney Creek Trail) up and then ride down the part of Cow Creek Trail we rode up. That makes for a screaming downhill — sans the boulder fields.

I liked it this way. We’ll call it the Cow Creek Faceplant Option. Or: The Real Cow Crick.

When we got back to the trailhead we struck up a conversation with a tanned, sinewy couple in a Eurovan who knew their way around the area.

“Would you like a cold one?” she asked. “We’ve got Tecates in the fridge.”

It’d been a long time since I’d cracked open a Tecate, but I recalled back in the day it was a pretty tasty beer. When I took my first sip, I just about sprayed it back out. What happened, did Tecate get bought out by Rolling Rock? As Jim later put it, that’s as close as you can get to rat piss without being rodential.

Dude where's my beer?

Not to diss the hospitality of our new friends, though, because they saved our hides. We were thinking about doing Bowery the next day, but they warned us off. Too much suffering for too little gain; they suggested an out-and-back that sounded pretty good to us.

It would have to wait till the next time we came to town, though. For our third day out, it was time to start pinning the fun meter. Boundary Creek was calling our names, and we were all ears.

Elevation gain: 3340 feet. Miles: 19.2.

[Tomorrow: Boundary Creek revisited, with the unexpected reappearance of old friends.]

It’s a long day’s drive from Seattle to Ketchum, ID, around 680 miles. We packed Jim’s CR-V to the gills and headed out at 6 a.m., arriving nearly 12 hours later. After grabbing some food in Atkinson’s grocery in town (BigWood Bakery granola and cookies highly recommended), we pitched our tents at the Corral Creek campground just outside of town. It’s free, quiet and eminently convenient. Despite coming from sea level to a mile high in elevation, we slept well.

Upper meadow near Baker Lake

While we were getting ready to roll, up drives an SUV with two Boise riders wearing racing colors from Reed Cycle. As they geared up, we couldn’t help but notice that one — a powerfully lean, dark-haired girl — had a big patch of gray duct tape just below her knee. When Jim asked her about it, she laughed and said, somewhat cryptically, “There’s a real bandage underneath.”

All summer long we’ve been reading Stieg Larsson’s posthumously best-selling trilogy about “The Girl.” The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The Girl Who Played with Fire. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

This was The Girl with the Duct Tape Band-Aid. Friendly enough, but the kind you wouldn’t want to mess with.

We jumped on our Mojos and headed up the road to the turnoff (to the left) of the jeep road beginning Curly’s Loop. We don’t know who Curly is, but we thank him for this little acclimatizer. The road is not really steep nor really long, but both are definitely more pronounced at altitude than they would be back home. We were huffing well beyond what our moderate output merited, but that was the point: Get used to it.

Halfway up the road, who should zoom by but the Girl With the Duct Tape Band-Aid. Make that “Without.” We couldn’t help notice it was missing.

“It fell off!” she exclaimed, moving by us so fast we barely caught a glimpse.

There’s a story there. Maybe not one that will put 23 million books in print, but we were naturally curious nonetheless.

Don't forget to smell the flowers

You can really rip this descent or take it easy — your choice. But its loose surface and sudden corners should not be taken lightly.

The trail eventually dumps you right into someone’s back yard. A couple was out watering when we rode in — they nodded hello, barely reacting to our presence. You pick up a flat access road paralleling the highway, and it takes you back to your car.

The whole thing took less than two hours and left us thinking. While we did not want to overdo things our first day out, this was like giving us bread sticks for our first meal. Fortunately, Jim had an Accessory Plan.

You have to understand that for someone who does not actually live there, Jim knows Sun Valley as well as if not better than most of the locals. Employing a process over the years he calls “Filling in the map,” Jim has ridden nearly all of the traditional routes, improvised his own and trail-blazed a couple that simply do not show up in the guide books.

One ride is never enough

We drove up Baker Creek Road another seven miles to a crowded trailhead for West Fork Norton Creek — we got the absolute last parking spot. Fortunately, all the vehicles were for hikers bound for Norton Lakes — a different trail, off to the right. We headed to the left, toward Baker Lake.

The trail was all up and mostly rideable, although our shortness of breath and the 95-degree heat, combined with moto’d-out sections of trail that made it feel like you were trying to get traction on split peas, left us pushing parts we normally would ride. Conditions also were ripe for Sun Valley’s least hospitable population: Bugs. We got horse flies, deer flies, mosquitoes, gnats, you name it. I’m quite lucky in that bugs don’t, erm, bug me. Most of the time they just circle around. When they land, they usually take back off right away. If they actually bite me, I don’t show the bites. A couple of times horse flies — Yowch! — got in pretty good nips. “That means you’re bit, my friend,” Jim told me. But I never itched, and nothing ever showed up.

Jim is just the opposite. Bugs love the guy. Every time we stopped to catch our breath or admire the view, Jim turned into a hazy column of small buzzing critters.

Endless singletrack you say ...

All in all, a satisfying day. We scampered back to town, where the new Ketchum Y(MCA), which looks for all the world like a private spa you might find in, say, Dubai, awaited us with $5 showers. We discovered our first casualty of the trip: Our shoulders. Lobster-red, and broiled in the same manner. I don’t use sunscreen, considering it one of the great corporate scams perpetrated on a gullible American public. Jim does use it, however. He was more burnt than me.

We concluded about the only thing that would have saved our skin that day would have been duct tape.

But you know, that stuff just doesn’t stay on.

Day’s elevation gain: Approximately 3,500 feet. Mileage: 18.

[TOMORROW: Further acclimatization, with somewhat less huffing, at royal Imperial Gulch and the decidedly less regal Cow Crick.]

 
The keyboard feels funny.

For 10 days Team Mojo took to the road, exploring Idaho’s far-flung trails in Sun Valley, Stanley, and the all but undocumented panhandle hard by the Canadian border. We left the MacBook behind. The iPhone was almost always out of range. We seldom had Wi-Fi. Our fingers were for gripping the bars, not typing. We did 9-mile climbs and 18-mile downhills. We did forest-carpeted singletrack, we bucked boulders and roots, jumped in alpine lakes, cruised charred sticks of timber burns and grunted up 10,000-foot-high ridges. We crossed raging creeks nearly to our waists, handing our bikes to one another as we tried to maintain footing on mossy rocks we could not see. We got black and blue from crashes, brown from mud, green from meadows and red from when Jim accidentally set the soft fleshy underside of his forearm on a Magura rotor after a screaming 4-mile descent in 92-degree temps.

We got up, ate, rode, ate, rode some more, showered, ate, went to bed. Day after day. In broiling sun, in crackling lightning, in booming thunderclaps, in sodden drizzle. We abused our carbon Ibis Mojos, our Ergon packs and our Sidi shoes — to say nothing of our sunburned shoulders, abraded legs and bludgeoned feet. We were in heaven even when we felt like hell. Distance in miles: About 150. Accumulated elevation gain in feet: Around 25,000. Happiness in cackles: Long into the night.

We chose well. Somewhat belatedly, Idaho is coming into its own as a mountain biking destination. We’ve been riding around Sun Valley since the mid-1990s, abetted early by faxed notes from Seattle mountain biking scribe John Zilly, who drew maps by hand of trails around town and wrote the first mountain-bike guides (no longer available) to the area. In an age of boundless hype, the Idaho Sawtooth region has always struck us as vastly under-appreciated. The endless cross-country trails, gobsmacking views of the Sawtooths and White Clouds, and the spot-on climate have brought us back time and again. [Even as we explored new routes this time we posted "classic" past adventures on BikeIntelligencer.]

John Zilly, circa 1995