From Challis, ID

I'm in Challis, ID and I need to crank out just under 60 more miles today. So I'll be semi-coherent.

Hit the wall hard on the fourth day, leaving Missoula. Food failed me. From the first pedal strokes of the morning, I didn't want to eat any of my granola bars, nuts, fig newtons, m&ms, and I didn't have any desire to go anywhere. My right achilles had been hurting me and it really started to ache. (I've overcompensated and now my left achilles is hurting.) I treated myself to a nice Subway sandwich at lunch, which was enough motivation to keep me pedaling for the first part of the day. Then I kept going almost to Sula, MT at the base of the great Lost Trail Pass. Camped by the East Fork of the Bitterroot, first campground I had to pay for yet. Woke up at 5am to my tent standing in water. The river had risen about a foot, because of hot days and major snowmelt. I dragged my tent uphill a little more, picked up a few wet things to put on the picnic table, and went back to bed. Later the park ranger came by and gave me back my money. I said angrily, "The service around here!" No, I didn't.

Day 5, Lost Trail Pass was a success. About a 15mile climb in all, the last 8miles at a 6% grade. I sang all the songs I could think of, had a lot of conversations with John Henry. Topped out in two and a half hours, and was blasted by a crazy headwind. My descent was wild. Wind gusts in the 30mph range, from every direction. At one time they'd be slowing me down to 15mph on the steepest downhills, then they'd slingshot me forward to 35mph. I had to swerve a lot to rebalance from side blasts. Thankfully very few cars came by.

On the rest of my descent to the Dougherty's (where I was going to stay Tuesday night) I got a steady headwind. Really frustrating. So much so that once, when I got blown off the side of the road with a huge gust, I stopped my bike and said a bunch of nasty things. Right then I heard a CRACK! and turned around just in time to see a 70ft dead cottonwood at 15Deg to the vertical and on its way down. It was about 100yds out in the field. The wind was so loud I didn't hear it THUMP like I expected, just a bunch of crackling as the branches snapped. I stood there for probably 15seconds with my mouth open.

The Doughertys. My gosh, I couldn't have had a better end to this day. Mike and Jane are Uncle and Aunt to one of my best high school buddies. I'd never met them. But I'd heard crazy stories about them. Real adventurers and real pioneers. They came down to the base of their 5mi steep driveway to pick me up. (They had called ahead to the last town I'd passed through to see about my progress; Idaho's a giant local community.) We waited down there to also picked up their 2nd grade son, Conrad, from the bus stop. They live at the foot of the National Forest. The furthest homestead back on Fourth of July Creek Road, where E Hemingway used to have a house too. Really wild land. They've built up their own land into a rustic mountain farm. After dinner (Elk steaks and burgers, Idaho potatoes, huge salad, home-pickled cucumbers and onions) Jane and Conrad took me outside to help them irrigate their land. They use an irrigation canal that was cut in 1905, way up above their hill. They divert water from it into several channels that run through their land. Jane (healing a broken collar bone, thrown from a horse) instructed Conrad which stones to move to block or unblock different channels. He'd thrust his shovel at me indicating I was to do something too. Then he'd bend down and push a stone out of the way that was twice the size of his head. I chopped at the sod like an amateur. Their dog Chipper played along beside us. Later that night, after Conrad had showed me his books on fighter planes and his cowboy belt for a rubber band gun and Jane had put him to bed, I twisted Mike's arm to show me some pictures from his epic 1700mi, 3.5month kayak journey from Skagway, AK to Seattle, WA. He completed it back in 1996. Largely lived off of clams and fish and kelp. We talked about it late into the night. Got to see his navigation charts, and heard some stories that made me wince.

Earlier on, in the bathroom, Mike had left me a note on the empty toilet paper roll: "Better learn how to go without TP for a real man's adventure." This took on new meaning when I heard about his crazy expedition.

In the morning Jane cooked pancakes all the way up from whole wheat berries. She had decided to let Conrad skip the first part of school to ride with me on his bike to the base of Fourth of July Creek Road. I said goodbye in as meaningful a way as a could to these hearty people. They let me know that I was to come back in the future. The people I've gotten to meet along this trip have made the difficult riding almost negligible.

Day 6 was a haul. I climbed to Salmon, ID, stocked up on groceries, then headed further up the Salmon River. I didn't get as far as I had hoped. About 18miles outside of Challis (which is where I am now.) The land and the mood of the land changed dramatically over yesterday's miles. It got more desolate and far less hospitable. Real desert. Canyons. Lots of ranch land. More No Trespassing signs than there are people in Idaho. A different sort of wilderness than the Lochsa River Gorge. I found a campsite, then headed out in search of water. (I'd misjudged how much water I needed to carry at the end of the day; I hadn't passed any towns or campgrounds like I normally have. I could have used the Salmon river, but it was brown with more than high-water silt and cow poop. I was a little concerned about fertilizers drained into the river.) I stopped by one house a quarter mile down the road. Big handprinted No Trespassing sign. Knocked, no one there. About another mile down the road, in the tiny town of Ellis, ID I found another house. Just a dog barking inside when I knocked. It was like a ghost town. For reasons I can't explain I started to get a little spooked. My mind was a little off-kilter. I stopped at a third house. Before I could put my bike down, an angry dog choked himself on his chain and barked like a mad animal at me. A mean old rancher came outside and shouted, "What!" more like an order than a question. I'm not sure who he was talking to, but he was looking at me. I was really shaken up at this point. I must have sounded like a 12-year-old girl asking for water. He pointed at a spiggot and lit up a cigarette. He stood on his porch and just watched me the whole time I was filling up all my water containers. I asked him a bunch of silly questions to try to make conversation, then headed out as quickly as I could.

Today I've climbed 18miles to Challis, and I've just discovered there are no towns until I get up and over Willow Creek Summit (about an 1800ft vertical, 25mile climb from here) and another 30miles beyond that to the town of Mackay. I didn't realize it when I was planning this out, but this section is through some desolate country.

I'm loading up on water here in town, and then heading out for Mackay. Hoping to make it before dark.