2010 June

Near Garden Valley, ID

Plans refuse to be realized today. Confused by a wrong mileage in our guide, we fail to find the first trailhead we look for, even walking half a mile up a dirt road to make sure. Left with less time we try a shorter hike, but even after starting at the right trailhead on the highway, we go off route. Still, this is a nice sample of the high grassy mountain country north of Boise, and we enjoy the route we end up on. A big rattlesnake in the high grass keeps us on our toes on the descent.

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (zimmer-creek-20100627)

Near Donnelly, ID

Ann’s parents choose Cascade Lake State Park for the site of a rare convergence of Ann with her two brothers and two nephews. We engage in hiking, badminton, fishing, horseshoes, kayaking, campfires, many good meals, and a sustained effort at a family photo.

I made a timelapse video of some of the efforts that went into that photo, which I’ll have to upload later…

George W. Bush made a well-promoted visit via helicopter to this up-and-coming Idaho ski area, but then the economy tanked, bankruptcy struck, and construction stopped. We start amidst monstrous Tyvek-wrapped shells of buildings to do a nice strenuous hike up the ski hill with Ann’s brother Randy. Intermittent rain showers keep patches of mushrooms fresh, and old mountain bike trails provide sporadic routes.

5 shared photos

Near Boise, ID

We take Ann’s brother Randy an his sons Jonathan and Nathaniel to the Black Cliffs for a little climbing. As an only child, it never occurred to me that I might still have nephews some day. I hear “Uncle Dylan” a few times before I really register that it’s me! It’s fun watching how these guys approach something as foreign to them as scaling a rock wall. They’re very competitive, and after Jonathan scores the high point on our first route, Nathaniel turns on his laser-like focus and finds a way to reach the top of the second (a 5.10a done the standard way!) with a few big swings as he explores the terrain on each side of the route. Randy makes it up also, and Uncle Dylan enjoys giving some family a taste of our favorite roped entertainment

Routes: Loaded Guns 5.7, Tidy Up 5.10a, Snake Eyes 5.8

Near Boise, ID

We arrange a truck shuttle with Ann’s parents so they can bike down the Boise river bike path while we go up it. This is an area that is central to the city of Boise and the “green belt”, the lush woods along the banks of the bigger rivers in southern Idaho. I offer to drive the truck back, so Ann gets go both ways and ride with Bob and Carol for a while. The trail ends at the bottom of Lucky Peak dam, the outlet of which floods impressively out of two giant holes that release the Boise river in a double-barreled whitewater torrent to its lower reaches. Emblazoned across the giant dam are the words, “KEEP YOUR FORESTS GREEN”.

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (boise-trail-20100621)

Near Murphy, ID

We return to the Wilson Creek trailhead early to avoid afternoon thunderstorms this time. Our route takes us past Wilson Creek Feeders, a giant feedlot packed full of cattle and manure – thankfully downwind today. We see boldly patterned reptiles going about their business – a gopher snake sunbathes in the trail, and a longnose leopard lizard is starting to warm up nearby also.

The scenery thereafter improves as rock gardens crop up, and finally we drop into Reynolds creek canyon along the now defunct China Ditch, a stone aquifer that appears to have once carried water across Reynolds creek and beyond. Granitic cliffs with a dark orange iron patina rise high out of this canyon, things I’ve noticed from afar.

The bottom of the canyon turns green with trees and stands of poison ivy. We follow it up to the next break in the canyon wall that allows us to return to the trailhead along a slightly different route.

10 shared photos

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (wilson-creek-20100620)

Near Melba, ID

As we’re starting along one of several trails into the Owyhee mountains of Idaho from the Wilson Creek trailhead, Ann tells me about several people who recently went to the hospital for lightning injuries sustained while waiting for Old Faithful to go off in a storm. We deride their lack of judgment just as lightning strikes directly ahead of us. We’re in wide open prairie, no cover at all. And we seriously stall for a few minutes while a few more strikes verify that we are indeed in the midst of an act of pure hypocrisy. So we turn around, but not without some honest recognition that sometimes we really don’t want to be smart.

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (wilson-creek-20100619)

Near Nampa, ID

I find another bike trail along a canal in Nampa to walk. This one is absolutely packed with mallards, little fuzzy ducklings trailing behind moms and dads. I woke up yesterday with lower back pain, so I walk a little like a duck also.

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (green-belt-20100617)

Near Boise, ID

Cousins Doug & Liz are cruising through Idaho on their summer road trip, and we entice them into a morning at the Black Cliffs on the Boise River. The easy routes here still demand careful attention, which makes them all the more fun (sometimes in retrospect). We get coffee in Boise afterward – a fine small family rendezvous. Unfortunately my camera has been struggling to auto focus recently, so I didn’t get any decent photos.

Routes: Loaded Gun 5.7 trad , Fat Ankles 5.7 sport, Tidy Up 5.10a TR

I’m feeling pretty good on a barefoot run when I reach the end of the greenbelt bike trail, so I hang a right on a dirt road that follows a canal through developments and farm fields. I go pretty far on the canal road too, and by the time I return to the bike trail my feet are starting to get tender. The last mile is slow, but I end up with my longest barefoot run yet, almost 9 miles.

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (greenbelt-20100612)