A Cranking Odyssey: The roller-coasters of Central Idaho - Day 15: White Bird to Two Shadows Creek (69 miles)

Today's ride again highlighted the contrast in scenery you can experience just by riding 69 miles across a state. We are generally heading north-east through Idaho.

The morning started with the slightly feared climb out of White Bird which didn't turn out to be too bad. We took the Old Highway 95 which had a lower gradient than the new Hwy 95 (which we were told was pretty much at 7% gradient for 16 miles). I am glad we were on the old highway. With the early start I think we only saw 1 car the whole climb and it was nicely graded at about 6% except going around the switchbacks when the gradient kicked up. Steve counted 16 switchbacks on the main climb and won king of the mountain jersey today.

The switchbacks out of White Bird

Katie climbing White Bird

The view during the climb was simply spectacular. You could see the road ahead of you snaking up the mountain and looking back down you could see the switchbacks you had just ridden. Surrounded by shimmering golden mountains glowing in the morning sun and sunflowers that lined the old highway, the view just kept getting better and better the higher you climbed until you could actually see over the ridges around you and look back down into the valley.

Coming up the switchbacks

Nearly at the summit

Still not there yet!

I never tire of seeing all the deer by the road, leaping and prancing through the brush as you approach. Today I saw both a buck with his proud antelers and some pretty white tailed deer.

New Hwy 95 summit

When we re-joined the main highway, we thought we had reached the summit but the Transamerica Trail put us on another country road (Old White Bird Hill Rd) which climbed even higher for a few more switchbacks until we reached the second summit at the White Bird Summit Lodge.

Second summit on the old road

From here we descended over bumpy road around more switchbacks into the farming plains of Idaho, patterned fields extending as far as the eye could see out into the horizon.

In Grangeville, we arrived at Oscars Diner just in time to make breakfast which finished at 11 am. Outside we met another cycle tourer who had her dog harnessed on top of her bike rack. She was doing the entire Transamerica Trail carrying her 11 pound pooch. Now that's another crazy!

A breakfast for champions!

The route out of Grangeville took us on some roller coaster roads through the hay fields. These short ups and downs had some of the steepest gradients we have encountered. We zigzagged through the fields until we hit a very, very steep descent with quite a few switchbacks on Lambs Grade Rd. Coming down tight corners at such a gradient on uneven bumpy road is quite hairy and we were riding the brakes pretty much the whole way down. Three quarters of the way down we took a break to check if our rims were overheating. They were pretty hot to touch. We are so glad we did not have to ride up this hill if we had done the route in reverse. This short hill had serious walking potential!

The roller coaster roads

At the end of the descent we picked up the Middle Fork Clearwater River which really is very clear. We could see the stones and pebbles lining the river bed through the glistening water from the road.

Middle Fork Clearwater River

We had planned to camp at Wild Goose campground by the river near Lowell, but when we stopped to get a drink in the town of Stites we were warned that the campground was probably closed as we were about to ride through another area affected by forest fires.

Pulling into Syringa, Steve decided to go into the local cafe and ask for info on camping in the area, leaving Katie and I outside. After a couple of minutes it became clear he wasn't coming back out so we headed in and found him perched at the bar with a pint of Big Sky Moose Drool beer having a good chat with the barman. Barry the barman at the River Dance Lodge set us straight, confirming that the campground further ahead near Lowell was indeed closed and our best bet was to rough camp on the river at either Two Shadows Creek or Three Devils Creek just a couple miles down the road. We paid for our beers and set off down the road to see what we could find.

At Two Shadows Creek an RV had just beat us in and claimed he had more people coming, not wanting to share the area at all with us, telling us to ride another quarter of a mile down the road where we'd find another suitable spot on the river.

A little bit sceptical, we left him to it and found a rough track leading off the road (just before the Bridge Creek sign) about where he said we'd find a good river camp. It turned out to be a really sweet spot with a nice white sandy beach and no one else here. We had to unload our bikes and carry everything down the narrow track separately to get to the beach, but this was a fine reward to end another great day on the road.