Enaville, ID to Haugan, MT - I forgot how physics works.

May 30 - 52 miles - 6+ hours seat time

The weather turned a little over night. There was a light drizzle in the air. When we started to move around, a group of boys and a couple of middle aged chaperones were unloading a trailer full of bikes and getting ready to head out on an adventure for the day.

I got into colder weather gear and headed out to finish up the Trail de Coeur d'Alenes. Shortly after passing through the town of Kellogg, ID the trail starts to parallel I-90 pretty closely. It's still beautiful everywhere you look but it becomes very noisy.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

I'd like to make the following suggestion. If you own a bicycle and you have 1 other friend who also owns a bicycle and car....and you have a car too.....you all have cars right?...no matter what your physical readiness for long distance bicycle riding, you owe it to yourself to come to Idaho and ride this trail. It's easy. There are facilities and services all along it. It can easily be done over a 3 day weekend where you drive to Plummer, drop a car, and then drive to Mullan and start the trip. You only have to ride 20-30 miles a day. IT'S FLAT. If you don't have bike packing gear, have a 3rd friend along and have them chase you as the sag wagon. IT'S FLAT. Rotate who rides bikes and who drives/breaks camp. There are bars right beside the trail every 30 miles....AND IT'S FLAT! They, the bars, will feed you or give you liquid courage at most reasonable hours of the day. Not to mention the bars/restaurants at either end of the trail that would also like to feed you.

I know I'm the crazy guy riding a bicycle across the country and my enthusiasm for riding bicycles is obviously a little skewed but seriously...make it a point to go to Idaho and ride the Trail de Coeur d'Alenes. Bonus points if you stop at the Snake Pit for a cocktail. But definitely do the route from Mullan to Plummer. It's a prettier progression and gets quieter.

END PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Take an opportunity to reflect.

Share the trail with slower riders.

Speculate.....where are those bubbles coming from?

The ride up to Mullan gets progressively steeper after Wallace. But it's never anything that really requires walking. While it was overcast and a little drizzly at points, it was pleasant enough and I found myself wishing the Trail de Couer d'Alenes was at least a couple hundred miles longer.

The terminus at Mullan. Not nearly as a dramatic as the sculpture in Plummer.

What happens after Mullan is challenging. The grade increases sharply as you move out of Mullan and climb to the NorPac (Northern Pacific) rail trail. This trail is dirt and gravel but is mostly a firm riding surface. That said, it seems a little steep compared to other rail trails and this was where I realized I'd made a small mistake. At 48 degrees F, it was a little chilly, but then it rained a bit, and then it got windy, and I had climbed to 4700 feet. I forgot about how much colder it gets at elevation and I'd probably gained ~2000 feet in the past 2 hours. I was a lot colder than I thought when I met Bunny at the top of Lookout Pass. My numbed fingers burned as they slowly warmed up.

Deer: What are you doing and why aren't you wearing better gloves?

Deer: Oh, it's cause your 'chill'. Okay well we'll be over here. The top of the pass is just around the corner.

Bunny had gotten me a mocha at her stop in Wallace, so between that and a sando, I warmed up enough to brave the descent to Haugen. This was supposed to be a quick 20 mile downhill rip, which was spoiled once again by the fact that I'm not on an actual mountain bike. What Google thought would take 1 hour took approximately 2.5 hours. I almost forgot to mention, I'm trying to listen to albums instead of just listening to playlists on Spotify when I'm not on roads with traffic. I was listening to the Gorillaz new album 'The Mountain' during this descent. It was....fitting.

It's very cold here.

For the first time since the start of the trip, cellular coverage got bad enough that I couldn't text Bunny to let her know that I was fine, it was just that the conditions didn't really allow for me to get to Haugan as quickly as was estimated. While waiting for me to show up at the camping spot Bunny found our Garmin InReach inside the van instead of attached to my CamelBack. This kind of reduces its ability to send reassuring messages of okayness or call for help.....at least for me.

The town of Saltese as viewed from one of the sketchier trestle bridges I've crossed.

I forgot to take a picture of the camping spot for the evening. We stayed behind a lovely little bit of Americana called the '50000 Silver $'. This is best described as a Buc-Ee's if it was home grown over 3 generations. It's a huge gas station with 2 restaurants, 2 bar/casinos, a motel, and a free RV campground.

Yes, free. With power hook ups for some of the spaces. And a corral for horses if you are overnighting. We wondered how exactly this worked, but as described, it was first come/first served, and I got the sense that everyone played nice because there was the sense that you might get run out of town if you weren't polite like.

Get back out here and fight me like a real prairie dog!

After dinner I wandered over to the store with the intent to purchase some ice cream. Earlier, I'd mentioned it to Bunny that when in Haugan it only made sense to get Haagen Dazs. Well, they didn't have that because we're in Montana now officially, and thou shalt eat the Wilcoxson's ice cream like the locals do. So I got a couple of pints of Bunny Tracks. Fun Fact: If you ride a bicycle 50 miles a day you can eat a pint of ice cream and still lose weight.