Another cold and windy day, but the wind was at our backs for the first 50km and the rain held off. The final 60km were a bit more strenuous with a heavy crosswind most of the time, but we crossed some beautiful terrain and saw the potato fields of Idaho. Teton Valley is the largest area of seed potato management in the world As we entered the Teton Valley the mountains came into view – covered with fresh snow from the previous night. We are in Driggs, Idaho for 2 nights because our next stop, Jackson, Wyoming is fully booked on Sat. night. We had a few beers at the local tavern last night with Nick, a self-proclaimed conservative. We had an enlightening conversation about gun control, Medicare, taxes, same sex-marriage and immigration. Nick is 33 years old, unmarried and owns 6 guns. He is a well-spoken polite young man and we wish him well.
Today was another tough weather day. We started with a heavy cloud cover, cold spitting rain and a strong wind. The rain continued all day but we never got a heavy downpour, just a light rain all day. We rode into the wind for only 3 km and it kept us down to 15kph but as we turned east the wind was at our back or a crosswind all day. The stretch between Arco and Idaho Falls is one of the most barren stretches we have traversed. The only civilization for 100 km was the atomic reactor development facilities of the US government. We detoured 3km to the south to see the EBR1-Experimental Breeder Reactor but we were 3 days too late because the visitor centre had closed after Labour Day i.e. last Monday.
It was well worth the extra 60km round trip back to the Craters of the Moon National Monument. The loop road led us round the different types of lava, splatter cones, caves and lava tunnels. There are black cones where very little vegetation has developed in the 2500years since the cone erupted up and other cones that are 7500 years old an in that time have become green all over (mostly with a hardy sagebrush) and even have pine trees on them. It is an arid and rough landscape and there are 750,000 acres of it!!
We left Hailey with the wind at our backs and made good time for the first hour. Then we turned east into an easterly wind and the hard work started. We have left the mountains behind but we are still going up and down. It is haying season and the fields are green and gold. We have trucks laden with hay whizzing past us regularly with two and sometimes three trailers. We rode through the top edge of the Craters of the Moon National Monument today and stopped at the visitor centre where we sat through a ranger presentation about the origin of the park and decided to come back tomorrow to see the park properly. We rolled into Arco in good time and got a hotel room at the best hotel in town.
Arco was the first town in the world to be powered completely by atomic power. There is an experimental nuclear reactor 40km outside of town, which we will visit on our way to Idaho Falls if it is not too far off the main road. Unfortunately, Arco appears to have fallen on hard times – Main Street has several businesses boarded up and bars and restaurants are sparse. Our motel only costs $57 per night so we will stay an extra night and go back 30km to the Craters of the Moon NP tomorrow and ride around it to see all the features.
Getting up this morning was hard. I’d seen the frost on all of the cars outside and was not keen to make an early start to a 50km climb over the 2661m Galena summit. Still, it had to be done and at least the sun was up in a cloudless sky so there was hope that the temperature would rise to double figures. With some thicker clothes on we set off just before 10 and climbed steadily for 40km to the Smiley Creek Lodge where we were able to warm up with a soup for lunch before tackling the last 10km and 450m climb to the pass. The climb up rewarded us with tremendous views across the source of the Salmon River and way, way down the valley that we had ridden up.
Salmon River near source
The ride down from the summit to Hailey was 70km with 1000m drop so we were looking forward to an easy afternoon but unfortunately, as the day warmed, a southerly wind developed so after the initial steep descent we had to pedal quite hard to get down the rest. It was with some relief that we arrived in Ketchum (famous as the town where Ernest Hemmingway committed suicide) and were able to take a late afternoon break. We finished our break with a passion fruit double scoop ice cream cone before tackling that last 20km to Hailey.
Being in the middle of the Labour Day long weekend and having had problems getting a room last night we decided to get a room for an extra day in Stanley by waiting for people to check out at the hotel next to the restaurant where we breakfasted and then booked ourselves in for the night. We used the day to get online at the library, get laundry up to date and then ride over to see Redfish Lake set in front of the Sawtooth mountains. TimB booked a room for tomorrow night south of Ketchum so we are not under pressure to get there before teatime when he motels generally start to fill up.
Today will rank amongst the toughest we have done. We plodded along all day into a strong headwind and uphill. Again we followed the Salmon River and passed through canyons and valleys of Idaho. This time the wind seemed to channel through the canyon and straight into us. At times we were down to 10 kph as the wind just about stopped us dead. Idaho is not heavily populated and we travelled most of the day through wilderness and farmlands. There were two points of particular interest a few miles before Stanley. One was a viewing point over the gravel beds in the river where the salmon were breeding and the other was a hot water spring pouring a lot of sulphurous water straight out of the mountainside rock about 10m above the road. This water was too hot to touch for more than a second and where the water entered the Salmon River on the other side of the road, rocks had been used to create a warm bathing pool which was actually being used by a young lady in a bikini!! We did have 2 stops along the way where we got lunch and an ice cream cone. Due to the slow travel we arrived in Stanley after 6 pm and the whole town was booked. We rode back to Lower Stanley and they were also booked out, but the nice lady at the motel made several phone calls and all she could find, at a motel/lodge further down the road, was a tepee to sleep in with no bathroom or toilet facilities for $35. It was either that or sleep outdoors and the forecast overnight temperature was just above freezing (we are 1908m above sea level here) so we resigned ourselves to the tepee and little to eat or drink in view of the lack of toilet facilities. Much to our surprise and relief, when we arrived at the Salmon River Lodge they had freed up a room for us and we have a comfortable room with a hot shower though there is no TV, telephone or internet.
