Grade a by Alf Alderson

July 6, Upper Priest Lake, Northern Idaho

Single track, rocky, rooty and mile after mile of it. That’s what I’ve just been riding along the western shore of Upper Priest Lake, undulating up and down beside glittering blue waters to one side, dense forest to the other. An occasional glimpse across the lake reveals the Selkirk Mountains rising up to over 7,000 feet, an area with no roads to speak of where you could easily get lost and stay lost. The mountains are home to grizzly and black bear, woodland caribou, wolves, mountain lion, moose – you name it, if it’s big and has fangs, claws or horns it lives here.

I haven’t seen another biker all day. In fact I’ve only seen about three people in total and here we are in the middle of summer. Yet despite the fact that there are probably more bears than people hereabouts it’s the mosquitoes that the locals have warned me to watch out for, but that just gives you a good excuse the keep riding so the little buggers can’t catch up with you.

I have to return the same way as I came when I get to the northern end of the lake as there’s no way round the entire shoreline, but that’s not a problem – knowing what’s coming up on the return leg means I can hammer it a bit more, which is a good thing as I get back to the parking lot just before the mother of all thunderstorms lets rip. The air literally vibrates from the force of one huge thunderclap. My first day of riding in Idaho ends spectacularly, and if it’s all as good as this then I’m in for a top time.

July 10, Wallace, Northern Idaho

Local biker, skier and hotel manager Rick Schaeffer has offered to show me the Route of the Hiawatha Trail on the Idaho/Montana border, a 27.5-mile gravel track that follows the line of the old Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad over the Bitterroot Mountains. It’s named after a passenger train that used to run between Chicago and Seattle, and is the kind of trail that anyone who can ride a bike will enjoy – but don’t stop reading now if you think you’re too hard for gentle gradients and surfaced trails.

Because you’d be an idiot to miss out on the Hiawatha. For a start you can have a hell of a time just blasting the length of it to the shuttle which will take you back to your start point (or you could just ride back up, the gradient is only about two degrees). But you won’t be able to do it without stopping several times. That’s because no-one could help but pull over to goggle at the spectacular views from the 200-feet high trestle bridges that you ride over – you can actually look down into the forests that surround the trail as you’re well above the crowns of the trees, as well as gazing across endless miles of verdant green firs rising up towards the Continental Divide. And you’ll need to slow down to go through the nine pitch black tunnels along the route, the longest of which is almost two miles in length (head torches can be hired locally).

I wish I’d had time to ride the trail twice – once to gawk at the views, a second time to really belt along, but that’s just gonna have to be one for next time. After the ride Rick took me to Enaville House for beer and ‘prairie oysters’ (buffalo bollocks to you). Enaville was once a whorehouse, and this former hell raising silver mining area seems to have specialised in providing relief for the – ahem – hard up. There’s even a brothel museum in Wallace called The Oasis, which has been left exactly as it was when it was raided and closed down in 1987. Not often you can truthfully say you’ve been to a brothel on a cultural visit, hey?

July 22 Ketchum, Sun Valley, Central Idaho

When kindly mountain bikers die and go to heaven it will quite possibly look like Sun Valley. Big, bold mountains criss-crossed with dusty trails, ski lift access for the feeble amongst us, bars and restaurants peopled by tanned, blonde sex goddesses and, when you’ve ridden all the local trails (which will take a lifetime or two, but then we’re talking eternity here…) more trails than you can shake a stick at in the nearby Sawtooth National Recreation Area, where Clint Eastwood filmed Pale Rider.

My first day of exploration at Sun Valley saw me trailing around behind local nutter Pat Cox who’s idea of a good pre-breakfast spin is 40 miles and 10,000 ft of ascent. I’d joined him for ‘short’ afternoon session, but the 18-mile round trip up into the mountains above Adam’s Gulch was still a killer in 35 degree heat and with around 4,000 ft of climbing. It was a blessed relief when we finally turned around to thrash back down bone dry single track through sagebrush, then cool forest and finally to a halt at Big Wood River where we leapt in the icy cold water fully clothed. And after a beer and pizza in downtown Ketchum I was ready to do it again – but not today.

July 23 Ketchum, Sun Valley, Central Idaho

Today Pat’s mate John Wisby of the very excellent Ski-Tec Bike Shop in Ketchum has agreed to show me the lift-accessed trails from the top of 9,150-ft Bald Mountain. A $20 ticket will provide you with the kind of mountain biking you’ll never forget.

The waymarked trails start off with fantastic views south to the heat-haze enveloped Snake River Plain and north to the Sawtooth, Pioneer, Boulder and White Cloud mountains which top out at over 12,000 feet. Once you’ve had enough of this classic Rocky Mountain panorama you have well over 3,000 feet of descent ahead of you, varying from wide, open trails where you zip across wildflower meadows to forested single track where the shade is welcome once the sun gets high in the sky. John races locally and knows the trails like the back of his hand, so keeping up with him was no easy task. I couldn’t help feeling somewhat jealous of a man who has this kind of riding on his doorstep, but when he told me that the skiing was as good as the riding once the snow set in I had no choice but to thrash him to within an inch of his life with my pump.

August 1, Silver City, Southern Idaho

The almost-ghost town of Silver City (year-round pop. 1) is tucked away high in the remote Owyhee Mountains, and it was too hot to even think about riding here until the evening, so I sat in the bar of the Idaho Hotel as owner Ed Jagels told me stories of the town’s rip-roaring past (see box).

Once the sun started slipping towards the horizon I filled my Camelbak and headed up into the Owyhees on the regulation dusty trails (oh, the joy of a summer without mud…). There wasn’t a chance in hell of meeting another biker up here, or even another human, for few people even venture into this little known mountain range. In fact there was probably more chance of seeing a mountain lion, and I’d been warned to watch out for them as they have been known to attack humans.

No lions this evening though, just a hot and sweaty ascent to an unnamed viewpoint where I could see out across the arid Snake River Plain and north towards my previous riding destination of Sun Valley on the other side of the plain, a rock and sagebrush landscape where 120 years ago you’d have seen wagon trains heading west to Oregon. Having mulled over the vastness of these western landscapes whilst the sweat dried and turned to salt on my brow, I turned to head west myself, back down the mountain in the still warm evening breeze, dust billowing up behind me, the scent of pines and junipers hanging in the air and a certain smugness behind my dust smeared grin, because it was obvious that the folks at IMBA know what they’re talking about – Idaho surely does have some of the best trails in the world.

ON THE ROAD

You’ll need a car to get around Idaho as public transport is virtually non-existent. Hatchbacks are not common but I found I could get my bike onto the back seat of my hire car if I took both wheels off. An economy model will set you back around $350 per week.

Idaho is a big state and it can take a long time to get around, especially in Central Idaho where there are very few roads. If you plan to ride in different areas – and you should – allow plenty of time to drive between them – Sun Valley to Priest Lake, for instance, will take you a full day.

TRIP BREAK DOWN

No. of days riding: 12 (although I was in Idaho for about five weeks, but the rest of the time I was working)

No. of punctures: 3

No. of cuts and bruises: 3 (gashed shin, cut hand, bruised hip)

No. of cool t-shirts bought: 4

Best bar: Bardenay, Boise and Eichardts, Sandpoint, N. Idaho

Best chicks: Sun Valley (but you’ve no chance unless you drive a Porsche and have a seven figure bank account)

No. of beers drunk: lost count

No. of chicks hit on: ditto

No. of chicks falling for the bullshit: one

No. of Brits encountered: none