Day 13 - Boise, ID. [under construction]

As gruesome as the motel was that we ended up in, I never did get a repeat of the "you might not make it through the night" feeling, despite the drug crazed riff-raff that seemed to occupy that hovel. I consider myself something of a connoisseur of shitty motels, and that one wins a prize of some sort. Undaunted, but wanting to make time, we didn't look for breakfast nor coffee - we just wanted to get into the desert and away from people and town. The traffic was somewhat heinous, so we did take all surface streets and avoided the larger roads as best we could. Gassing up, we turned it up a bit, and got out of town. These decals made me think about getting into the stick figure mutilation drawing safety business. I can come up with all sorts of bizzarro graphics to satisfy any manner of attornies and industrial accidents. Whne we were about 45 minutes away, we stopped for a Chinese-American Breakfast. I'd never had one before, so I was somewhat intrigued. As it turned out, the Chinese part only applies at other times. I asked if Chinese people ate breakfast, but the young lady looked at me like I had just grown another head. A real ugly one, too. So I let it go. Moo-Shu Eggs? Kung Pao Sausage? Bacon and Eggs Foo-Yung? All my hopes were dashed to bits, so I ordered the 'special'. Dejected until a slab of ham the size of a dinner plate and an inch thick showed up, with what looked like a half dozen eggs, a pound of hashbrowns, and a loaf of toast. I couldn't eat it all. Five of us couldn't eat it all. Not even close. I was afraid the subframe would break on the 950 if I tried to haul away the leftovers. The poor girl needed a handtruck to take away our plates. About 3lbs heavier, BigDog and I waddled out of the Chinese joint, and motored away, probably already needing a nap.

After the egg rolls & sausage gravy breakfast ( ) in Kuna, we sort of decided to head south towards Nevada. As much as I wanted to ride up in the Steens, it'd add another three days to the trip, and we still have a long, long way to go. So we turned our attention on some of the good stuff that we'd read about in reports by Wachs, Stihl, IdahoSam, IdahoJoe, ryanwilliamcantrell, mars, and a few others. Only we didn't take good notes (or any notes really) and made precious few waypoints. But we have a good eye for picking cool routes, so we decided to do what we do best - wing it. My plan was to cross the Snake River one more time south of Melba on Sinker Road. Only IDOT had other plans. This bridge was blocked off with boulders, obviouly indicating that the gubbamint didn't want anyone using the bridge, and some snooty looking couple walking a foo-foo type dog demontrated their lack of enthusiasm when we sized up the bridge anyway. Not wanting to get in trouble - we'd eluded the attention of the constabulary quite well thus far - I eyed a worn out looking little two track heading off to the next closest bridge on Rt 45. That thing was rutted out and pretty nasty for the big 950's in a few places, and would have been a real SOB on a wet day. Nevertheless, we rather uneventfully dropped onto 45, crossed the river, and then headed southwest on Rt 78. Getting bored rather quickly, I started doing some routing and calculating. We're going to need to get fuel one more time, or we won't get to where we want to be without pushing. As we rolled through Murphy, it didn't take us long to figure out the gas pumps there were dead. Luckily, Brown Santa was parked there, and he told us we could get fuel down in Grand View, so we were more or less stuck on pavement for another 20 miles. That's OK, as it's empty and quite beautiful out there. We fueled up in Grand View, and turned off down Mud Flat Road, somewhat eager to get off the asphalt. Then came the time to make a decision. We could continue on Mud Flat Road out to Juniper Mountain and take a run through the Steens and then maybe out to Denio and across to Disaster Peak, or take Shoofly Cutoff and head over towards the Jarbidge Wilderness Area. We went south rather than west - over to Grasmere. And this is where we screwed up. Rather than cut across Sugar Valley Road to the east, we went south. And we missed some really cool stuff. Instead, we took the Rowland Route Road southwest. And then, rather suddenly, I knew where this place was from a recent ride report I read on ADVRider.......and our routing error became clear to me... Dang - we missed the bottom 50 or 60 miles of the ICT! In the distance, seemingly not too far away, I could hear thunder, but there were no clouds. That's odd.....

When I rolled up to this spot, I remembered it well from this ride report. I should have paid better attention to where I was, but that's just the way things go sometimes. As BigDog got a little video action going, I decided to go back and investigate the bluff. Looked like there was a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging here. I need to go back and check IdahoSam's report and figure out who didn't make it back.... A few miles later, we started the drop down Rowland Canyon into Nevada. It was along this stretch we saw some familiar faces from last's year's ride through Nevada - the Mormon Crickets! They were fairly thick in a few small areas - but nothing like what we saw last riding through last year's swarm between Eureka and Battle Mountain. I was amazed how many locals were keeping an eye on us, from well within rifle range. As we neared the mountains, we could make out a patch of snow, that'd be the Jarbidge Wilderness Area. We decided to make a play for Murphy Hot Springs - we didn't know anything about it, but figured it was worth a look. Maybe even a soak? We headed out CR751 towards Murphy......and the hot springs themselves were a few hundred feet above us on a bluff, with the waters plumbed down in PVC pipe to an aged swimming pool. It was hotter than hell, perhaps 95 degrees or more, and that 100 degree water wouldn't do me much good now. I poked around the devilbox looking for a way to get from Murphy to Jarbidge without going back down the valley and around the other way. I think I found something.....NF073 heads right where we want to go.... It's a Forest Service Road. How bad can it be? Darwin, a local, said it didn't go through.........

I poked through Roads & Rec a bit more, scrolling between it and CitySelect v7, and I was pretty sure we could find our way through. If we couldn't, we could always go back...... How bad could the road be? We climbed out right behind the Hot Springs up onto the mesa. The mesa on the other side of the creek was where the Idaho Centennial Trail started. We went the other way, towards the Jarbidge Wilderness Area. It seemed easy enough, although the road didn't seem well traveled at all. At a fork in the road, the left fork - the one that looked a lot more traveled - goes up into the Wilderness Area - the one to the right is the one the devilbox indicates *could* take us to Jarbidge. The big 950's are handling this quite well - rutty old two track with a spectacular view. Doesn't look like anyone's been through here since before the last rain.... Another trail - obviously an ATV track - combined with our trail at the edge of a kinda steep drop off. I say kinda steep, because I can't see the trail below from the top. Right about now, I was thinking about my XR650R or even my 450EXC as potentially better choices for this route. But this is listed as a Forest Service Road - surely if their rickety 4WD's can make it, so can we. And over the edge we went. Somewhere down there is where we're headed....but it then occured to me that we have to cross that one ridge.....looks steep... Pics never do a good job conveying angles, but BigDog slid up to me - his rear wheel locked - but the bike moving along quite nicely all the same. We both realized that there's no way we'd be able to turn these behemoths around and go back up, so let's enjoy it After a bunch of switchbacks, we reached the bottom - after descending about 1,000 feet. Maybe more. "Whew! That was fun, eh?" BigDog was just glaring at me - but I knew he had fun. "How do you know we're at the bottom?" "There's a stream crossing or two, but then it looks like we have to climb the next ridge a little bit." "Great, you go first." And BigDog followed. The water crossings were short, but deeper than the footpegs, and full of babyhead rocks. It was a little tricky. Then the climb began. No pics from that, as I wasn't sure I'd be able to get moving again. I was amazed how well the 950 handled it - I was able to chose lines, and repeatedly change them as I saw fit to avoid ruts, holes, roots and boulders as I ascended. It did a whole lot better than I figured a 500lb bike would. We reached the top and decided to take a breather. The devilbox said we only had 3 miles to get to Jarbidge. After about 10 minutes of laughing at ourselves, a teenager on a 4WD 4 wheeler pulled up behind us and just stared. We said howdy, and he asked how we got up there with those big bikes. We told him we'd come over from Murphy down the hill, through the stream, and then back up to here. He looked at us like we were crazy. I asked him how far we were from town, and he said just a few miles. I also asked what the trail was like from here, and he said we'd gotten through the hard stuff. What a relief. I sure could use a cold one about now. He told us he had a couple buddies coming up behind him soon, so we decided to move along and get out of their way. Well, that was a lie. A big fat one. This sumnuvabitchen grade was a lot steeper than it looks, and was nothing but marbles and loose rock. Whoa, horsey! I was pretty well flabberghasted that I didn't do a series of spectacular flying W's down that trail, as the bars were torn out of my hands a couple times, and the bike slid, skidded and slewed sideways more than it rolled on it's own wheels. It was the curves and those bloody rocks that were the real SOB's..... At the bottom, I wanted to kick that kid right in the slats, but we really didn't have a choice anyway. He probably did us a favor by not telling us we'd likely die if we tried it on those big bikes..... A few minutes later, he rolled by and shook his head smiling. We headed south towards town behind him. This is the track profile for that last five miles...

As it was getting late in the afternoon, the first thing we did was top off on fuel. As we rode down that godforesaken grade, I could hear that horrible sound of something stuck in my tire, rubbing against the chain guard. It was a nail. The really odd thing was that it didn't puncture the carcass, it just passed through one side of a knob and out the other. That's only happened to me once before - when I was in Baja a couple years ago - with the same Michelin Desert rear tire. Weird, eh? We mosied over to the Tired Devil Cafe to see about some grub, a room and perhaps a few beers. They could accomodate us on all those things I had a great burger - they're hand formed there, not frozen, home made fries and an ice cold Coors. Mark had the same, but with a strawberry shake - made from home made ice cream. Pretty remarkable. We got a room down the street in the Barn Motel. It's just a room, with a common bathroom down the hall, for less than nineteen bucks each. Perfect for a couple transients like ourselves. We washed up, did laundry, then wandered back to town on foot. We chatted with the owner of the General Store, who is also the power co-op's meter reader. He saw us earlier in Murphy and had heard we'd come over on the 4WD road. I asked about the thunder earlier in the day when we were up near Rowland, and he said that was the live ordnance they were dropping today. I was sort of glad we didn't get on the ICT - it skirts that area, doesn't it? We looked around a bit more, and eventually wandered back to our room, as the sun faded behind the mountains to the west. Something many of y'all might not know, but the name Jarbidge (with only one 'R') is named after a mispronounciation of a Shoshone indian word for a man eating demon that was purported to roam this valley in ancient times,. According to legend, it was captured by the indians and locked away in a cave somewhere in the valley. Up there maybe? Time to sip another beer and start building some ideas for tomorrow's ride. Today's run....about 260 miles.

[Go On to Day 14][Back to Main Menu]