I was the first one up on Sunday morning as I wanted to get one more ride in before I headed back to ptown. My original plan was to head back to greenhorn gulch trailhead and try the lodgepole/Mahoney loop but that one was supposed to have a good deal of climbing and would take around 3hrs. I wasn’t sure if my legs were up to that long of an adventure. As the boys surfaced from the barracks below the kitchen, I became distracted as kettle began to boil and other potential plans were presented. I was the only one who wanted to go for another ride as the boys opted to go fly fishing instead. I would have loved to have gone as I have never really fly fished, but I was in the mountain bike mecca of Ketchum and had to get my fix of singletrack before I left. I also brought all my trail running stuff and wanted to do a trail run, but I always have a hard time convincing myself to trail run when mountain biking the same trail in an option. So after finding a suitable trail, I headed out to Adam Gulch trailhead to do the Shadyside/Sunnyside Loop. I think it was around 7 miles… The climb up through the lodgepole pines was cold and sufficiently shady. There were many stream crossings but I elected to take the logs over instead, but eventually the stream crossing became too numerous, and I grew tired of mismounting. It was time to get a little wet. At the fork in the trail which continues the Adam’s Gulch trail, I debated trying to take a longer loop, but a elderly trail runner suggested continuing my original trail as it had a great downhill section. I had to think that she knew what she was talking about and of course, she was correct. Amazing downhill through sagebrush fields and aspen groves with views into the valley below. I stopped too many times to take pictures and tried to soak all of it in. At the end of the trail, I ran into a lot of traffic as it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the residents of SV began to hit one of the most popular and closest trailhead. I returned to the car, snapped a few pics and headed back to the condo.
After the boys returned from fishing, I learned that Captain Lange, with his infinite knowledge of coastal fishing, was able to apply some of those skills to the inland fishing world. Lange landed a small rainbow and caught his first fish on a fly. (Not sure if that is the correct way to say that?). I packed up the fire truck, ate a good lunch, said goodbye to the lads and headed out for my 10hr drive home. Yay!
The drive went very smoothly. It was nice to have light for half the drive which made it much more entertaining. The fire truck is a real champ, and is much more capable of long distance travel than the green machine. On the way home, I reconfirmed that I am in fact an excellent singer.
UNT
Bryan
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