Sun Valley Day 3: The Home Stretch

The group split ways on the last morning. One crew headed out to jerk rod on the Big Wood River and the other crew headed out for a final mtb loop around Lower Adam's Gulch. This was one of my favorite rides from the previous year, and I wanted to share it with everyone else. Last years I did it by myself while everyone else fished. Its about an 8ish mile loop if I remember correctly with an easy climb with many fun creek crossings and a fast flowy descent through open meadows.

Everyone loved it in the end and definitely made us all start dreaming about completing the entire loop next year, which would make for an epic adventure.

When we all got back, we feasted on eggs and sausage once again. Never gets old! Proof: 120 eggs were consumed on the trip.  We cleaned the condo, packed the cars and all headed our separate ways. Before leaving, we did our best to narrow the options for our annual ski mathering. Top choices include: Mt. Baker, Wallowas Hut Tour, or Alta. Maybe all three. Just need to get a new pair of skis now.

UNT

Bryan

Sun Valley Day 2: Shuttle and Springs

The following morning, I took my rear rim into the local bike shop to have two spokes replaced. These were the third and forth spokes that I have broken in the last two months. I plan on taking the rim into my local shop when I get home to have them re-tensioned. Bummer.

For the days activities, we all decided on getting a little more downhill as there were some in our group who favored more burly downhill routes so we packed up the cars, planned the shuttle and headed out to the trailhead. We were warned at the shop that the access road to the upper trailhead might be closed if the lower gate was already locked. Much to our disappointment, it was. Looks like we'd be earning our turns today with a 5.5 mile fireroad climb to the top. Some were happy, some were not.

The climb went fairly quick, and it wasnt long before we were bumbling down some very burly singletrack on the upper Oregon Gulch trail. All nine of us managed to make our way down without any serious mechanicals or spills. The lower half of the trail proved much more enjoyable as it was way more flowly and had us ripping down the trail we had climbed the previous year.

The majority of the crew waited at the Oregon Gulch trailhead, sipping silver bullets, while a few unlucky souls had to run the shuttle to get the other cars. On the way back to the condo, I convinced to crew to try to locate a natural hot springs to soak our tired bodies. After a few missed attempts, Adam and I finally found the correct spot and it wasnt long before we were all tip toeing into the steamy water. We wished that we hadnt already drank all the beer!

More beer and games followed that night as we feasted on Deer Nachos and large steaks. I have to say that we ate like kings the whole weekend, and I want to thank Andrew's mother for the deer chili, Lange for the wild salmon, the twins for the ground deer and Joel man for the steaks!

We ended the night with Andrew's war cry: To Bed Men! For we Ride at Dawn!


UNT

Bryan

Sun Valley Day 1: Lodgepole Gulch

We all slept in this morning in order to recover a bit from the previous day's journey. Adam, Andrew and I spent the morning pulling thorns and goat heads out of each of our tires and before finally inserting new tubes. Lange and the rest of the gang made bfast and lounged around in preparation for the day's activities.

We all finally made it to the trailhead by 1pm. Yup, late start as usual. We set our sights on Cow Creek, Lodgepole Gulch and Greenhorn Gulch. Before we even left the trailhead, Adam rear tire went flat and we had to patch a mystery hole. All nine of us started up the singletrack, adding to the longest mountain biking train I had ever seen. It was great to have us all chugging our way up this hill. Near the top, Adam's rear tire went flat again and Lange broke a link in his chain. Out list of mechanicals was slowly growing. Once all patch up, we ripped some single track down to Greenhorn Gulch, where we split into two groups. One group headed to the car to get dinner ready while the rest tacked on the Lodgepole Gulch Loop onto the ride.

The descent back down to the car was awesome as we passed birch trees in their full autumn grandeur and tore through open meadow with traces of lingering, stubborn wildflowers, not yet ready to succumb to winter's grasp. We toasted our ride with a round of victory beers and headed back for dinner.

That night Andrew and John arranged a blind IPA taste test, as we had a regionally diverse array of 6 growlers. Andrew was beyond confident that his beloved Sockeye IPA would win hands down. The range of beers included Sockeye's Dagger Falls IPA, Lucky Lab's Super Dog IPA, Barley Brown's WFO IPA, Boundary Bay Imperial IPA, Boundary Bay IPA and Madison Rivers's Hop Juice.

Much to everyone's dismay, Andrew's addiction to the Dagger Falls materialized in the rest of us as it took 1st place overall. Yes, Andrew did not stop talking about this for the rest of the evening and had his fare share of birthday by the end of the evening to celebrate.

Overall results:

1) Dagger Falls
2) WFO IPA
3) BB Imperial IPA
4) Super Dog
5) Hop Juice
6) BB IPA

However, I am certain that we did not put Portland's best foot forward due to the proximity of our PDX dwelling. It was easily the best choice to represent Portland.

That night we stayed up late polishing off all of our growlers except for the Jalapeno Cream Ale. We all got to bed very late and were severely dehydrated in the traditional fashion, but good times were had regardless.

Andrew closed the night with the soon-to-be ritual of declaring: To Bed Men! For we Ride at Dawn!


UNT

Bryan

Sun Valley Prologue: Echo OR and the HexaFlat

Adam, Andrew and I packed up early last Thursday morning and pointed Clare towards Sun Valley, ID. What was in store was three days of epic mountain biking with our best friends. This year our crew jumped up in numbers from 5 to 9 dudes with the addition of Sean, Adam, John and Jo Jo. Good times to be had for sure.

On our journey over to SV, the Oregon contingency stopped at Echo, Or to stretch the legs a little bit on the trails of Echo. They are nothing special, but the change of terrain, foreign environment and remoteness of the trails made them attractive. Echo Or is just outside Hermiston, Or and hosted the Echo Red to Red mountain biking race this past year. Overall, we had a great time spinning around the trails in windless conditions, and spent a good deal of time shooting some video and a few photographs.

Unfortunately, our fun was short lived as on the way back to the car we hopped back on the central fireroad to save some time. By the time we all reached the car 3 mins later. Andrew had flatted on both tires, while Adam and I had managed to get back to the car without flatting. As I examined our tires, they were littered with goat heads and mutant burs. In the end, all six tires went flat (christened the HexaFlat!), and we would spend the next morning pulling goat heads and thorns from our tires for over an hour! It was the craziest puncture-fest I had ever seen. Definitely makes me hesitant about coming back to Echo anytime soon.

We packed up Clare and continued East towards Baker City, where we picked up a growler of WFO (Wide Freaking Open) IPA from Barely Brown's Brew Pub. Their award winning stout was unfortunately tapped out. Bummer! But they were kind enough to let us in through the back door to fill up with WFO during none business hours.

We swung through Boise to say hi to Andrew's family and to pick up a massive batch of homemade deer chili before continuing with our final leg into Sun Valley. Miraculously, everyone but the Salt Lake Crew arrived within minutes of each other. Lange and Jo Jo, the Bellingham WA crew arrived last and the Portland crew pulled in minutes after Joel man, from the Bozeman MT solo party, arrived.

That night we gorged ourselves on deer chili, cornbread, Wasatch Pumpkin ale and Wasatch Jalapeno Cream Ale. Stories were swapped and games were played before the inevitable Sleep Monsters took everyone down.

UNT

Bryan