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