Day 1

Stats: 266 Miles; 10:47 moving time; 24,948 vert ft climbing

I geared up quickly in the dark at the Cactus Pete RV park under the rotating lights of the airport.  The weather was perfect and I was on the bike just after 5:45 AM MT.  Cruising out of town the roads were the best you could want for a dirt bike.  My Baja Designs headlight did a great job lighting up the road, so I left my helmet light on low to glance at my nav which I typically let the backlight timeout on.  As soon as the sun illumined the world around me I realized I was no longer in low desert and at the edge of the forest.  Soon I was passing through trees and even saw a Moose.

Leaving Jackpot & early singletrack

I struggled to find the gate to get on Swanty Creek ST but luckily with all 3 GPS's I was able to navigate across the small creek and find a very poorly maintained ranch gate.  While removing it I took a piece of barbed wire in my right index finger, not a great way to start a week of riding! I decided this was worthy of my limited first aid kit and gave it a swipe with an alcohol wipe to be safe.  A reminder to be more careful with the gates.  Swanty was dreamy for high desert singletrack but the dream quickly became a nightmare, the very low angle beginning of the trail was covered in tiny gravel and I was sinking in and spinning my brand new tire already.  After backing up  I was able to get a better run and get straight up this first challenge but hoped it didn't get steeper on this very loose gravel, of course it did seconds later. It took all my focus to keep my momentum.  I've been lucky enough to ride in Idaho a few times before but its been about 5 years since I was last there. I've never experienced this soil and was hoping I didn't again on this journey.

The trail eased up but the fun kept going.  I decided to skip Cold Springs Canyon ST from a report the previous week it was overgrown, I did very much want to ride Trapper Creek and its legendary step so I went up the road and hopped on it to find 2 massive down trees and a significant amount of tire tracks turning around at the trees, with many miles of Idaho to cover I had a rule, if there was more than 2 trees down and overgrown trails in the first 3 miles of a trail I would turn around and find another route, no exception on this first one.

Endless fluffy grass & a road to nowhere

I saw two riders on trail just before getting back on road, it would turn out these were 2 of the 3 riders I'd see in my full week on Singletrack.  The asphalt roads were as ideal as it gets for a dirt bike, I grabbed gas and coffee at the Rock Creek General Store.  The next few hours were some of the most interesting roads I've ridden in the plains with an endless amount of gates.  In Gooding I stopped at the Maverick to grab some quick food and fuel all the way up.  I planned to skip Pine, having been there a few times I love the town but wanted to make it to Baumgartner CG.  Once I crossed Highway 20 I was in the only familiar zone I would be in this week.  I had grand plans to ride N Lime creek to Iron Mountain but made a few wrong turns and ended up taking the easiest route up.

Scary hard to see wire across a cattleguard & front brake fix

At the top of Iron Mountain I was starting to film a walkthrough on my bike and immediately noticed a major problem, my front brake line was hitting my bar bag strap and kicked into my front wheel on some of the whoops near the lookout road cutting the outer layer at least.  In a panic, I zip tied and taped my spare brake lever onto the kinked section to isolate the damage and started my descent nervous it could start misbehaving at any time.  Knowing the area I decided to take West Fork of Beaver Creek since its one of my favorite trails in the zone, I'm glad I did. I helped the Sheppard's who were camped in the low point herd hundreds of sheep up the hill. I reached my planned camp spot right just before dark outside of the official campground, a perfect place to make use of the FS spring before going to bed.

Top of Iron Mountain