Maybe you’ve noticed on a US map a smiley-shaped groove stretching through the Northern Rockies. It caught Tom’s eye one day and seemed to him like a great (flat) place to cross the mountains. We later discovered that this smiley groove was the Snake River Valley of Southern Idaho, which became our home for this segment of our journey. And we also soon learned that we were by far not the first people to discover this convenient route.

As is turns out, the Snake River Valley was a key route along the Oregon Trail, over which more that a third of a million pioneers traveled during the mid-nineteenth century on their way to the “Promised Land” of Oregon. The Valley abounds in historical markers and museums recounting their experiences and commemorating their heroism. At night in our tent Nancy would read for us the published diary of Sarah Raymond, who related first hand many of the adventures and trials that the early pioneers encountered. Not all were as fortunate as Sarah – one in ten travelers died along the trail, mostly from disease. Thankfully, we stayed healthy the whole trip.

 

The Snake River Valley holds not only historical treasures, but scenic ones as well. The awesome Shoshone Falls is actually higher than Niagara. Near this point, Eval Kneavel (remember him?) unsuccessfully attempted to jump the valley in a rocket-powered vehicle and escaped with only a broken nose. His launching ramp still stands, where Tom saw an Eval-wannabe descend the 70 foot ramp on the valley side, about a 45 degree angle down, on his mountain bike. Anything for a thrill, I guess.

Other fun things along the “trail” include the Three Islands Crossing State Park, which commemorates the most dangerous river crossing on the entire Oregon trail and features an extensive visitor’s center-museum about the Oregon Trail experience. Also notable is the strikingly beautiful Massacre Rocks State Park, where no massacre, by the way, took place. According to some authorities, attacks by Native Americans on the trail were infrequent. Our ride through the still underdeveloped Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation reminded us who suffered the most from the conflict.

In Burley we happened upon their county fair and rodeo. We had stopped at Rock’s cycling and fitness to replace Tom’s tire (cut in the sidewall), only to discover that it was closed. While we were hanging out outside the store, the owner happened by and kindly opened the store and even gave us a deep discount on the tire. So cool! He encouraged us to see the rodeo, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Nancy sat next to an elderly ex-bull rider, who gave her the inside scoop on rodeo life. Fun day!

The Snake River is the life-line of Southern Idaho. The actual terrain is high desert prairie, and we saw plenty of sagebrush along the way. But after the Idaho gold rush panned out, many turned to farming and extensively irrigated the surrounding countryside, turning the wilderness into fertile fields for wheat, corn and, you guessed it, potatoes! We stopped at a potato museum in Blackfoot and sampled the state crop at the adjacent cafe. Much better than store bought!

So far it sounds like a breeze! Well, that all depends on which direction the breeze is from and how strong it is. When traveling Idaho, one has to choose between taking the 2000 foot decent by going East to West, or getting behind the prevailing westerly winds. Tom chose the former. At first it seemed we made a terrible mistake, since for the first two segments we fought 15 mph headwinds. Not fun. The next segment presented another challenge - 40 miles with absolutely NO towns or services and threatened 20 mph headwinds. What would you do? We cheated and took a bus.   

At one point we wondered if our trip would end prematurely because of the heat and contrary winds, but there was a providential change in the weather, and for the next four days we had mild crosswinds, even a tailwind for a while. During this time we learned a great secret - in many western states bikes can ride legally on the expressway, which made a couple logistically challenging if not impassible segments relatively easy. What a break!

Well, the good times were not to last. Our last segment was to take us 45 miles from Mountain Home to Boise, from whence we would fly home. Tom’s navigation software and Google promised us roads that paralleled the expressway for nearly half the route, so we could avoid the busy Boise traffic whipping by at 80 mph. So far, so good. But the weather forecast was not so cheery - 20-25 mph headwinds. Nothing to do but make the final push.

What the weatherman forgot to mention was morning rain with hail, that thankfully was short-lived. What Google forgot to mention was that our parallel road, which started out as a normal paved road, would become a gravel road, then a hard dirt road, then a soft dirt road where we had to walk our bikes, and finally a private road forbidding trespassers. After making the very painful decision to backtrack for some distance, surrendering some hard-earned, wind-whipped terrain, we found a side road that took us through to the expressway, where we crashed at the only service station between us and Boise.

We had originally planned to tour Boise, but we used up all our extra time getting there, so that adventure will have to wait until another time. This was a fascinating, but more rigorous trip than the previous ones, but what else can you expect from the wild West? In the long run, the rugged scenery and interesting history made it worth the extra effort. We were retracing the steps of hundreds of thousands who went before us, some at the cost of their lives, who opened up the West for future generations. We learned a lot, too, about biking out West that will serve us well in future trips.   

 

Home