- November 18, 2019
- 12 photos


I find the sun still up and the weather nice after I finish weekend chores so head out for the usual jaunt up Rocky Canyon Road to the ridge and back down Trail 4. Or that’s the plan.
I find the sun still up and the weather nice after I finish weekend chores so head out for the usual jaunt up Rocky Canyon Road to the ridge and back down Trail 4. Or that’s the plan.
My first trail ride on a new motorcycle along Lava Mountain ridge goes about as well as expected. I should be healed in time for the annual ride with my brothers.
I spent an afternoon planning a winter 2016 motorcycle loop but thought better of it as I noticed the mud I’ve been pedaling through to work. So I made a word salad about mud.
With special dispensation from family, I hastily changed oil, cleaned the chain and otherwise prepared the bike for what may be the last ride of 2015. I rode hard until dark, meeting along the way fiddling friends, Mickey and Moose, for whom are named popular flats above the South Fork of the Boise River.
An idea to ride overnight in the Upper Reynolds Creek area gave way to a simpler day ride to check on my old friend Lava Mountain and see if I could connect from there across Bear Gulch for a half-day of riding single track by myself.
The last two days of 2014 are dusted with snow and colored with sun, a dichotomy I’m glad to indulge with several stops while biking to and from my office downtown. May the new year be so beautiful.
Winter came a month early. I enjoy the blanket of sparkling white and added challenge of biking a slippery path. It sure would have been great to rake the leaves up first, though. Oh well. The fiery fog and glowing hoar frost are beautiful just the same.
The sharp morning light of a week ago is today muted by mist rolling off the cold water along my bicycle commute to work. Lucky for me, this common autumn scene never fails to delight and I’m glad for the chance to meander.
Political outcomes won’t change it: things that brought joy yesterday are those which bring joy today — full suspension bunny-hop from asphalt to dirt, glittering leaves and deep breaths of cold air.
From my secret campsite behind Silver City (disregarding the GPS track), I descend Bachman Grade to explore some lesser known canyons within the Owyhee Front.
I ride across the Snake up Reynolds Creek to explore roads and routes I’ve not seen before camping somewhere in the mountains behind Silver City.
Per my usual process for a solo ride, I pan around Google Earth looking to see things I haven’t seen, consult with the Idaho Trails site and finally lay out a route in the GPS software. It works great thirty percent of the time.
Bike lanes clear of snow enable me to resume the ride to work and a more portable camera permits a few images of the dense fog we’ve experienced this week in Idaho’s Treasure Valley.
I camp two nights for a local club ride meant to climb the challenging trail to historic Boulder Basin near Sun Valley. There is camaraderie and beauty in the midst of defeat.
I go alone to follow narrow trails along unexplored Lava and perhaps Rattlesnake Mountains. I hope to reach North Star and Smith Creek Lakes seen on the map. The scenery is the best I know this close to home even as aches and pains remind me of my age.
I explore the hills next to town, up Trail 4, down Humpty and back on Eagleson and Rocky Canyon, looking for a place Hunter and I might do a quick overnight ride.
I ride over the hills to the Danskin area for my first overnight trip of the year and first time camping from the KTM. Luggage woes and difficult trails keep me from getting as far as planned but morning along Willow Creek makes it all worth it.
After a couple months parked in pieces in the garage, I finally get the new KTM out for a first dirt ride on the Danskin trails under patches of blue and between sheets of rain. The whoops are more pleasant than on the GS and the singletrack more inviting.
A long loop with unknown impediments requires an early departure. Snow and fire kept us out of the Trinity Recreation area this year. I’m curious to see what remains. Some effort is required to push the GS uphill through snowdrifts.
I ride for an autumn night by myself near Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains but am kept from my intended destination by wildfire. I find myself camped instead near an old fishway and falls along the Middle Fork of the Salmon, gateway to wilderness and “river of no return.” I spend the evening exploring on foot and the morning trying to warm up.
Eager for a spring ride, I flew around in Google Earth and found a day-long route with highlights along the Owyhee Uplands Back Country Byway — an ancient shoreline, waterfall and big canyons.
I use a day I have to myself, while my mom is at work and Laura at college orientation, to tour around my boyhood school and home, my memories, in Troy, Idaho.
I ride my bicycle through heavy fog along the Boise River towards an uncertain future in a somewhat obvious metaphor.
I ride alongside river mist made molten by winter’s morning sun past sites once famous, the destination for thousands, now almost forgotten.
Another day of work, another day to ride. I stop in the place I often do along the river bank where it’s just me, leaves and water, and memories of summer revelers lining up to swing from a frayed rope into the river.
The morning provides a proper coronation at the usual spot while a jester in the guise of a fox watches from the bushes. What does the fox say?
Another in a series of impressive sunrises compels me to pause on my way to work and watch the interplay of billowing fog and beams of light.
It is that special time of year when temperatures drop to single digits and mist rises from the frigid river into golden morning light. I don’t want to lose my warmth but I’m compelled to pause and admire the ice and light.
It isn’t often that ice forms on the river through Boise so I stop a few times on my way to work for a better look.