Heading north from Salmon toward North Fork, no rain in sight
Day 7 – Sunday, June 20th
Salmon, Idaho to North Fork, Idaho
We started out at 10:15 A.M. the next morning, cycling north. We planned to cross Lost Trail Pass this day. According to my estimate, we would need at least 5 and a half hours to climb to the summit. Since it was downhill to North Fork, that wouldn't be an impediment to our making it, except for the time getting there.
As long as we had 7 hours of daylight after leaving North Fork, we should be okay.
“You just don't get it, Picard. The trial never ends.”
Our plans were not to be realized – at least not today.
The day started out on a hopeful note. The temperature was perfect, with a bit of a tail-wind, and the country-side was beautiful – the scenery I had planned the trip to enjoy, and it was a gentle down-hill slope.
Heading
north from Salmon toward North Fork, no rain in sight
As we got further toward North Fork, the skies grew darker. Then it started raining lightly, then a bit harder. We watched for somewhere to shelter from the rain, but saw nothing suitable – only trees.
About when I was going to suggest we don the rain-gear, we rounded a bend in the road, and North Fork came into view. First there was a resort, then a convenience store and café, with a veranda for our bicycles to keep dry under. Better yet, it was time for lunch. We would eat lunch, and the rain would be over when we got done eating. No problem.
When we finished eating and came out, it was still raining – a steady drizzle.
About that time, a group of cross-country bicyclists arrived from the north. They had a 'mother ship' in the form of a motor-home, which also carried their gear. They were better equipped than us to cycle in the rain – probably with goretex jackets.
They explained that they used to do it the way we were doing – self-contained, and prepared to camp, but had more recently come to prefer the mother-ship concept. They said that for the last 21 years, every last full week of June, they had done a cross-country bicycle trip together.
This year, they had just come over Lost Trail Pass from Montana, and were heading along the Salmon River, upstream to Challis, and along highway 75 toward Stanley. I don't know where they started or what their ultimate destination was, but I was impressed with their 21-year tradition.
The
group of cross-country cyclists we met at North Fork, who do this
every year
When they cycled away to the south, it was still raining, and the rain became harder and more steady. When we realized there was no longer enough time left to make it over the pass and to Darby, Montana, we got a motel room in North Fork to wait-out the rain. We could not tell anyone we were delayed because there was no cell-phone service here.
On this day, we only traveled 22 miles, but at an average speed of 9.9 miles per hour, this was our fastest average speed of the entire trip.
In the motel, we saw an info-mercial for something called “The Insanity Body-Building Workout”. We joked that we were already doing one of our own.