P
Paladin
Guest
Is summer crazy busy for you too? I remember 6 mos ago having no set plans; now I've got long
weekend trips booked from now through the end of August.
So anyway, this last weekend was the only time I had to get up to McCall to check out the trails and
do some pre-riding for the annual AMB-Idaho 2003 epic. McCall surrounds a beautiful lake, and could
be compared to a lower-rent Aspen, since it's also a semi-glitzy ski-town/tourist trap.
Late Thursday, I get a call from Adam, "good news: you're riding up with me, and back with Lee."
That rhymes, so fine, saves me driving my gas-hog pickup 200 miles into the mountainous wilds of
central Idaho.
Ready boys and girls? Set your watches back 30 yrs, and welcome to Cascade, Idaho.
We get to Adam's place up on West Mountain, around 7pm, still plenty of time to ride, so we say a
quick Hi to his kids, horses, sheep, and who's knows what else, and mount up.
Adam leads from his driveway. We drop into the woods, and it's all comin at me like a mad hound-dog.
Loose, steep, lotsa overhanging branches, dodging between trees, and bouncing and sliding our way
eventually down to a paved road by Lake Cascade, a beautiful, narrow lake that stretches north to
south on the west side of town. Sun is setting, it's beautiful, and our plan was just a loop to take
in the scenery and nothing too tough.
However, ole Adam takes a cut off the road onto a stout little trail, he's standing up, we hear this
"SCHWANGGG!!" and he's down, holding his knee, rolling around on the ground. Well, he banged his
knee on his triple-crown fork for the umpteenth time when his middle ring slipped.
So he's teaching his boy how to curse like a Master Chief. We ride up the heavily wooded trail, and
it's soft, fairly steep double track originally cut by four-wheelers, now for hikin & bikin only.
The heavily banked turns are a hoot. See quite a few deer that we scare off the trail.
I feel the elevation, and we're only at 4,800 feet, but I remember that I've done something
strenuous or crazy every day this week, and had vainly hoped to take today off to save some horses
for the epic tomorrow.
(Happens every time: last year, the afternoon we were leaving for McCall to do the 2002 AMB epic
that next morning, I got rear-ended by some idiot doing 45 mph while I was almost stopped at a
stop-light. Thankfully, the steel bumper on my old Dodge took a lot of the impact for me, but I
still had to heavily medicate my wounds on the drive up with Jerry. I coulda been in a Thorogood
song. Thanks to you, Mr. Daniels; and thanks to you, Mr. Beam.)
Back to the lake, fish are jumpin, mosquitoes bitin, and Adam's hurtin. So back to the happy
hacienda & I drive him down to the bait shop for a six pack of herbal remedies (hey, hopps & barley
are herbs, right?), and we go hang by a pond while he fly-fishes and gets all goofy, The pain pills
and vegetable anesthetics (wheat's a vegetable) are kickin in.
By now its late and past time for dinner with his wife and kids, then to the couch on the third
level upstairs, hoping my legs can recover in 6 hrs by the time we're spozed to ride the biggun
tomorrow. I wake up around 7am and look up. (I'm not alone!) Mounted high up the wall of his A-Frame
family room is the biggest Elk head & rack I've ever seen, and remember that his boy Josh became
famous in these parts for bringing that trophy down last year.
Time to rumble into town and look for Lee, a friend and Wild Rockies racing hero in the F.O.M.
division who's moving back to Idaho from Portland.
Part 2, the high country jr-epic, coming up next.
Paladin
weekend trips booked from now through the end of August.
So anyway, this last weekend was the only time I had to get up to McCall to check out the trails and
do some pre-riding for the annual AMB-Idaho 2003 epic. McCall surrounds a beautiful lake, and could
be compared to a lower-rent Aspen, since it's also a semi-glitzy ski-town/tourist trap.
Late Thursday, I get a call from Adam, "good news: you're riding up with me, and back with Lee."
That rhymes, so fine, saves me driving my gas-hog pickup 200 miles into the mountainous wilds of
central Idaho.
Ready boys and girls? Set your watches back 30 yrs, and welcome to Cascade, Idaho.
We get to Adam's place up on West Mountain, around 7pm, still plenty of time to ride, so we say a
quick Hi to his kids, horses, sheep, and who's knows what else, and mount up.
Adam leads from his driveway. We drop into the woods, and it's all comin at me like a mad hound-dog.
Loose, steep, lotsa overhanging branches, dodging between trees, and bouncing and sliding our way
eventually down to a paved road by Lake Cascade, a beautiful, narrow lake that stretches north to
south on the west side of town. Sun is setting, it's beautiful, and our plan was just a loop to take
in the scenery and nothing too tough.
However, ole Adam takes a cut off the road onto a stout little trail, he's standing up, we hear this
"SCHWANGGG!!" and he's down, holding his knee, rolling around on the ground. Well, he banged his
knee on his triple-crown fork for the umpteenth time when his middle ring slipped.
So he's teaching his boy how to curse like a Master Chief. We ride up the heavily wooded trail, and
it's soft, fairly steep double track originally cut by four-wheelers, now for hikin & bikin only.
The heavily banked turns are a hoot. See quite a few deer that we scare off the trail.
I feel the elevation, and we're only at 4,800 feet, but I remember that I've done something
strenuous or crazy every day this week, and had vainly hoped to take today off to save some horses
for the epic tomorrow.
(Happens every time: last year, the afternoon we were leaving for McCall to do the 2002 AMB epic
that next morning, I got rear-ended by some idiot doing 45 mph while I was almost stopped at a
stop-light. Thankfully, the steel bumper on my old Dodge took a lot of the impact for me, but I
still had to heavily medicate my wounds on the drive up with Jerry. I coulda been in a Thorogood
song. Thanks to you, Mr. Daniels; and thanks to you, Mr. Beam.)
Back to the lake, fish are jumpin, mosquitoes bitin, and Adam's hurtin. So back to the happy
hacienda & I drive him down to the bait shop for a six pack of herbal remedies (hey, hopps & barley
are herbs, right?), and we go hang by a pond while he fly-fishes and gets all goofy, The pain pills
and vegetable anesthetics (wheat's a vegetable) are kickin in.
By now its late and past time for dinner with his wife and kids, then to the couch on the third
level upstairs, hoping my legs can recover in 6 hrs by the time we're spozed to ride the biggun
tomorrow. I wake up around 7am and look up. (I'm not alone!) Mounted high up the wall of his A-Frame
family room is the biggest Elk head & rack I've ever seen, and remember that his boy Josh became
famous in these parts for bringing that trophy down last year.
Time to rumble into town and look for Lee, a friend and Wild Rockies racing hero in the F.O.M.
division who's moving back to Idaho from Portland.
Part 2, the high country jr-epic, coming up next.
Paladin
