Idaho Archives - michaelsulock.com

Climbing at City Of Rocks With Cole

Jun 13th 2018 — Climbing,Idaho — 12:41 pm

After about 10 years of relative consistence, I have fallen out from making new posts. This is the first update covering any event from the last 2 years of my life. Since that time I’ve been living and teaching in Denver, CO.

The last several weeks I have taken two separate trips to the City of Rocks National Reserve, in southern Idaho. I had heard good things but never been. It is a sea of endless granite spires in the middle of nowhere. I thought it was awesome. These pictures are all from the first visit.

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The Route of the Hiawatha

Oct 24th 2015 — Biking,Idaho — 8:10 pm

Cole had the genius idea to ride the Route of the Hiawatha when his Mom was visiting. I got to tag along. The weather was perfect.

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Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes

Jul 7th 2010 — Biking,Idaho — 9:26 am

For the July 4th weekend we put our bikes on the car and drove 2 hours west to ride the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, 75 miles of paved pathway closed to all motorized vehicles. While riding I was constantly thinking, “Why can’t we have more paths like this?”

Our first day there we did two separate rides, from where we were staying at the lovely Blue Anchor RV park in Osburn, Idaho to the eastern end of the trail in Mullan, about 23 miles roundtrip. In the evening we drove to the Medimont Trailhead and biked to Harrison, on Lake Coeur d’Alene, a ride of similar length.

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The Lochsa River, Lolo Pass, and Back to Missoula

Jun 26th 2009 — Biking,Idaho,Montana and Idaho Loop — 8:43 am

These pictures cover parts of the last 3 days of our trip. After Orofino we camped by the Clearwater River 2 miles out of Lowell, Idaho. The next day had 60 some miles of biking by the Lochsa River on the surprisingly empty Highway 12.

The last day we spent the morning climbing up to Lolo Pass, and then the afternoon was almost completely downhill into Missoula. I was a little worried about Highway 12, but once we passed Kamiah it was some of my favorite riding of the whole trip. For over 100 miles we were right beside either the Lochsa or the Clearwater Rivers with almost no traffic.

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A Shortcut and Dworshack Reservoir

Jun 25th 2009 — Biking,Idaho,Montana and Idaho Loop — 9:10 am

The day after the 80-plus mile day with numerous big hills coming south from Coer D’Alene, ending in a guerrilla camping site, I was feeling a little worn out. We had biked 70-80 miles basically every day of the trip except for the day we spent in Glacier.

The next day took us through some extremely rural areas of Idaho. We had to plan more carefully to make sure we didn’t run out of food, as often “towns” on the map would be a couple of farms and a post office. We were also in logging country, and the little traffic there usually consisted of an 18-wheeler full of logs or sawdust, sometimes giving you plenty of room and sometimes not.

After an epic 4 mile downhill before the town of Kendrick we found the road to put us further east on Highway 12 (the road that would ultimately lead us back to Missoula). We had already biked over 60 hilly miles that day and the shortcut road climbed back out of the same valley we had just descended into. I was not looking forward to a 4 mile uphill.

At the bottom I stopped by the river to take a breather and almost immediately a fellow driving by stopped, walked up to us while eating some fruit cocktail with a tiny plastic spoon, and offered to have us throw our bikes in the back of his truck and give us a ride up the hill. Without the ride we would probably have had to bike another 25 miles or so to get to a place we could camp. After a brief period of contemplation we decided the ride sounded like a really good idea.

The guy who picked us up was Mark, an anesthesiologist who lived nearby. Jeff and I sat in the back of the pickup and had a dope time watching the scenery go by and being grateful we weren’t pedaling up this hill. As we got to the top of the hill Mark stopped and told us our options for camping, and offered to give us a ride another 18 miles to a campground right on the Dworshack reservoir. We took him up on this as well.

Getting to the Dworshack reservoir requires an 8 mile side-trip, much of which is a seriously steep winding downhill right before the lake. Not only did Mark take us down this thing, but the next morning he came and picked us up and took us back out of it. It was some epic assistance with impeccable timing.

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Into Idaho and Southward

Jun 24th 2009 — Biking,Idaho,Montana and Idaho Loop — 7:53 am

After Libby we went back northwest to Bonners Ferry where we camped at their fairgrounds and really hoboed up a run sponsored by the local high school that happened the next morning as we were eating breakfast and getting ready.

Then we went south to Coeur D’Alene where Jeff’s Dad put us up in our first hotel of the trip, the State Motel. The State motel is highly recommended for its reasonable pricing, proximity to downtown, friendly owner, and his dog that was fond of coming in your room if you left the door open. I believe this was my first shower of the trip.

From Coeur D’Alene we actually rode on the interstate east for 8 miles in order to be able to ride south on the road bordering the eastern side of the lake. A couple hundred yards from the interstate exit a 2 inch nail ended up giving me my first flat of the trip. It was worth it though as the road turned out to have good views of the lake and very little traffic.