ChaseTheChaffe: Idaho

This was the only sign we could find to mark that we crossed into Idaho

From left to right: Ashley, Kelsey, Nick (bike touring around America, from Australia)

Day 6:
Finally crossed the Washington-Idaho border today. Because we take the back roads, there are not big, extravagant signs when you cross borders. A little disappointing but what can you do. We rode into Plummer, ID to catch the Coeur d’Alene trail. This trail is amazing. It runs 74 miles across the entire panhandle and because it used to be a railroad, the grade is never greater than 6%. About 5 miles from our final destination for the day, we found a creek in pinehurst to relax a little bit. That water was cold! But if you stood in it for about 7 minutes, your legs go numb anyway and start to feel a little better. After falling asleep next to the creek, we rode the rest of the way into Kellogg, ID. When we got there, there was a farmers market with live music. We got a couple chicken tacos, a beer, and plopped our bodies in a lawn chair to people watch. We saw another persons bike loaded up with stuff and we were wondering who else happened to be biking through this tiny town? Turns out it was this guy, Nick, from Australia. His visa was about to run out so he was fleeing to Canada! Ha not really, but kind of. Very interesting fellow with a ravenous appetite. That day, he consumed 2 half-gallon containers of ice cream! And when we wen to go pitch our tent (in the parking lot of Silver mountain resort), he brought us another half-gallon to share. It was a lot of ice cream, but delicious. No regrets.
Mileage: 82 (total 439)

Day 7: *probably the hardest day, thus far*

Story: Never trust google maps

In the morning, we headed east to finish the rest of the Coeur d’Alene trail. We stopped in Wallace, ID to get some Tylenol for the aches and pains and kept trudging forward. Because we still haven’t learned our lesson, we trusted google to guide our way. It first took us on the Great Northern Rail Trail until we realized we were going west, the wrong direction! So we backtracked and went up a different trail that google insisted was much better, the Idaho Centennial Trail. Sounds nice, right? Wrong! This trail is a hiking trail! We trudged on it for about 2-3 miles, carrying our bikes until we ran into some locals, Joe, Kevin, and Rich. They were shocked to see us because bikes are not really capable on navigating these trails. They were kind enough to give us a lift back to Wallace and draw us a map of where we needed to go. This map includes 3 mountain passes: Dobb’s pass, King’s Pass, and Thompson’s pass. The time is now 1130am and we are back to where we were at 8am, Wallace, ID. They told us the first and the last passes are the worst, which they were right about. Not sure on the elevation gain, but we were sweating buckets. Oh did I mention, the temp was fluctuating between 90 and 100 degrees? When we got to the top of Dobb’s pass, we ran into another biker! John Worthington (johnworthington.blog), a Brit doing the Wild West Trail. The next pass, King’s Pass, was on a dirt road, and you all know how much we love the first and gravel, so there was a good amount of walking and complaining. After King's Pass we arrived in Murray, ID. There was a restaurant there so we decided to grab a burger and chat with the locals to see if we could get a hitch to Thompson Falls, our next destination. This "town" was interesting. First of all, there was a gentleman there with a very large beard, and even bigger gun strapped to his thigh. So big, that he had to have a second strap at the bottom to keep it attached to his body. This was probably the biggest holster I have ever seen. Not to make this political at all, but is that really necessary? The restaurant was also not as progressive as we were used to, being that next week was their annual “midget wrestling” event. We got a burger, chatted with the people, but were ultimately unsuccessful in finding a ride to Thompson Falls. By this time, we were exhausted and ended up walking our bikes up much of the uphill. Every time a truck drove by we threw out a thumb, no luck on a hitch. Not gonna lie, a little disappointed in Idahoan drivers in their lack of empathy since it was 100 degrees and an 11 mile uphill. About 1 mile to the top, a lumberjack from Montana picked us up and brought us to the top of the pass. He then told us he wasn’t going to since we were “so close to the top” but felt bad because it was so hot out. From the top, we had 21 miles until the town which everyone insisted was “all down hill”. I would like to point out that there were two instances where we had to go uphill again. Eventually we made it into town, where we were flipped off by a lovely gentleman in a truck because we were in his way, I guess. Rude. At this point, it’s 8pm and we’re starving. So we sat in a church parking lot and made PBJ sandwiches, classy, I know. We had a voicemail from someone in Plains, MT that we had connected with through warmshowers.com (basically AirBnB for bike packers at no charge). Kelsey called them back and they told us they had room to take us in for the night and pick us up in town! The universe was on our side! Thank goodness because we were dead. Like knights in shining armor, Kevin and JJ picked us up in a red Ford F-350 and loaded up our bikes. When we got to the house, we met Bryan (who left the voicemail) and other Brian where they had pot roast and brownies waiting for us, food is the way to our hearts. It was a dream and the best thing we could have had after the grueling day we had.