Stanley to Jackson Hole

Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, Mike woke me up to see the incredible sunrise out our window. As our motel room in Stanley was on the river, overlooking the Sawtooth Mountains, we had left the window open all night so we could enjoy the music of the river and wake up to our unbelieveable view. We were not disappointed.

Since our time in Stanley was limited and our ride yesterday was just so-so, we decided to do the 'epic' Stanley mountain bike loop: Fisher Creek Trail. We now had two locals recommend it to us. One, a guy in a Sun Valley bike store, was so excited about this ride that he used his shop's fax machine to xerox a copy of the route from a guide book. I wasn't so keen on doing it...half of the 17.8 miles of trail were marked as black diamond and I'm just not so keen on the technical descents. Mike convinced me that if (when) I needed to walk, I wouldn't fall of any clifs, but that we shouldn't miss the ride everone was talking about.

Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
About 1/2 of the ride was through forest which had seen a huge fire within the last few years. Everywhere you looked, you were on a tiny sandy single track (literally no wider than 1.5 bike tires), peeking through charred trees with brilliant pink and purple wild flowers blooming beneath them. It was so damn cool.



We found some quarter-showers along the side of the road when we were through and were thrilled to be able to clean up before our 6 hour drive across Idaho and into Wyoming. As we ventured further and further into rural Idaho, we reminded each other to heed the warning of a billboard which I sighted in Idaho Falls: "WARNING TO TOURISTS: DO NOT LAUGH AT THE NATIVES."


Crossing into Wyoming at Teton Pass, we paused to find the slopes where my brother had taken me backcountry skiing last winter. They sure look less scary in the summer time. We landed in Jackson and collapsed on the couch at my brother's cabin, so happy to have family with us and a home for the next 4 days.