Day 12 – June 15 – Kamiah, ID to USFS Wilderness Gateway, ID – 57 Miles

Things don’t always go as planned or as anticipated.  Today we would ride with Kevin and Chris, two cycling tourist we met and have become acquainted with over the last two days. Talking with local folks and reading warnings on our maps about the high traffic and the narrow roadway along Route 12 for today’s ride turned out to be nothing of the sort.  The first 8 miles or so was heavily trafficked but nothing worse than what we have experienced before.  East of the small town of Kooskia, ID the traffic evaporated.

Route 12 follows the Clearwater River into the Selway Bitteroot Wilderness area.  Further east it follows the Lochsa (pronounced Lock-Saw) River a tributary of the Clearwater.  Both are a favorite for fishing and white water kayaking.  As we proceeded east along the rivers we were consistently gaining altitude, but with a generous tailwind, riding was easy.  We made it to the town of Lowell, ID, a distance of 30 miles in about 2 ½ hours.  We broke for lunch at a United States Forest Service (USFS) camping area about 7 miles east of Lowell.

During lunch the four of us discussed a reasonable stopping point for the day.  This particular section is quite remote and without many services.  We have had roaming cell phone service for two days.  The only two potential stopping points were USFS camping areas, one the Wilderness Gateway camping area about 20 miles further or another in 60 miles.  The one at 60 was out of the question as that would be a 100 mile day and none of us were up to that.  57 miles was a good distance, it would also put us within 40 miles of Powell, ID a good stopping point before the ascent up and over Lolo Pass.

In all the planning for this trip, I had anticipated that riding 65 to 75 miles a day would be a reasonable expectation.  However, there have been other factors that have pushed us for more miles or limited us to fewer.  In areas such as the Bitteroot Wilderness area there is no choice to go 65 or 75 miles it was only 57 and 100.  In actuality it has been that way almost every day on this trip.  Some days adding additional mileage is out of the question due to difficult riding conditions, the spacing of lodging choices, food stops etc. all have to be taken into account.  Other days, extending mileage was an easy choice.

I know some may be wondering why the blog has not been updated for the last few days.  Actually I have been blogging, and keeping things up to date with MS Word. It is just that I cannot connect to update the blog page.  Since Wednesday, we have been in some pretty remote stretches of Idaho.  We will be there two more days before we get to Missoula, MT.  My cell phone has been on roam for 3 days and I have had no data connection.  Currently, I have no service at all so the phone is turned off.  I’ll check again tomorrow when we get to Powell, ID.

Today’s ride was beautiful and enjoyable,  we can only hope for the same conditions tomorrow.