Brian’s Ride Miles Biked: 59.3 Average Speed: 12.5 mph Max Speed: 25.2 mph Time Pedaling: 4 hours 44 minutes Total Feet Climbed: 2990 Start/Stop Time: 7:30 am Pacific Time to 3:00 pm Mountain Time Wind: Variable light winds, clear skies. After lunch, clouds moved in and a headwind developed. Weather: mid 50s to 102oF

The first biking order of the day was to finish the 600 remaining feet of hill out of Grangeville. Grangeville and vicinity is located on a high plateau (part of it is called White Bird Mountain), 3200 to 4000 feet, and is flat enough to contain hay and wheat farms. It’s previous leading industry was a wood mill that moved out several years ago. Seeing the mountain that one must go up and down to get to Grangeville and the lack of nearby forest, it’s not hard to imagine why the mill moved.

Traveling south out of the Grangeville plateau on US 95 I reached the mountain pass and headed down White Bird Hill. White Bird was one of the Nez Perce Indian Chiefs along with Chief Joseph and several others that ruled the Nez Perce by committee during the turbulent times of the US and Nez Perce War. Traveling down White Bird Hill, a 7% grade for 6 miles, I stopped at the visitors center that overlooked the Nez Perce National Historic Park. This park is the location of a battle where 33 Army soldiers and two local citizen conscripts lost there lives. No Indians died in this battle. The battle started after a shot rang out during a Nez Perce flag of truce to discuss the situation. The Army retreated but the Nez Perce were caught in Montana as described in a previous journal entry.

Also viewable from the visitor’s center was the terrain that awaited me; the Salmon River watershed. A rugged terrain part of which is called the Frank Church River of No Return. I never found out who Frank Church was.

This part of the biking route on US 95 followed the Salmon River framed by mountains on either side. It was a very pretty ride with the fast flowing Salmon and the high desert mountains with steep slopes on either side. US 95 than switched to follow the Little Salmon up river beginning at Riggins.  Riggins is dubbed Idaho’s whitewater capital because of the rapids the Salmon River provides and the home of too many rafting companies. Riggins was also our lunch break for the day.

As US95 started to follow the Little Salmon upstream, the elevation started to increase in small increments. At this same time, a headwind picked up and I became zonked. Joan met me at Pinehurst (no golf courses here) for a quick sag stop and it easily became our home for the night.  If you have been following our schedule on the web, it may be out of date.  One week prior to our leaving I revised it with an added day to break up a 140 mile day in Montana. Our scheduled stop was supposed to be Riggins so we were 12 miles ahead of schedule. Another excuse to stop.

Joan’s Version

Brian departed the RV at 7:30 am Pacific Time. We were a little confused as to the delineation of the mountain and pacific time zones and later learned it follows the Salmon River. At 400 miles, it’s the longest river in the lower 48 states.

Evan and Joel explored Hells Canyon and rafted the white water. I met Brian, as he continued to struggle through massive hills and hot weather. 

I had learned to hear "NO" three times before giving up, when I was in sales, so I’ve incorporated the same philosophy when Brian complains about exhaustion. Unless I hear him scream "uncle" three times, we continue forward. Today, by 2 p.m., Brian exceeded the minimum complaint requirement. He was really wiped out at the sag stop, which coincidentally happened at an RV Park on the Little Salmon River. We hooked into a nice campsite on the water, 24 miles earlier than expected.

I took the opportunity to run and bike and "tube" ride in the river. At one point, I got stuck on a rock and Brian had to come "rescue" me…if I hadn’t been the cook, I wondered if he would have exerted the energy!

Knowing all the guys were famished, I cooked a huge meal of 2 types of pasta, salad, nachos, chicken fingers and fajitas.