Passed both the 600 mile mark and the Oregon – Idaho border on a beautiful ride of 68 miles.

The area we are riding through is experiencing a heat wave, so we started riding about 6A, which made for a gorgeous ride in cool temps and car free roads above Pine Creek with the early morning sun slanting through dewey air to a pristine mountain stream below. Bike heaven.

We crossed the Snake River into Idaho and then spent much of the day climbing over a ridge, following Brownlee Creek upstream for about 8 steep miles. We then had a long descent to our destination of Cambridge, Idaho. A good day with varied, beautiful terrain.

Reflection from Chris:

Today we experienced the full range of temperature, terrain and bicycling speed. This morning we left The hamlet of Halfway in the broad green Pine Creek valley at 6:00 while it was still cool, and soon were speeding down its canyon as the clear stream rushed below us towards the brown depths of the Much deeper Snake River Canyon. We all agreed that the 90 minute descent past rock outcrops above and dense riverside greenery of dense cottonwoods and wild roses and Syringa in bloom with the sun just climbing above the ridge below us was among the best stretches of bike riding we’d done. Having reached the low point of our entire trip at the Snake at 8:00 AM, we then slowly made our way upstream along its canyon with the day heating up- the few fishermen out in boats hugging the shady side of the flat water of the 2 reservoirs we cycled along.

And then the paved road climbed up a major drainage leading away from the river into the high hills east of the river, and we soon were taking turns grinding up in our lowest gears along that stream when we could manage, and walking our bikes when we couldn’t. We had the company of occasional motorcyclists and trucks-pulling-massive-campers and horses in the steep pastures, and the refreshment of a cool breeze sweeping up from the deep lake far below. At mile 7 the road finally flattened and began to descend towards our stay- over town of Cambridge Idaho, and as we had a welcome 2 pm lunch over crackers and apples and cheese and warm water at the pass, it seemed impossible that we’d actually felt cold when we’d started out 7 hours earlier.

Reflection from Mary Ann:

We started our day in Halfway at 6am in order to beat some of the 90+ degree heat. It was a beautiful low light 17 mile ride down to Oxbow Dam. After a climb up to the reservoir behind the dam it was a pretty level ride along the dammed Snake River. We then crossed into Idaho and climbed up to the Brownlee Dam and snaked along its reservoir. The challenge of the day was when we started up the East Brownlee Creek Canyon. It was a long 10 mile slog to the top in pretty extreme heat! We all did our share of walking our bikes due to the grade and the heat. We did have a gentle cooling tailwind that helped us along a little.

We started out 17 mile descent to Cambridge at the Brownlee Summit on above map. It took us through pretty dry, recently burned Pine Creek River valley (below).