Boy-see

Upon arrival in Boise, we were quickly informed the name of the city is pronounced “Boy-see,” not “Boy-zee.” An important correction, but not the easiest word to use in normal conversation. Regardless, we found a pretty reasonable Hampton Inn downtown to stay in while we checked out the city for the night.

All the buildings in Boise looked brand new, probably largely due to the influx of money from the athletics teams at Boise State. Easily walkable, tons of people riding bikes around the downtown, and with block after block of unique shops & restaurants, we were big fans of Boise. We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant, and did a bit of bar hopping around the downtown. Everyone we talked to was super nice, and seemed to love it there. All in all, good times in Boise.

Today we have a 9-hour drive ahead of us to a small town outside of Glacier Nat’l Park called Whitefish, just north of Kalispell. We’re going to spend the night there tonight, and then head into the park early tomorrow morning to find a campground for the next few nights.

Ketchum & Sun Valley, Idaho

Finally a new state… Idaho. We left Wyoming on Thursday, and made the fairly long drive across Southern Idaho toward Ketchum/Sun Valley. This area was absolutely beautiful. Sun Valley (as you probably know) is a very fancy/ritzy ski resort town, similar to Jackson, with lots of stores, restaurants, coffee shops and traffic, but set in an alpine valley, with big green mountains all around. We found a campground a few miles outside of town in the Sawtooth National Forest, and just managed to get the tent set up before a pounding thunderstorm set in for the evening. With the pouring rain pelting our campsite (the tent is a champ at keeping things dry inside), we decided to head to town for dinner. We found a great little log cabin restaurant/brewery, had some dinner, and played a few games of pool. It was still a bit rainy, and early, when we were done, so we found a coffee shop with covered outdoor seating, and ordered some hot chocolate, while I had a 30 minute conversation with 3 9-year olds about whether or not Harry Potter dies at the end of the latest book.

After a nice, quiet sleep, we woke up to about 45 degrees the next morning. It was a bit cold packing up the still wet tent, but some after some oatmeal and coffee, we headed out for our day of mountain biking. Inside the Sawtooth Nat’l Forest is the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA). This place is just awesome. In the winter, there are tons of cross country skiing trails, which in the summer turn into tons of mountain biking trails. There were so many people doing active things on this Friday morning, we wondered if anyone had a job. People riding road bikes everywhere, tons of mountain bikers, runners. We heard the trails in the Galena area, about 15 miles north of Ketchum were the best, so we picked one labeled “advanced” (for some reason we thought this wouldn’t be that bad) and set out. After about 30 minutes of steady climbing, at about 5000’ of elevation, our lungs were broken, and we came up on what could be described as nothing other than a peak assault. The trail seriously went straight uphill for over a mile. We could barely push our bikes up it, there is no way a human could ride up it. To make the trail even more adventurous, we came across a bear in the valley below us, about 50’ away. As soon as he saw/heard us, he ran off, but I’ve still had enough close encounters with the bears for now. Seeing no end to the uphill ascent, we took a shortcut off that trail, and hit a few others, which had some great roller coaster hills, more manageable climbs, and were an all around fun ride.

All the trails in the Galena area start and end at the Galena lodge, which has a little restaurant, a bike shop, and an outdoor deck perfect for lunch after a ride. We ate some sandwiches on the deck, then set off to find some $2 showers our campground host told us were “over in the hot spring run by the Baptists.” We found the showers, but let it be know to all that when you are taking a shower at a place known for its hot spring, the water coming out of the shower head is also going to come from that hot spring, and will therefore smell like rotten eggs. Not the most pleasant thing to shower in, but, we were clean.

Next stop, a short drive to Boise.

Idaho, more than just potatoes

Apparently they also have a great sense of humor – check out this sign, courtesy of some joker in Idaho Falls.

Today we left Wyoming and headed into Idaho. With all the time in Yellowstone, Tetons and our week at the beach, we had been in WY way too long and needed to move on. Ketchum, Sun Valley, Boise, Sawtooth Range are up next… then on to Montana and Glacier National Park.

Grand Tetons, post beach

The Grand Tetons are amazing. When you think of “Wild West” scenery, alpine valleys, sharp granite peaks and wildlife at each turn, The Tetons deliver. Every day you drive by the range it looks like a painting, it hardly seems real.

We were planning to do a few days in the backcountry on the Teton Crest Trail, a classic trail for any serious hiker, but after our travel troubles neither Sara or I was in the mode for that level of roughing it quite yet. We decided to do some day hiking and ease back into the lifestyle. We did the Jenny Lake Trail (a great alpine lake with crystal clear water and berry patches along the way) and the Cascade Canyon Trail (follows a nice stream back up into the canyons and alpine meadows). Cascade Canyon area offers what I would consider absolutely perfect scenery. Although this is prime bear country (we were under full bear lookout mode – see YellowStone posts), we didn’t see a single brown or black bear or even any tracks for that matter. We did see a large male moose right off the trail about 8 feet from us. He was munching some grass and enjoying the shade, they are quite large up close.

Camping was good in the park (Gros Ventre Campground), nice and cool sleeping weather. The only interesting part, and depending on your point of view this could be a positive or negative in the wilderness experience, was the large pack of wolves that found its way near the campground to howl at the moon each morning from 4:30 – 5:30. I am not sure how far away they were, but there had to have been about 15 or 20 of them, barking howling in these long solo performances. I found it relaxing, kind of like we had finally reached the wilderness, it was a good thing Sara was asleep... and yes, the moon was pretty full this week so the cliché seems to be valid.