Ride All the Rides

May was moldering, melting, melancholic. The daily dirge of bike shop and bar small talk was always, the rain, the rain, the rain. Never torrential but perfectly timed to usurp motivation and slicken singletrack.

Tyler and I escaped to Sun Valley where it was a touch drier, a hair warmer. Busy trailheads greeted us but the usual maxim held true: half a mile in, you're all alone. The inner networks are well-signed and designed to be sustainable crowd-pleasers, but up a little higher, in a little deeper, you reach intersections where the wrong turn* has a whiff of backcountry, the essence of isolation, and you know you could pursue adventure indefinitely over ridges and into coves, on beaten-up ATV trails and through groves of blackened tree carcasses. Such is this magnificent state. The realization came that a map would be a worthy purchase, and I spread it out on the counter and drooled over it for hours.

*Wrong only in that you have a dog, a limited water supply, and a boyfriend who is anti-death march. Wisdom dictates you stick with the predetermined route.

In the burn

Back in the Tetons yet another week of rain struck us dumb and unpleasant. Then Friday brought sun. I went to work beaming, knocked out production fast, hurried home, dragged out the Stag and the boy and the dog. Backyard trails! Pass laps! The next day: hard old school trails with my boss leading and a new shop friend happily tagging along, muggy greenery and unending climbs, log obstacles and rip-roaring descents. More Pass laps in the p.m., narrowly avoiding a violent cloud burst that pressure-washed the mud off our bikes in the parking lot. Sunday: gathering a posse to ride the most beloved trail in the Valley. We all moved slowly up the climb, but after reaching the relatively low-snow resort we turned around and blasted down, scaring ourselves with daring and speed, then relaxed into the creek barefoot with beers, watching the dogs play.

Under the radar, on top of it all

The Pass

Tuesday: a group adventure ride, the organizers trying hard to shake off any recreational riders with the online ride description: "If you don't like hike-a-bike, this ride is not for you. Bring your sense of humor, rain wear, and bug dope." We loaded vans and trucks and drove way up north and east, not far as a crow flies from the northern terminus of the Teton range. Mosquitos swarmed and branches slapped our faces and only the GPS saved us (eventually) from several forays off track, but we satisfactorily navigated the undulating ribbon of old overgrown singletrack from car to car.

Successful navigation through the wilds

Today I had planned to attend a trail work day but felt some umbrage that it was on a trail within wilderness that saw no bikes and plenty of careless, destructive horse traffic. A friend invited me to go ride elsewhere and do some more meaningful maintenance by helping to clear downed trees. He strapped a Husqvarna to his back and still kept up. At two intriguing intersections we did casual reconnaissance up drainages, riding sidehill and shouting at phantom bears in the bushy creek bottoms. On the drive home I queried him about the backyard trails and in a "why the f*ck not" moment, we rode them too, to clear some more trees and so I could get a better handle on the game paths that snake through the hills behind my apartment.

The backyard

I crave novelty and variety and I feel a little envious and petulant when I encounter a blog like the wonderful revelation that is Zen on Dirt, but then I get a good reminder that this valley and this state and this region have a lifetime's worth of adventures and I feel ok about it again.