IDAHO FALLS TO ARCO
Easy day, flat, no headwinds, 70 miles, pretty much desert terrain. Arco is a tiny town, so this was the perfect spot to work on our prom outfits. Emily found Joseph and I some potato sacks (who knew how hard it was to find potato sacks in Idaho) and I bought some sheets from the dollar store, and we fashioned ourselves some adorable costumes.
ARCO TO CHALLIS
Tough day of 84 miles with 2 climbs and rolling hills, but our excitement for prom made it so much fun. We got rained on but it felt nice since it was a hot day, and we got to ride through these incredible canyons and got our first views of the Sawtooth mountains.
We stayed in a retreat center which was incredible: we all had beds. This was my first time sleeping in a bed all summer, and the retreat house had a downstairs area called the Eagles Nest where we held prom. We took prom photos obvi:
The dancing was amazing and it felt like a normal party with normal friends, since we were out of our costumes after 5 songs (burlap is not conducive to dancing). Everyone looked awesome though and we jammed to 90s hip hop and summer hits, the prom that we all wished we had in high school.
CHALLIS TO STANLEY
Wakeup was at 8- the latest wakeup time we've had so far this trip- since all of us needed a bit of post-prom recovery. We didn't even leave the host until 10, and I was sweep with Celise again so we made a few stops with riders who wanted coffee before leaving Challis. Abram decided to join us for a 3 man sweep, and the ride was tough with some headwinds and climbing, but nothing too extreme.
We stopped on the Salmon river and dipped our feet in for a bit, and then came across natural hot springs which were incredible and rejuvenating. We stayed in the springs for almost an hour, and it was 5:30 by the time we left! We didn't get to the campsite until 7pm, the latest I've ever arrived to a host.
STANLEY TO IDAHO CITY
I'll try to paint you a picture of the monstrosity that was this morning: 5 am wakeup, dark, tired, and freezing. The temperature was actually below 32 degrees, and everything outside was frozen and covered in frost. We laid in our tent for half an hour after wakeup plotting a revolt- we even communicated with other tents, convinced that if none of us got out of our sleeping bags, we could sleep for another hour.
This of course didn't work, so we had to put on all of our clothes (I'm not exaggerating, my bin was like empty because I was wearing all of my clothing) and pack up in the freezing cold. We collectively decided that we. couldn't ride when we couldn't feel our fingers to use our brakes, so we went to get hot breakfast at the diner down the street. We didn't even get on the road until 8:45, and after about 5 minutes of riding in 6 layers of clothing, we were so hot we stripped down to our kits and rode the rest of the way sans layers.
Our ride through Challis National Forest was gorgeous- evergreens for miles with rivers and ski trails, just pure nature. There was a bit of fire damage and some concerning signs about fire danger (a bunch of fire trucks kept passing us which is never a good sign), but no encounters with actual fire.
We had a 10 mile climb on gravel which was really tough, and I decided to book it up this mountain which I regretted after second lunch when my legs decided not to work anymore.
Tally:
Minutes before we took off our prom outfits: 10
Watermelons mysteriously smashed on prom night: 1
Hot springs: 2
Camping nights with below freezing temperatures: 1
Riders ready to revolt against 5am wakeup: 25
Layers of clothes unnecessarily donned only to be stripped off after minutes of climbing: 6
Mountains beasted: 3
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