Day 2: Five Miles Past Idaho City to Dutch Frank Hot Springs

We woke up early to finish the 2000+ feet of climbing we had left to do before the sun became too unbearable.  Shortly into the climb, Ryan's chain broke.  He looked slightly panicked as he never had to deal with a broken chain before, but luckily I had a couple powerlinks and a mini chain breaker in my tool kit and I've had to fix chains before, so in no time, I fixed his chain.  Turns out Ryan has never replaced his chain or rear cassette in all his time owning his touring bike... he did the TransAm and a large part of the Pacific Coast, plus his daily bike commuting on the same chain and cassette.  Miiiiight be time for him to do a bike rebuild.  Ahem. 


Ryan gives his chain a little lube love after I fixed it.

This tour was fueled by cracked pepper Triscuits and pepper jack cheese.

Wildflowers were in full bloom on the roadside and in meadows on this summit climb.  I passed the time by admiring the dozens of varieties of flowers I saw.

On our way up, we saw two other bike tourists going the other way with traditional ultralightweight bikepacking setups.  They warned us that the other side was extremely rutted, so to be careful going down.  As we neared the summit, we got our first open expansive views of the area.

Photogenic flowers.  I played around with photography when I had to wait for Ryan on the climbs.  Kept me sane and made for a well-documented tour.

The Tank gets her own photoshoot at the summit.

Ryan works his way up the last bit of climb.

Summit headstand just because.

The descent down the other side felt like mountain biking at times due to all the ruts and having to choose your line pretty carefully.  We had to stop a couple times to rest our hands from all the braking, but we finally made it down.

Our road laid out before us.

There were a few surprise steep uphills on the descent, I spun out here because I wasn't paying attention and was in the wrong gear to get up it.

We made it down in good time and took advantage of a rare bit of green grass and shade at the ranger station at the base to have lunch and stretch out.  I'm glad we did because once we hit the Boise reservoir, there was no shade to be seen for a while.  As we worked our way around the Boise reservoir, we saw a majestic bald eagle soaring above.

First views of the Boise reservoir... alas, the bald eagle disappeared before I could get my camera out.

 

This area has a stark barren beauty.

Early afternoon brought roasting temperatures, and as the reservoir slowly turned into a flowing river, the water beckoned us for a dip.  We vowed to find a good spot to stop and splash in the river.  A couple miles later, I saw what looked like a beach.  And as we got closer, I saw a grove of pine trees surrounding an informal campsite with access to said "beach."  Ryan and I instantly agreed this would be our afternoon siesta spot.

Time for a dip in the cold refreshing river!

Nap time!  This is why ultra ultra ultra lightweight bikepacking setups sorta suck... no room for hammocks.  I was happy to have mine in my pannier.

After a swim to get all the sweat and grime off, we took a quick nap and then rallied ourselves to keep going. Not too much later, we came across the Twin Springs Resort, the only bit of civilization along this stretch.  Staffed by two eccentric but wonderful guys, this is a place of legend.  Weddings, raves (yes, raves, with international DJs!), and random bike tourists all pass through here.  We had a few beers to wait out the rest of the heat of the day, filled up our water, and then kept pushing to get to the base of the next climb.

Maybe population 4 by now...

I found a friend.  She is the friendliest Chihuahua I've ever met, and will do hilarious tricks for cheese.

On the road again, this time in shade!  Ryan lost a rack screw and nearly took out his rear derailleur cable housing, but we patched it up with duct tape and a spare screw off my bike.

We passed by a mom, dad, and teenage son who were also on bikes, going our same direction, who had already set up camp at the developed campground and hot springs at Neinmeyer.  We chatted briefly, they had started that day in Boise and were worried about the climb ahead as well.  I'm curios how they did, because the dad was riding a fat tire bike and the mom looked a little tired already.  By 9:15 pm, we still had not found a great place to camp or made as much progress as we wanted, so we decided to push it to the Dutch Frank Hot Springs to see what we could find.  We knew from the description that there was a parking lot, so worst case scenario, we would camp in the parking lot.  As I pulled up, I saw some RVs already parked there for the night, but then I saw a little bridge to the other side of the river.  Bingo!  There was camping on the other side... accessible only by bike.

Road closed... to RVs and cars, that is.

Perfect little spot nestled next to the river.

We quickly set up camp as the light faded, made dinner, and then went to check out the hot springs.  I had beautiful dreams of watching the stars from a hot spring, but it didn't quite work out that way.  The pools were extraordinarily hot, and the one pool that was tolerable, was shallow and full of silt.  We said "screw it" and got in anyway, which was a bit comical as we weren't submerged at all, watched the big dipper come out, and then made our way back to camp to sleep.

High hopes walking down to the hot springs.

High hopes looking down on the pools...

A few travel notes for bike tourists:

• The Twin Springs Resort is the only bit of civilization between Idaho City and Featherville.  They have water, beer, Chihuahuas, satellite internet, basic bike repair stuff (e.g., patches for tubes), canned foods, bug spray, and hilarious banter with the owner.  The owner is very pro bike tourist, and can help in case of emergency.