We didn't get up as early as we would have liked to, and we also had to take some time to filter water from the river, so we hit the climb late in the morning and bypassed the Phifer Bath House hot spring, which promised a tub and shower in a dilapidated shack. Once we turned away from the river on Phifer Creek road, we were hit with the steepest grade we encountered the entire trip. Not only was the road in bad shape, but the grade was so steep that I had to push my bike a few times, which is rare for me since I'm a pretty good climber. I also fell a couple times after hitting unexpected sand patches and was unable to clip out on time... I laughed as these were the quintessential slow motion zero momentum tip overs.
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| Ready to make more wildflowers! |
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| Ryan on the steep sandy switchback, hating life. He affectionately nicknamed it "Cock Knocker Creek," ousting "Dick Punch Hill," as the worst climb of his entire touring career. |
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| Photogenic flowers overlooking a stunning view makes shitty climbs like this one worth it, in my opinion. Then again, I'm a glutton for punishment. |
At long last, we made it to the summit, too tired to do anything celebratory at the top. We went zooming down the other side and into Featherville to recover from the heat and to replenish all the lost calories. Featherville was one of my favorite towns on this trip. It's small, with just a few store and restaurants that are technically all part of the same complex. We asked an older gentleman on a commuter bike which place was the best one to eat at, and he told us that the pizza place had the best pizza in all of Elmore county. How could we refuse that?
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| Unassuming and remote, this pizza place really was pretty damn good. And not just because I was starving. |
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| The owner of this pizza joint takes an incredible amount of pride in his work. It's a mix of science and art to him. He hand chops each ingredient, talks you through your pie's construction, and shows you the progress as he goes along. Apparently, if you order his special supreme pizza, each piece weighs half a pound. I opted for a thin crust Greek pizza and ate the whole thing. This is a small place... he can only make 2 pizzas at a time, so if you cannot wait to eat, be forewarned that it can take a while. |
After demolishing our pizzas and doing a little grocery shopping, we headed over to the saloon to throw done a silver bullet before heading out to get a few more miles in and call it an early night. The folks in Featherville are incredibly friendly and inviting. The owner of the pizza place (which is also the grocery store) offered up a spot on the river on his property in town to camp if we wanted. A local at the saloon said that if we couldn't get water at Baumgartner campground where we intended to camp, that his place was just a mile from there and we were welcome to stop by to get water at his place. Another patron at the saloon who had chatted with us for a bit passed us in his Jeep as we biked out of town and hooted and hollered at us, joking with us that we needed to go faster.
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| Emergency phone in the middle of nowhere. |
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| It was a relatively flat ride out of town, but the sand got the best of Ryan. I made sure he was okay before I laughed and took this picture. Promise. |
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| The long sandy road to camp. |
We were determined to actually enjoy some hot springs, and the guys at the saloon told us there was free camping right next to the fee area campgrounds at Baumgartner, so we made that our stopping point. There are some free group sites outside of the fee area when you first turn onto the road into the Baumgartner campground, so that's where we set up camp. First things first, we hit up the developed hot spring and it felt amazing to wash grit from the road off of us. It was also the perfect temperature to enjoy, even though the pool itself reminded me of a little pool rather than a hot spring. After dinner, we still had quite a bit of light left, so we played cribbage to amuse ourselves until it was time to sleep.
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| This deer visited us while we were making dinner at camp |
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| Like nearly every other campsite we had this trip, we had a river just steps away from our tents. I went down to enjoy the sunset and dip my feet in the water. Then I passed out to the soothing sounds of flowing water. |
A few travel notes for bike tourists:
The water in Featherville is spring fed and delicious! We filled up at the spigot outside of the pizza place (which is also the general store). The owner loves seeing bike tourists coming through because we eat a lot of pizza and he'll brag not just about his pizza, but his water too.
There is water at the Baumgartner campground, you just have to go down to the fee area to get it. There are also dumpsters here so its a good place to ditch any trash from your panniers (I had forgotten to in Featherville). Also, the group area does get reserved, so it may not always be available, especially on weekends and holidays. We bumped into a guy who told us there were some other free sites a bit further in (turn right at the T intersection instead of left as you go from the group sites to the fee area).
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