September 26, 2010

• All summer, I've been wanting to ride the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes.  Turns out, early fall is the perfect time to ride; cool weather, not a lot of traffic, and the fall colors give depth to the scenery.  So... yay! for life working out better than my plans.

  Kirby drove us up to the trailhead in Mullan:
  

  We stopped to break open the trail mix under the interstate between Wallace and Osborne...

  

  The muddy moose tracks didn't show up in the picture I took.  We also saw lots of bear poo... but no animals.

   

  Those last five or six miles were the hardest.  Bri and I agreed our legs and lungs could go on for days, but our knees were begging for mercy.  My rear, too, was complaining.  Owww.

  We left the Trail at Bull Run Road and pulled out my hand-drawn map / directions.  The Trail we'd been riding on was built on an old railroad bed, so it's pretty much flat, even on the initial "downhill."  Now, at the end of our ride, we were riding on the rough shoulder of a narrow road -- not flat.  Good thing I'd studied the surrounding area -- the road on our directions to the lake was closed, blocked with a bulldozed mound of dirt.  We continued up that miserable hill, trying between breaths to remember how far to the next lake access road.  ...  There!  Watson Road!

  

  We'd been over it more than once about our meeting place.  Still, it was a delightful surprise to see them waiting, right where they said they'd be:
  

  According to the timestamps on the pictures, we made it in five hours, fifteen minutes.  Not bad, considering Bri made potty stops every fifty feet.

  We stayed to enjoy Rose Lake a little while before heading for home:
   

  • 11:19 pm
  • 3 Comments