“The Ten Indian Commandments:
Treat the earth and all that dwell therein with great respect
Remain close to the Great Spirit
Show great respect for your fellow human beings
Work together for the benefit of all mankind
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well-being of mind and body
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good
Be truthful and honest at all times
Take full responsibility for your actions”
Makes sense to me!
5/12- Left Elko this afternoon… I actually felt a little sad leaving, couldn’t help it! I really fell in love with this town in the end, more so than usual. I looked down as I climbed a mountain pass leaving, the city was tucked into a valley and behind it were snow covered peaks. The sun went down on me and I climbed the rest of the pass in the dusk. Then I felt a little silly in the twilight standing on top of a mountain pass, but just a short ways down the backside I found a great spot to camp. I was hidden from the road on top of a hill which I climbed with my bicycle, and had a spectacular view.
Day 10, 5/13- Going to Mountain City -76 miles
Today I woke up, turned on my phone and I had service. The first thing I saw was Victoria posting on Facebook, “Today is a great day,” and so I had my expectations a little high. I also realized it was Friday the 13th. I looked out to my view of the empty grassland hills, and I noticed, I’m not cold. It was a pleasantly warm morning, unlike most of Nevada where I’ve experienced a frosty chill all throughout the day.
I got on the bike and started my great day with a long flying downhill. The beauty of it was, that even when I reached the bottom, I was still going downhill. The road took me over small, rolling hills, but for the most part I was doing a lot more downhill than uphill all through the day. I passed the Ruby Mountains, I watched as they drew closer and closer until I was up beside them. They were a massive snow covered range, looking to me like mountains I’d see in Idaho. Idaho is getting closer now.
The desert went on and on and I was enjoying it. The weather was some kind of phenomenally perfect like Nevada never is! It was warm, I didn’t need any coat, but I was not too hot. Then I came to a large reservoir. I had been following the Humbolt River and had caught glimpses of it here and there, as well as seen canyons in the distance which it clearly cut, and marshlands. The area was more fertile and wet because of it. Now I’d meet the Owyhee River. This is a very remote part of the country, if you look at a map you’d see the Nevada/Idaho border is very far away from anything else. After passing the reservoir, I was in the state park, and I entered a canyon.
The canyon was intimate and beautiful. The walls closed in on me more the further in I went. Then I was flying downhill. The whole way was downhill for ten miles through a twisting maze of canyon paradise. That’s what the place felt like to me, a secret paradise. Far away from anything else, and in here there are trees, it’s warm, there’s water everywhere. There was water pouring out of the canyon walls from springs. I didn’t want the ride to end!
At some point I dropped my water bottle and stopping the bike too soon, lost control. Trying to save the bike from falling over I wound up popping the wheel out of its place, but I wasn’t sure if I had bent it. By now many miles had passed from the morning and I was tired anyway, ready for a break. I took everything off the bike even though I was in a lousy spot on the side of the narrow road. However, I was able to find a tree casting a shadow and set everything up beside it. The bike was fine, but now the saddlebags and all the gear was off it… I have to put it back on! Or I could just lay here all day and night, in the lost and hidden paradise. I had my legs up resting in the branches of the tree, leaning on my backpack right on the roadside. Cars would pass, but possibly because of the starkness of the shadow, I was hidden there in plain sight. At least, they wouldn’t see me until they were passing right beside me, then they’d catch a glimpse. Sorry guys, but I live here, and I can’t move anymore.
Eventually I did get up and continued. Fortunately for me on this great day, the greatest day of all, I was still going steeply downhill for the next 20 miles! I was still in the canyon, but it became wider. Don’t let this canyon ever end! I eventually made it to the town of Mountain City… It was 82 miles from Elko, I had come 72 today. In this town there was a grocery store, a drug store, a laundromat, a gas station with pumps from the 1950s, a phone booth, a nightclub… all completely abandoned and derelict. It was so strange! There were some people around living in the houses, I waved. There was one functioning restaurant/motel with a sign on it, “Speed limit enforced by sniper. Stay Alive, Drive 25!” I passed through the town and crossed over a bridge which read, “Bridge to Nowhere.”
I continued for a bit longer, stopping a lot, and the sun was still golden on the empty hills. This town, this whole enormous region is just lost in the hills. The place really felt like paradise to me. I passed awesome huge boulders on the barren landscape and came to the Duck Valley Indian reservation. 8 miles away from the town of Owyhee, I stopped. I had gone 76 miles today, but still it was early. I setup camp early! What a successful day, got a late start and an early finish still going a very far distance. And it was warm, everything was perfect. My camp had another fantastic view, no bugs, and I slept soundly that night. I woke up to incredible stars.
5/14 -Getting to Idaho- 84 miles
Woke up to another warm morning and before long was in the Indian town of Owyhee. 96 miles from Elko, and 96 miles from Mountain Home, Idaho… This was the MIDDLE of nowhere. That’s why I love this route I’m taking. To get from the remote national park of Death Valley to the remote national park of Glacier, I pass through all the most remote places. Remote places can be lonesome sometimes, but I’m enjoying this immensely. This is as close as I’m coming to either Boise or Salt Lake City, and further north there are no big cities. Missoula, Montana is the biggest on my route. Owyhee was fantastic, it was promising to be another great day. There were a lot of rundown buildings, shambled and patched together like Indian reservations are, but there were a lot of people here. Their lifestyle out here looked like a good one. I went into their grocery store and spent a long time talking to the people. I went to the deli where they made me a great sandwich and sat talking and making friends with natives and travelers alike for many hours. Wasting away the day, I was having fun.
Upon leaving town I crossed into Idaho, what a milestone! I left the canyon country behind me and entered a bleak plain. I passed an enormous marsh, Duck Valley was full of ducks. As well as flowers, water, but most of all bugs! So many insects they were bouncing off my helmet like rain. That was lousy.
I made it out of the marsh and traveled a long ways through a place that could easily be called nowhere. The Snake River Plain in southern Idaho is the most barren, the most bleak possibly of all the Great Basin Desert. There isn’t even sage bushes in many places, just grass.
I passed ghost towns like Riddle and Grasmere which were little more than a few abandoned buildings, an abandoned gas station, covered in grafetti. What’s the riddle of Riddle I wondered, as I passed though Riddle, as the person who used to operate that gas station must’ve wondered. The riddle is “Why am I living in Riddle?” that person must’ve decided, and there is no answer! So they left. This is your brain on Nevada! Or Idaho I guess. I’d talk to myself sometimes, saying the sentences backwards, letting my thoughts come out in crazy scrambled ways. I continued onwards.
There were nothing for a long ways until climbing some grassland hills and I saw the Snake River in the distance. It had chopped up the landscape into mesas and canyons. By now the sun was setting, I had traveled about 70 miles, and a lightning storm was coming upon me. Flash, flash, boom! Uh oh, bye cows, enjoy your storm! I raced down the hill. Lighting crackled overhead, I saw a huge column of rain to the west, illuminated flaming orange in the sunset. Then the rain hit me in destructive hail and everything became wet. It was a bit jarring, and for a few moments I was soaked, but it passed and I dried as I continued biking. Okay, I want to find shelter tonight… but there is no shelter here to speak of in any manner! Not even bushes. There was a town coming up, Bruneau, I thought perhaps I could stay in a motel there tonight. Or maybe I could find shelter like an old barn or some structure to get underneath.
I soon saw farmlands as I approached the town. There were trees here and there but none which looked good to camp under at all, being on people’s properties. I checked out an old portable house with the windows and doors blown out, could maybe stay in here. Crazy mosquitoes kept me moving. Darkness was now approaching, I checked out a mosquito filled barn. This place sucks! I kept moving. Bruneau was two miles away as I flied with charged adrenaline passed my 82nd mile down a hill. Lightning arced across the sky in tormented patterns, crack! It stuck the plains in an aggressive way. I made it to Bruneau. There was not much there, just a neighborhood mostly of trailers. There was no motel, but it’s nearly dark now and I need to stay here somewhere. There was a church I considered, there was a park with a gazebo… Eventually I found an old, closed, American Legion Post. I scouted behind it, and there, tucked away was an awning above a concrete patio. Here’s my shelter, I will stay.
I setup camp there. I was glad I did because it rained at night and I stayed totally dry. It was the warmest night of the trip and there was a few mosquitoes, I actually slept outside my sleeping bag! However, the spot was bad, filled with spooky noises of the night like engines running and dogs barking. I knew if I saw anybody I’d just apologize, say I was staying here because of the storm and would surely be forgiven. But my mind couldn’t help wandering, and when I’d think I heard footprints my heart would beat. Unfortunately I was tense, and I slept really badly. I woke up throughout the night and had wild dreams.
5/15 – Mountain Home – 20 miles
The first crack of dawn in the early morning and I could sleep no more. Tiny ants were everywhere and it was horrible. My backpack was filled with them as I packed. Every time I’d move it and set it down a pile of ants would pour out. I was reminded of my morning camping on a nest of fire ants in Costa Rica. These ones weren’t biting, and nothing could possibly be worse than that morning, but this was still really lousy. Oh how I hate ants, but in the wilderness they never are like this. It seems like camping in society is the only time I have problems with ants. Like they are a curse, or for some reason human society corrupts them. I got moving before the sunrise, but as I sat back in the desert and shook the rest of the ants out of everything, I felt horrible. I closed my eyes on my backpack, wishing to sleep longer. Instead I kept biking. I’d get that motel room in Mountain Home and take the day off.
The wind blew ferociously in my face the entire 20 miles to Mountain Home. It was freezing, but under my coat and I’d sweat in the sun. Possibly the worst 20 miles of the entire trip, it would be a rainy day today, a good one to take off. I just have to get to town! I passed the Snake River, cursing it, as I had to climb enormous hills to get passed it. I was cursing everything, I hate this place! So bleak and empty and cold. What a miserable life I have sometimes. Oh well. Each mile was long and grueling, but I felt a little stupid complaining so much when I finally did arrive there. I was like, Oh, I’m here, well I could keep going. No! I got the room.
The rest of the day was incredibly relaxing beyond belief and I wasted the whole day. It wasn’t until about 9PM I took charge and did my laundry, maintained the bike, bought groceries etc. I’m halfway to Glacier here, and Idaho is not nearly as far as Nevada. I’ll be in southern Montana before I know it. But this is a great place to have come, because now I’ve crossed the Great Basin Desert. The largest desert in the US, I’ve been in it for two weeks since the day I started at its western edge- The Sierra Nevada. Now, amazingly, I’ve arrived at its eastern edge- The Rocky Mountains!
I write this sitting at noon, unfortunately getting a late start today. I’ll try to bike 60 miles today, then tomorrow I’ll plunge into those mountains! I haven’t terribly enjoyed this part of Idaho, but I know Idaho is beautiful. I’m looking forward to it. It’s cold here though, and no longer am I in the southwest. I’m in the northwest now, and have a good weather forecast for about 3 days…. Then it’s rain forever! I wonder how I’ll deal with that. Thanks for reading, wish me luck, I’m off now!
