Here is a remnant shelter from the time when Chinese labourers mined for gold along this stretch of river. Also some type of mining hardware.
Some rafters packing up camp.
The river was flowing at about 3500 cfs today. Apparently it has run as high as 140,000 cfs in peak flood years - yikes! Here are some photos of some of the debris that has been stranded in some of those flood years.
At our turnaround point our driver (Homer, who is also the mayor of the hamlet of White Bird) beached the boat and we hiked up to an old Nez Perce wintering ground.
Below is a picture of one of the pictographs that we saw.
Now, I thought I had signed up for the 2-hour tour, but after Homer apparently damaged the engine extricating the boat from our landing site, I was beginning to think I was on the “3 hour tour”. We landed at this nearby beach where engine repairs were satisfactorily made and we were on our way once again.
In this picture you can see an earlier attempt at building a road through the river canyon.
A few more views from the patio of our Bates Motel - sigh.....
Lunch, reading, bike cleaning, tire changing (flat #3), dinner, bed. Another full day inside the bike trip bubble.
Back on the bikes this morning. Breakfast and snack table at 9am at the trailer at the Riggins Motel.
Two miles into our ride we crossed back into the Pacific Time Zone, so we gain an hour today. I think we’ll be on PDT now until we reach the Montana border a few days hence. We paralleled the Salmon River on US 95 for the first 27 miles of the ride. Incredibly beautiful. I stopped for only a few pictures. Traffic was a bit annoying, but we had a bit of a shoulder for the most part and the trucks gave us a decent amount of space. Not sure where the timber mill was but it’s interesting to see them go in our direction fully loaded and go in the other direction empty and folded up.
At mile 27 we turned off onto Old Highway 95. What a relief...... Here’s the new road going over the old one.
Through the little town of White Bird and into Nez Perce National Historical Park.
We did have about a 12-mile climb from there, but oh my, I would gladly do this climb every day. We climbed almost 3000 feet, but mostly 4-5% grade, no traffic, beautiful views, nice weather. My favourite climb so far, I think. In the distance we could see the switchbacks that awaited us.
Might be hard to see in this photo, but we could see over to the new US95 where all the traffic was.
Nice views back down the valley.
Lots of these beautiful roadside mini-sunflowers. Wish I knew what their proper name is.
Finally - Whitebird Summit. I thought I would see the SAG there, but apparently she was back down the hill supporting riders who were still on their way up.
Still on a traffic-free road, we had a lovely downhill for about 6 miles. The terrain here is really different. We’ve largely been in the hills and mountains almost since we left Florence and now it looks like we’re on the prairie. We still have some big climbs left, including getting over the continental divide and the Rocky Mountains, but for now we have prairie and grain elevators.
Grangeville - our home for the night.
I went for a little walk downtown since we have an extra hour before dinner. I found out this interesting factoid. Idaho County is bigger than Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island. Grangeville has the only traffic light in the entire county! Yes, folks, we’re in some pretty sparsely populated territory.... When I brought this up at dinner tonight someone was told that the only reason that light is there at all is that when folks in this county take their driver test they all come to Grangeville and they need a light for testing purposes.
Stats for the day:
81 km / 50 miles from Riggins ID to Grangeville ID
3523 feet up, 1974 feet down
Temps: 9C to 23C
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