Tour Day 22: Terreton, ID to Mackay, ID
September 8th, 200799.66 mi / 6:32:06 time / 15.2 mph avg. / 25.0 mph max. / 2149 ft. climbing
Staying at Joseph T. Fallini BLM Campground
I don’t think a guy could have an easier time covering (nearly) 100 miles. The Wind Gods repaid their debt from yesterday, and I had tailwinds the whole way, whether I was traveling west, south, or northwest. I spent a lot of time cruising at around 19mph, sometimes even on the uphills (and there were no downhills today either, it was all flat or rising).
The night stayed unusually warm, to the point where I stripped down to my underwear inside the sleeping bag. I had pitched the tent on a concrete slab, so maybe all the heat it absorbed during the day had something to do with it. My speed would have been even faster if I didn’t have to do the 7 miles of backtracking out of the campground, with at least 3 of it over washboard-gravel that I couldn’t do more than 10mph on.
Once I passed Terreton and Mud Lake (the town, not the lake) I entered the Idaho National Research Lab, where apparently they’re researching miles and miles of open desert sagebrush. Perhaps I should report to them that I saw some antelope.
For those not following along on Google Earth, the area I’m going through is dominated by three finger-like mountain ranges pointing to the southeast, with each finger extending a little farther than the one before it. For most of yesterday I could see them all lined up before me. The road passes completely to the south of the first range, so it doesn’t even go up a hill. For the second range, the road just cuts off the tip of the fingernail, leaving a climb of about 100 feet to the “pass”. The funny thing is, it was perhaps the most dramatic pass that I’ve been through, because your view completely changes from seeing one side of the mountain range to the other. It was between the second and third ranges that farmers use the river for their giant circle-irrigators in an attempt to fight back the desert. For the third finger, the road climbs a few hundred feet to get around the tip, but I was also heading up between the third and fourth(?) fingers, in the Big Lost River Valley, so it kept going up from there. It’s called the “Lost” River, because it disappears before reaching any body of water. They say it as if they don’t know why, but I wonder if all the irrigation might have something to do with it, hmm?
Due to the great conditions, I reached Arco, at 67 miles, by 12:30. I had a great roast beef sandwich at a deli there, and used the WiFi from outside the library, since it was closed. 25 miles later, I reached Mackay (not pronounced how you’d think), and even though I’d had lunch only two hours ago, I had to stop at this really cool place called the Bear Bottom Inn for “dinner”. I got their 1 lb. Grizzly Burger (“yes, I know it’s 1 lb., I still want it, I’ve ridden my bicycle 95 miles today.”), but more importantly, had a couple of glasses of microbrew from the tap! Some sort of Pale Ale which was really good, and a Mt. Borah Amber, which wasn’t as good, but I’ll be riding right past Mt. Borah (the highest point in Idaho) tomorrow, so I had to have some. I did have a good beer one night in Yellowstone (where they very nicely sell singles of anything), so it wasn’t that long of a drought, but it was great nonetheless. Oh, and they had WiFi too!
Finally it was five miles up and over a hill to Mackay Resevoir, which has this fantastic newly-redone campground. It’s not the most natural thing in the world, but it has nice flat gravel tent pads, roofs over the picnic tables, and four tent-only sites for $6 (that means I’ve spent $27.50 for the last 6 nights of camping, which sure makes up for some of those expensive hotels!) The site itself doesn’t have to be too natural though, since there is an enormous mountain range on one side of me (6000-foot relief) and the sadly shrunken reservoir on the other to draw the eye.
