All right, let’s just get this out of the way in the beginning. It had to’ve been a cyclist…because I did it too. If you read the end of yesterday’s post, you’ll know what I mean. When we woke up with the alarm in the Kooskia City Park at 4 AM, I had to poop and their bathrooms are always kept locked unless the police open them for you. I wasn’t going to call 911 because I had to do a number 2 at 4, so I found a remote spot in the park, did my business, picked it up with the dog poop bag, and walked it to a trashcan. So gross, but I had no other choice at 4 AM with nothing open in town (and less gross than leaving it there for someone to find it for an animal to eat). Ok, sorry. Just had to give the full story. Sooooo….anyway……it was an easy packing from our dry, under-the-pavilion campsite, and we were on the road before sunup. We were in a deep canyon between Kooskia and Stites and it was a nice, cool, easy 6-mile ride along the river until we got to Lamb Grade. We had heard it’s the steepest ascent on the Trans Am, and when we started, we were surprised by how easy it was. But, it didn’t take long to live up to its billing, as basically from near the start of the grade we were high enough on the mountain that we were baking in the sun as we went up. And then it got steeper. And steeper. Vanesa walked her bike for about a third of it, and I managed to make it up pedaling. I stayed with her for part of the way because she was a little constricted in the lungs early in the climb due to her asthma, but after she started walking she was doing OK and told me to go on ahead so I did. I waited for her at the top and rather than the top being a peak from which you dessend on the other side, the top of Lamb Grade just puts you on a great big plateau with undulating hills and wheat field after wheat field. There was no shade anywhere and Vanesa doesn’t do well in the heat so that morning ride of Lamb Grade and then all the rolling wheat fields up to the town of Grangeville was a real challenge for her and put her in a bad place emotionally and physically. She needed shade, food, water, AC, and to not be on a bike. When we finally made it up to Grangeville, which is a good-sized town (at least for the Trans Am which goes through mostly tiny towns) we found an open restaurant and had a really good breakfast to fuel up before the climb up to Whitebird Pass. From there the rest of the day was a ride of approximately 30 miles to Riggins where we planned to get a motel room. We decided to veer off of the original road thatclimbs up White Bird Hill and stay on the busy, modern highway because we wanted a more consistent grade of the hillclimb rather than a bunch of ups and downs as we made our way up to the summit. Ultimately, the climb up was not that bad because the highway had two lanes for traffic which gave us a lot of space, and it was only between 2-3 miles, with a constant 4-5% grade. When you get to the top of White Bird Pass it feels like you can see forever, deep into a huge crevice in the earth. You’re looking out over the huge White Bird valley below with its endless canyons and undulations, and a big fat sexy bike descent, 7 miles with a 7% decline!! There are three runaway truck ramps cut into the mountain in those 7 miles…it’s that steep. The Trans Am bike race takes the old highway, which you can see from the modern road, and since the racers go from west to east it’s a big, steep, switchbacky CLIMB for them from the town below up to the pass; but since we’re going east to west, and we’re not doing the Trans Am Bike Race, it’s an epic descent, and we have the choice of taking the old switchbacky road or the luxurious new highway that gracefully cuts into and curves along the edge of the canyon as it drops. In the interest of time and nice riding, we chose the new highway. Vanesa and Maui went first and bombed down the hill, while I went behind her and made several stops along the way to take some pictures. Honestly, a cell phone camera cannot do the beauty of this canyon justice. It’s spectacular, and on a bike it just goes on and on and on and on. The pavement was perfect, there was a little traffic, and the only reason I even hit the brakes on the way down was because when I got to 40 miles an hour I could feel the bike becoming just a little bit less stable (I don’t like my ‘bikepacking-style” of carrying gear) and given the winds coming up the canyon, I didn’t want to lose control at high speed. After the fantastic descent, when I got to the bottom I found Vanesa waiting for me and we popped into the White Bird store where we filled our water bottles and bought a can of Coke to drink in the shade under the gazebo looking out over the canyon. We had thirtyish, or maybe 28-29 miles left to Riggins and I was uncertain of how the ride would go. There’s no shade, so I had some concern for Vanesa, and we couldn’t get any wind magnitude or direction info online for between White Bird and Riggins. Twenty nine miles with a good tailwind can go by relatively quickly and be easy and fun, whereas 29 miles with a headwind can take the better part of a day and leave you emotionally and physically drained. We left White Bird hoping for the best and as soon as we got over the very short climb out of town and dropped down the other side we found ourselves on some rolling hills for the first few miles and it felt like there was no wind at all. But as it turns out, there was…it was just a gentle tailwind which was minimizing the amount of wind we felt in our face. A few miles in, that gentle tailwind became a pretty strong tailwind and the road mostly flattened out as it traversed right next to the Salmon River toward Riggins and ultimately we were flying along pretty well. Sadly, despite the big tailwind, and beauty of the river and the huge, deep (Hells Canyon) river canyon we were in, Vanesa was not in a place to enjoy any of it. She was so drained mentally and physically she was just pushing one pedal stroke at a time, totally suffering along on autopilot. The temperature was in the low to mid-80s and we had no shade, but we WERE riding next to a river so at one point we stopped and got the dog wet and our clothing wet, and then Vanesa actually fully jumped in the river to cool down. That helped get us cooled enough for her to feel able to continue on. When we got into Riggins, we were in the upper 60s in mileage for the day and completely ecstatic that we were there. Vanesa was near the limit of her emotional and physical energy and we literally popped into the first motel we saw to check the room and the price. It was $93 including tax but it was called Riverview Motel, and consistent with its name, we had a beautiful view of the river below, as well as river access. Vanesa stayed in to shower and got ready to hop into bed, while I went down to the river and jumped in. The river there had a perfect little alcove just big enough for one person to hop in the river and lay down to cool or rinse off. There was a great big rock that you could put your hands on to stabilize yourself against the current, putting your feet on so that you can have your head upstream or your hands on so you could have your feet upstream. I kept switching, just because it felt good to get current from different sides. But…I couldn’t get too far away from that rock, as that river was moving so fast that if you do you might find yourself washed away miles down the river. It’s no wonder that Riggins is the rafting capital of Idaho, as this river is amazing! I stayed in the river for about 10 minutes because it felt amazing after a long, hot day in the saddle. When I walked back up to the room, Vanesa was already in bed Netflixing on her phone, and took charge of getting us dinner. She had used every bit of the energy she had just to get to Riggins and was unable to do anything else. I looked on Google and found a pizza restaurant 6/10 of a mile away and called and made an order for a veggie pizza. I had to wait 30 minutes so I spent a little bit of time doing ride summary completion in the meantime, but then I hopped on the bike and headed down to grab the pizza. I think the locals were laughing at me when I came back and I was riding one-handed while holding a large pizza box in my hand with the other, as if I was a waiter on wheels! The pizza was super huge and super delicious and there was no way we could eat at all, but this is a common hotel plan of ours (buy a pizza bigger than you can eat so you have calories to stuff in before early morning rides that start before any breakfast places are open). I walked down to the room four doors away where some other cyclists (that we met once a few days ago at Lochsa Lodge) were staying to offer them some pizza but they didn’t answer the door and must’ve been either feeling antisocial or were down in town getting their own dinner. After a couple of slices, V and I were both full and tired and we went to bed at about 9-930, with the alarm set for 4 AM again. The goal tomorrow is 62 miles to Council, but there’s a long, gradual climb in the morning and we want to get up and get out early before it’s too warm. Hopefully we’ll get to New Meadows at the 35-ish mile mark early enough in the day with favorable enough wind that we can continue on to Council before it gets too hot for Vanesa’s liking. We would love to take a rest day here in Riggins in this really nice motel room with a beautiful view of, and access to, the Salmon River, but we really need to get going. We only have 18 days left for me to get home to work, and you never know what can happen out here on the road so we don’t have too many spare days to play with at this point.