red fish lake, sawtooth wilderness, eedaho'

well we made it!

as soon as i saw the couch, i collapsed. day nine practically did me in!  today i'm lounging on the red fish lake marina, resting my sore muscles and slowly uploading pics from our climb yesterday. later on i may take a dip or a kayak in the lake.  or i may just take another nap.  rita and phil are off to sun valley to drop of grace at the airport so she can make it home in time for her mother's 94th b-day.  We will miss her greatly.  now chauffeur nini is completely at the helm. cuidado!   

mr. hemingway's apparently took inspiration from these appropriately named mountains.  steep, rugged, and still covered in snow.  yesterday i don't think we were expecting such a long and treacherous climb.  

It started out rather mild, continuing up the south fork of the payette, passing the hot springs and vistas of the mountains in the distance.  Once the river took a turn, so did the grade of the road, ascending to 7200 feet at banner summit.  Once there we were told it was all downhill the rest of the way to stanley (another 25 miles).  Well the first four miles lived up to that promise, after that it was rolling up and down for 21 miles with a strong headwind.  The alpen meadows and mountain backdrop was breathtaking, despite the pedalling challenge.  We rolled into Stanley, grabbed a beer to celebrate, before making the last six mile push to the lake.

Tomorrow we follow the salmon river up and over the galena pass (8700' i think) and then down past sun valley and into hailey.  hopefully my legs will have recovered by then!   

some highlights from yesterday:

moonlight over haven hot springs

the trio as we prepare for our departure

little do we know what's ahead

geothermal at its best

looking ahead

velocar ready to roll

making it look so easy!

he crosses the gates!

and we're at the top!

coming into the valley

big sky

some cows have it better than others

ninucia!

was sooo tired i couldn't even finish my trout

dusk at the lake

in other news, it's garfield's birthday today, an event highly anticipated and lavishly celebrated every year by phil.  I'm guessing we'll be eating lasagne tonight!