Day 12 - August 11: Riggins ID - Cambridge OR

81 miles.  4011 feet up, 3145 feet down.

After a lovely rest day in Riggins yesterday, it was back on the bikes for a big day.  I got away from the hotel right around 7am.  Since we're in the western edge of the mountain time zone, the sun was still in the process of rising from behind the mountains.


Judging by (what I assume are) logging roads up some of the hills around here, I'm guessing that many of these denuded hillsides were fully forested once upon a time.


Hmmmm...........


I think maybe these guys wanted to come along with me.


We were mostly on US 95, although this section was nice and quiet first thing in the morning.  The Little Salmon River ran close to the highway and we crossed it a few times.




At one of the crossings of the Little Salmon River we finally left Idaho County behind (the largest county in the state and one that we entered several days ago, before Grangeville) and entered Adams County.  Suddenly there seemed to be a whole lot more trees, and fresh pavement.


It wasn't until almost 9:30 that the warmth of the sun was going to start to become a factor.  It stayed at about 11C pretty steadily up until that time; so nice!  




The countryside had really started to open up by this time. 



Shortly after ten, after riding a gradual uphill from the get-go, I came to the 45th parallel.  As luck would have it, a couple of e-bike riders caught up with me right around that point and were able to click the obligatory photo.


I was in to New Meadows, at about 55km, by just before 10:30.  Great timing as I had arranged to meet a friend there at 10:30.  We had a lovely catch-up chat and then he rode with me for about 10 miles to our ice cream SAG stop at the Huckleberry Cafe.  At New Meadows, highway 55 joins US 95 and traffic became so much worse!  We left our fresh pavement behind and pretty much lost any shoulder that we had had.  It seems that highway 55 brings a lot of RV and huge honkin' pickup/trailer combos that are in a hurry to get back home to Boise from McCall.  Not my favourite stretch of road by a long shot!  

Last time I was by here (in 2018) the purple canoe was right-side up and three wooden bears were inside.  One of the bears can be seen in the lower left of the bottom picture.



A lot of women jumped in the van at the ice cream stop, but I chose to carry on.  The smoke intensified at this point as well.  There was so little shoulder that I didn't dare look up from the white line.  So - between the smoke and the concentration, I sure didn't see much of the surrounding landscape.  Thankfully most of it was a gradual downhill so we made relatively quick work of the remaining 40 miles.  Here are some of the pictures that I did take...........




Next SAG stop was in the town of Council at the Old Railroads Park.





A few more pics on the final stretch.............



Couldn't pass up this place..........  Picked up some pickles for the SAG vehicle.





Long day.  Glad it's over.  My roommate is already asleep, so time to sign off and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.

The Ride:

Garmin:  131.1 km.  4090 feet up, 3189 feet down.

RWGPS:  132.0 km.  1523 m up, 1253 m down.

Temperature range:  11C - 37.7C


The Route:


Cambridge OR.  Population 335

Cambridge is a city in Washington County, Idaho.  It is the second-largest city in the county.  In 2000, about 11% of the population lived below the poverty line.  That's about all that Wikipedia has to say about it..........

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