As I guessed it might, I woke up this morning to a mist hanging over the meadow and moisture on anything outside; the fly to my tent was soaking. The atmosphere was magical though.

Today’s ride took me first down the headwaters of the Salmon River down to the main channel. The morning was very chilly, I put my fleece gloves on and I was still cold. I coasted down almost 60 miles following the river channel, first from the meadow into forest, and as it got drier and drier the vegetation gave way to golden wheatgrass.

One thing I didn’t realize is that Idaho doesn’t have one time zone for the whole state; when I crossed the Salmon River I switched back to Pacific Time, the same as California and Oregon. So I only spent one night in Mountain Time and tonight I’ve set my watch back again. Once I get to Montana I will be decisively on Mountain Time.

The Salmon River drains into the Snake River, where I came from 2 days ago, and Hells Canyon recreation area covers both Snake and Salmon Rivers, so today I was back in Hells Canyon again too. When the road gets to White Bird, a very little town, it climbs up and out of the river gorge to Grangetown, an almost 3,000 foot climb, which took me a couple of hours. The main highway has been reroute to a straighter and steeper grade, the old highway Is basically unused and that’s the one the bike route takes, which was really nice as I was crawling up the grade not having to worry about cars.

At the top it flattened out into a wide area of farmland again, but after passing through Grangetown, and stopping to pick up some groceries and ice cream, the trail drops back down into a forest and river again. Tonight I’m camped just on the banks of a fork of the Clearwater River. The next two days I’ll be following the Clearwater River up to its headwater and over Lolo Pass, which will drop me into Missoula, Montana. I hope to do it in 2 days, cycle as far up the pass as I can tomorrow, and drop down the next day.

The weather forecast is for scattered showers, hopefully they are scattered and light, I don’t prefer the idea of bicycling in the rain. It is forecast to maybe start overnight, but at least it looks dry by tomorrow night.

So far Idaho has been cycling between valleys and following rivers up and down, I don’t know where they grow all the potatoes, the scenery I’ve seen has been rugged and very beautiful, with only a little bit of farmland and a lot of cows.