Day 60 Week 9, Wednesday 18 June 2025

From Powell to Syringa Idaho today.  A short ride of 42 miles and only 160 ft of ascent!  Going downhill along the Lochse River, beautiful ride through the valley lined with pine and cedar trees. With not much wind we were able to maintain a nice pace averaging over 16 mph.    We followed a route that Lewis and Clark took, although they travelled by horse along the ridgeline to the right of us as this was following an old Indian trail which was easier to ride on horseback than along the river valley.  We stopped short of Syringa because 6 of us took a white water rafting trip on the Lochsa River (Mel, Chet, Tom, Terence, Theo and I).   It was a beautiful ride for about 10 miles down the river through a bunch of class 1, 2 and 3 rapids in a big rubber rafting dinghy.  All dressed up with wet suits and helmets, we manned the paddles on the left and right while the steersman guided the raft with a set of big oars from the back.  I sat in front along with Mel and we got of course the most soaked, but the weather was gorgeous, bright sunny skies and in the 80s so didn’t mind at all!!  The river is created mostly by snow melt so it is running best in the May/June timeframe.  This past winter there wasn’t as much snow as normal, and it being mid June the river was lower than normal, but still gave a great ride.   It was great getting the perspective of the valley from the river as opposed to the road alongside the river.  Away from traffic with just the noise of the river and looked up at the steep valley walls from the river was breathtaking.   We camped at the Three Rivers RV Resort at Syringa, a nice facility with great showers.  My turn to cook along with Dan although we had help from Timmie, Simona and Than because I was late getting in to camp after the rafting trip.  Spaghetti, salad and cauliflower/broccoli veggies with apple/peach pie for dessert.  Delicious.  What a beautiful day it was.  The rafting guides were saying that we are in a temperate rain forest with normally quite a lot of rain- 60 inches/year, so we definitely lucked out in that regard.  

Below are the RidewithGPS stats: